Driven by DCKAP

Jenny Sagan started as a clerical worker, moved through finance and operations, and built her expertise one role at a time. Today she leads digital transformation as an ERP Analyst at Singer Industrial and serves as president of the P21 Lake Erie User Group — a regional community she built to help distributors navigate exactly the kind of change she manages every day.In this episode, Karthik sits down with Jenny to talk about what it really takes to get an ERP rollout adopted, not just deployed. Jenny's answer centers on empathy. When you're asking someone to abandon a system they've used for years, she says, you have to recognize the human cost of that transition and meet people where they are.They also dig into the state of women in distribution, the honest industry conversation around Epicor's on-prem to cloud migration, what mindful AI adoption actually looks like in a distribution environment, and how Jenny has built a career by leaning in, expanding her boundaries, and continuing to learn.

What does it look like when an entire industry builds its own data infrastructure — and then has to reimagine itself for the AI era?Patrick Knight, President & CEO of IDEA, joins Karthik Chidambaram to talk about what makes IDEA unlike any other company in the B2B supply chain space: it's not VC-backed, it's not chasing an IPO — it's owned by the industry it serves (NAED and NEMA), and everything it builds is aimed at making electrical distribution smarter and more efficient.In this episode, Patrick unpacks how AI is reshaping supply chain data management, why data accuracy matters more than speed when wrong specs can cause real physical harm, and what IDEA's digital transformation into a full SaaS company looks like over the next five years. He also breaks down IDEA's flagship products (IDEA Connector and IDEA Exchange), newer offerings like DataWhispers and Cross-Check, and the push to adopt ETIM North America standards across the supply chain.If AI, supply chain innovation, or the future of B2B distribution is on your radar, this one's worth your time.

Most distributors are using CRM wrong — and many don't even know it.In this episode, Karthik Chidambaram sits down with Kevin Brown, CEO of LeadSmart Technologies, to talk about why traditional CRM for Distributors has failed them, and what a smarter approach looks like. Kevin breaks down the four customer journeys every distributor needs to unify — ERP data, marketing, e-commerce, and interpersonal data — and explains how bringing them together into a single platform is where the real revenue opportunity lives.They also cover why industry-specific CRM outperforms off-the-shelf solutions like Salesforce and HubSpot for distributors, how AI-powered smart alerts are replacing manual data entry, and what it actually means to give salespeople more out of a system than they put in.Plus, Kevin shares the story behind his own podcast, “Around the Horn” in Wholesale Distribution & Manufacturing, which is approaching its 200th consecutive weekly episode.

What does it take to thrive in B2B sales when margins are thin and the stakes are high? Brian Rooney, President of Callas Kingsley Electrical Sales, has built his career on a simple but powerful premise: B2B is really P2P — person to person.In this episode, Brian explains why the manufacturers' rep model is uniquely positioned amid the current AI technology race, and how the surge in data center infrastructure is creating a gold rush moment for the electrical industry. As major tech companies race to expand AI data centers and electricity demand hits unprecedented levels, Brian sees the electrical industry as the picks and shovels of this generation's resource rush.Brian pulls back the curtain on how the rep model actually works, why distributors rely on reps for specialized product expertise across thousands of SKUs, and how Callas Kingsley approaches long-term relationships with both manufacturers and distributors. It's a model built entirely on trust, and Brian makes a compelling case for why that's more valuable now than ever.

What does it look like when sales and solutions engineering operate as one unified force? In this episode, Lance Hutt, VP of Global Strategic Applications Sales, and George Olaru, VP of Solution Engineers, at Epicor — one of the world's leading ERP providers for manufacturers and distributors — bring the answers.The conversation covers how Epicor is fundamentally rethinking what an ERP platform can be. George breaks down headless ERP architecture and Epicor's Agent Foundry — a new AI-powered framework that allows companies to build custom agents and consume ERP data through their own preferred interfaces, without sacrificing governance or data security. Lance explores the growing portfolio of strategic applications — from EDI and inventory planning to connected worker software and CPQ — that companies like Anheuser-Busch and Johnson Controls are using to scale operations, many of them as standalone solutions outside of Epicor's ERP ecosystem entirely.Together, they dig into the consultative philosophy that drives Epicor's go-to-market strategy: the MEDDIC sales framework, the Customer Value Exchange Workshop, and why the best question a customer can ask isn't about features, it's about business challenges. For anyone in B2B distribution, manufacturing, or ERP-adjacent tech leadership, this is a practical look at how modern ERP strategy is evolving well beyond the system of record.