Most distributors have stopped asking whether to use AI and started asking where it actually pays off. For organizations running Infor CloudSuite Distribution (CSD), that conversation often starts with the operational data already flowing through the ERP. Spending is up across forecasting, fulfilment, and customer service, but the returns are uneven—and the difference usually comes down to where a distributor chooses to start.
For years, AI in distribution lived in pilot projects and conference keynotes. For distributors using Infor CloudSuite Distribution, that shift is especially important because AI can build on the data, workflows, and processes already managed within the platform. That has changed quickly.
In one multi-year industry benchmark, the share of distributors doing nothing with AI fell from roughly 62 percent in 2023 to about 29 percent in 2025, while the group using it across several parts of the business climbed to about a third.
The shift matters because it reframes the conversation: AI in distribution is less about automation for its own sake and more about keeping operations in step with the business around them.
Many distributors treat the presence of AI in their operations as the advantage, as though adopting it is what puts them ahead. The real advantage is not the technology itself, but what it does once it’s in use, such as giving the business the ability to respond faster and more accurately as order volume, SKU counts, and customer expectations rise.
For example, a distributor that forecasts demand a week sooner—or answers a customer in minutes instead of hours—wins on service without adding headcount, and this is the lens worth keeping as the use cases pile up.
The most useful way to understand AI in distribution is to look at where it already earns its place. Four areas stand out across supply chain and logistics operations:
This is the clearest win for most distributors. Within Infor CloudSuite Distribution, AI can analyze order history, seasonality, supplier trends, and demand signals to help planners forecast demand and recommend inventory decisions.
Research from McKinsey on distribution operations points to inventory reductions in the range of 20 to 30 percent, along with lower logistics and procurement costs, when AI strengthens demand planning. One building products distributor lifted fill rates by 5 to 8 percent after putting an AI-driven supply chain control tower in place.
AI capabilities complement Infor CloudSuite Distribution by helping customer service teams process orders faster, identify exceptions, and prioritize work before delays impact customers. When demand swings, it helps fulfillment teams hold service levels without scrambling, which keeps promises to customers intact during the periods that test them most.
Generative AI working alongside Infor CloudSuite Distribution can surface customer history, recommend next-best actions, and draft responses using current data. It drafts quotes, surfaces cross-sell and reorder suggestions, and handles routine post-sale questions, freeing people for the conversations that need a human.
Deloitte points to internal sales and customer service as one of the largest near-term opportunities for distributors to capture value from generative AI.
Pricing is where small improvements add up fast. When distributors use Infor CloudSuite Distribution as the operational system of record, AI can identify pricing and margin opportunities across thousands of line items far faster than manual analysis.
For all the momentum, results still lag enthusiasm. Research from MDM and NAW covering more than 400 distributors found nearly nine in ten companies active with AI in some form, yet far fewer are happy with what they are getting back. Roughly three-quarters expect meaningful value from AI, while fewer than one in five say they have actually seen it.
It all comes down to connected, trustworthy data. Infor CloudSuite Distribution gives distributors a strong operational foundation, but realizing AI’s full value still depends on data quality, governance, and consistent business processes.
Even organizations running Infor CloudSuite Distribution can struggle if data remains disconnected, poorly governed, or inconsistent across departments. Most projects break down for three reasons:
All three of these reasons are fixable, and none of them is an AI problem.
Given that gap, sequencing matters more than ambition. For distributors using Infor CloudSuite Distribution, the best AI projects usually begin inside existing operational workflows rather than as standalone initiatives. Once value is proven in one area, they expand from a win instead in phases of applying AI across the business on a single broad rollout.
The most common starting question is what data AI needs. Infor CloudSuite Distribution already captures much of the operational data AI needs—orders, inventory, purchasing, suppliers, customer activity, and financial information. The opportunity is often less about collecting more data and more about connecting, cleaning, and governing the information already inside your ERP.
The first move is making that data usable and trustworthy, not buying another tool. A focused effort to clean and connect the data you already own does more for an AI project than any single piece of software.
If you’re already running Infor CloudSuite Distribution, you may be closer to AI readiness than you think.
AI rewards distributors who know where their data and their best use cases line up. Before committing resources to implementing AI, it helps to take an honest look at what you already have and where AI would pay off soonest. For distributors using Infor CloudSuite Distribution, the best AI projects usually begin with existing business processes rather than standalone AI initiatives.
Watch AI in CloudSuite Distribution
Watch the full session with Infor experts, Nick Perry and Omar Jeelani, as they demo AI in CSD with a live procure-to-pay cycle, walk through AP invoice automation end to end, show generative AI running inside CSD, and cover the full Velocity Suite catalog, including the AI agent roadmap.
Many distributors continue to rely on Infor A+ as a stable operational foundation, but growing complexity across inventory, fulfillment, and reporting is prompting teams to assess whether existing systems still support current demands. Factors such as expanding product catalogs, faster fulfillment expectations, and increased reliance on real‑time data are driving this re‑evaluation.
Challenges often emerge gradually, such as increased manual coordination between purchasing, warehouse, and finance teams, delays in confirming inventory or order status, or difficulty aligning operational data across departments. These issues can indicate that systems were not designed to support the current level of coordination required.
Modern distribution systems are designed to provide real‑time visibility into inventory levels, order activity, purchasing status, and warehouse operations. By connecting this information within a unified environment, teams can respond more quickly to changes, identify issues earlier, and make decisions based on consistent, up‑to‑date data.
As operational complexity increases, purchasing, warehouse, sales, and finance teams depend on the same information to stay aligned. When workflows are disconnected, updates must be communicated manually, increasing delays and the risk of errors. Modern systems help reduce this friction by allowing updates in one area to flow automatically across the organization.
Automation helps streamline routine tasks such as order processing, inventory updates, and reporting. This reduces manual effort and allows teams to focus on exception management and higher‑value activities. Built‑in analytics also help leaders gain clearer insight into operational performance and trends.
Infor CloudSuite Distribution is designed to support more connected, data‑driven distribution operations by bringing purchasing, inventory, warehouse management, and financial reporting together in a single platform. This helps distributors improve visibility, reduce manual coordination, and build a more scalable foundation for future growth while leveraging existing operational knowledge.
Join Aktion Associates for a live demonstration of A+ Release 11.00.02, including a walkthrough of Infor’s updated user interface.
During this session, we’ll explore the latest enhancements, showcase the new user experience, and discuss how these updates can support your day-to-day use of A+. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask questions and hear directly from the Aktion team.
In this webinar, you’ll:
Whether you use A+ every day or support users across your organization, this session will provide a practical look at what’s new in the latest release.
We know that AI is no longer a question of “if” for most distributors. The question is where it pays off and how to roll it out without breaking what already works.
To dig into what that looks like inside CloudSuite Distribution, we sat down with Nick Perry, Account Manager for Technology at Infor, and Omar Jeelani, Solutions Consultant at Infor. Both led customer demos for Velocity Suite, Infor’s cloud-based AI and automation package built for its Infor CloudSuite Distribution ERPs.
In this Q&A, they cover what Velocity Suite includes, how process mining and AP automation work in CSD, what generative AI is live today, and what AI agents will do next.
Nick: When we started building this about two years ago, we talked to our customer base and heard the same three things:
→ They didn’t know where to start with AI.
→ They didn’t have the staff — most don’t have machine learning engineers sitting around.
→ And they had tried AI before and didn’t see the return.
Velocity Suite is our answer. It’s a package, all-inclusive, with unlimited use. Whether one person or fifty are running it, the price is the same.
It has three parts: process mining to diagnose how work moves through your business, automation to handle the manual steps, and generative AI to optimize.
The key thing to know is that Velocity Suite is built by Infor specifically for our cloud ERPs, with use cases tailored for CSD. It’s not a third-party add-on. It runs inside CloudSuite Distribution.
Nick: About 80 percent comes out of the box. We built the use cases based on what CSD customers told us they wanted to fix. The remaining 20 percent is for your configuration, because every distributor is a little different. So you’re not reinventing the wheel — you start with something that already works.
Omar: Process mining is our north star. It pulls data from how your team uses CSD day to day, and it surfaces two things: where users are straying from the best path, and where they are getting stuck.
Take procure-to-pay, as an example. We can show every variation of how users complete the process — where they skip steps, add steps, or do things out of order. We attach a time metric, so you see the average end-to-end cycle for your whole company. In one demo, it was 35 days. From there you can drill in by buyer, vendor, warehouse, or company.
The best part is the conformance analysis. It maps every variant path against the best practice and shows the cost. If a buyer is creating a back-order line where they shouldn’t, the system flags it and tells you how much time it’s adding.
That’s the input that tells you where to automate next.
Omar: Let’s say a vendor sends an invoice as a PDF to your AP inbox. Behind the scenes, the bot reads that inbox, finds the unread email, and downloads the PDF for you. From there, it pulls out the key fields — invoice number, PO, line items, and so on — using generative AI. The nice part is there are no templates to maintain. It adapts to different invoice formats on its own, so you’re not setting up rules for every vendor.
Once the data is extracted, the system checks it against CSD. For example: Does the PO exist? Has it been received? Are the quantities in tolerance? Those are checks that an end user might normally spend a few minutes on per invoice. Now the system handles them automatically.
If everything checks out, the invoice flows straight into CSD and Infor Document Management. Anything that fails a check is sent to a workspace where your AP team can review it.
Nick: And you set the schedule — hourly, daily, whatever fits your operation. Your team gets a notification when invoices come through and only steps in for the exceptions. Everything AP-related lives in one workspace, so they’re not jumping between screens to track it down.
Nick: We call them embedded experiences — a chat panel inside CloudSuite. The difference between this and a ChatGPT is that it has access to your ERP data. So instead of clicking around to find what you need, you can prompt it to write a dunning letter, summarize a vendor, or translate an invoice that came in another language.
Omar: Two quick examples—a credit manager can pull up a customer with a past-due balance and generate a dunning letter with one click. The system uses the balance, the risk category, and the history to draft it. You can edit it if you need to, but you’re not starting from scratch.
The product advisor is another one. Say you’re newer on the customer service team and a customer asks about a PVC pipe. The advisor pulls the product details and gives you a summary — common installation issues, defects, limitations. It gives you a leg up on the call.
Behind the scenes, everything runs over a secure connection, and your data is never used to train the AI model.
Nick: Two big things. First is the GenAI Assistant with Knowledge Hub. Today, finding a specific document in Infor Document Management is still a manual hunt. With the Knowledge Hub, you can prompt the system — “show me all invoices over a certain amount from this vendor in the last three months” — and it surfaces them.
The second is AI agents. Instead of prompting AI and waiting for an answer, agents go out and act on your behalf. They gather information, reason through it, make decisions, and come back with the result.
We’re also rolling out an agent factory. We’ll ship pre-built agents, but if your use case isn’t covered, you can build your own. It’s more hands-on, better suited to a technical user, but it’s there if you need it. Infor is moving fast in this space, and we’re open to co-innovating with customers who bring us a specific use case.
This six-question Q&A only scratches the surface of what’s available and to come. In the full session, Omar demos process mining on a live procure-to-pay cycle, walks through AP invoice automation end to end, and shows generative AI running inside CSD. Nick covers the full Velocity Suite catalog and the AI agent roadmap.
Nick Perry is a diligent and results-driven sales leader with over 12 years of experience across a variety of industries and business domains. He is proficient in navigating complex sales cycles and effectively communicating the value of innovative solutions to diverse prospects and clients.
Omar Jeelani is a Solutions Consultant on the Technology & Innovation team at Infor. He works closely with customers to demonstrate how Infor’s suite of advanced technologies can help transform their businesses. Omar has a strong passion for technology and has developed deep expertise across Infor’s technology platform, including the API Gateway, Data Fabric, Robotic Process Automation, Artificial Intelligence, and related capabilities.
Infor FACTS, CSD/SX.e, and A+ are built to support complex distribution and manufacturing operations. But when performance slows, downtime increases, or systems feel harder to manage, the root cause often isn’t the ERP—it’s the infrastructure behind it.
In high-volume environments, even small disruptions can impact order processing, inventory accuracy, and customer experience.
This session focuses on how distribution and manufacturing companies are rethinking IT to support operational performance—not just maintain systems.
We’ll discuss:
We’ll also walk through how UltimatePLUS Managed IT Services provides a proactive, fully managed approach to monitoring, security, support, and long-term infrastructure planning.
If your system works—but your environment feels strained—this session will help you understand why.
Menominee Industrial Supply was founded in September of 1980 as a local industrial supply distributor with only four employees.
Through decades of dedicated service and support to customers, Menominee Industrial Supply has grown into a multi-state distributor of Industrial, Timber Harvesting and Power Equipment supplies with over thirty employees.
Their experienced and educated outside sales staff span the upper Mid-West covering and supporting our product lines in 11 states.
HEADQUARTERS
Menominee, MI
INDUSTRY
Industrial Distribution
SOLUTION
Infor CloudSuite Distribution (CSD)
& TWL
WEBSITE
www.menindsup.com
Menominee Industrial Supply, LLC (MIS) is a Midwest-based wholesale distributor serving a diverse customer base with complex ordering, pricing, and fulfillment requirements. After more than a decade on a highly industry-specific legacy ERP, MIS faced an unexpected turning point when its previous system, CODIS, was sunset by its ownership group.
With limited time to evaluate alternatives, MIS needed a modern ERP platform that could support EDI, eCommerce integrations, advanced inventory accuracy, and scalable reporting—without disrupting customer service. To support this transition, MIS partnered with Aktion Associates and implemented Infor CloudSuite Distribution (CSD) with TWL, establishing a future-ready foundation for growth.
For more than 13 years, Menominee Industrial Supply relied on CODIS, an ERP solution tailored to the Industrial Distribution Industry that was also deeply embedded in daily operations. That stability ended abruptly when the software’s development and ownership group announced it was permanently shutting down. The announcement forced MIS to act quickly, moving away from a familiar, highly customized system and evaluating modern ERP platforms under a tight timeline. Beyond replacing basic functionality, the new solution needed to support:
“We weren’t just replacing software. We were stepping away from a system that supported us for over a decade,” said Dubey. “That’s not a small change.”
Assembled a cross-functional internal selection team that included ownership and leadership across Sales, Operations, and Finance. Together, they defined what the organization needed versus what it wanted in a future ERP platform.
After extensive research, demos, and evaluations, the list narrowed to two finalists: Infor CloudSuite Distribution and Epicor. While software capabilities were closely matched, the decision ultimately came down to implementation partner performance.
Aktion was recommended by both Infor and a trusted industry peer. From the earliest discovery conversations, the Aktion team demonstrated exceptional responsiveness, clarity, and commitment to understanding MIS’s business. As a true cloud-based ERP, Infor CloudSuite Distribution positioned MIS for long-term scalability, ongoing innovation through regular updates, and reduced reliance on on-prem infrastructure.
“We weren’t looking for the lowest-cost software,” said Dubey. “We were looking for a solution and a partner.”
MIS selected Infor CloudSuite Distribution with TWL, with Aktion leading implementation, integration strategy, and custom development.
Advisory & Implementation: Aktion worked closely with MIS to configure CloudSuite Distribution in a way that preserved critical customer workflows while modernizing internal processes.
Special attention was given to purchasing, freight logic, rebates, and kit functionality to ensure continuity with legacy operations.
Warehouse & Inventory Management: The implementation of Infor TWL provided a new level of inventory tracking, accuracy, and visibility, capabilities that were not achievable in the legacy environment.
“TWL gave us the next step in inventory accuracy and visibility that we simply didn’t have before,” Dubey said.
Custom Integrations & Enhancements: To support MIS’s eCommerce and high-volume customers, Aktion developed custom bulk order importers, payment integrations, and EDI enhancements that extended CSD beyond standard functionality.
The MIS project was complex and, like most ERP migrations of its size, encountered challenges along the way. What defined success, according to Dubey, was how those challenges were handled.
“There were difficult conversations,” he said. “But I never felt avoidance or a change in attitude. Aktion stayed engaged, honest, and committed.”
Menominee Industrial Supply hit the ground running on Infor CloudSuite Distribution — processing over 1,000 orders within 48 hours of go-live. With Aktion’s onsite team managing the transition in real time, full operation was restored in just 2 days. The result: sharper inventory visibility, and stronger operational insight.
Through its partnership with Aktion and the implementation of Infor CloudSuite Distribution, Menominee Industrial Supply successfully navigated a high-risk ERP transition while preserving customer service and operational continuity.
More than a technology upgrade, the project established a collaborative, trust-based partnership focused on problem-solving, transparency, and shared success.
If you’re wondering what kind of impact a modern, cloud‑based ERP could have on your organization, Aktion brings the industry expertise, honest guidance, and technical depth to help you get there.
We don’t just implement software — we help you build the operational backbone that supports your next stage of growth.
As distribution activity expands beyond traditional order-to-delivery workflows, ERP fit for complex distribution operations becomes increasingly important. Products move through orders, inventory, pricing, and delivery as part of broader, industry-driven operations. In some cases, distribution is the primary function. In others, it supports service, project work, fabrication, rentals, or equipment-based models. Either way, distribution activity plays a meaningful role in how the business operates day to day.
For years, FACTS has provided a stable and familiar foundation for these environments. Teams know the workflows, rely on deeply embedded processes, and see the system perform as designed.
What has changed is not the reliability of FACTS, but the complexity of the operation around it.
The biggest shift for many organizations running Infor FACTS isn’t a sudden failure of the system. It’s the steady increase in operational complexity around it.
Operational complexity has increased steadily over time. Order volume has grown, transaction velocity is higher, and pricing and inventory management now span more locations, channels, and customer commitments. For many organizations, distribution activity also operates alongside service, project work, fabrication, rentals, or equipment-based models within the same environment.
These changes introduce variability that didn’t exist when many ERP implementations were first designed. Orders change after release, deliveries split or delay, customer requirements evolve mid-cycle, and finance, operations, and customer-facing teams must respond quickly with little margin for error.
FACTS continues to do exactly what it was designed to do. The challenge is that the business now operates with a level of motion and interdependence that legacy ERP assumptions didn’t anticipate. As that gap widens, teams begin to feel friction. This happens because the system no longer aligns with how work actually flows today, not because processes are broken.
For many organizations, this is the moment when cloud-based platforms like Infor CloudSuite Distribution enter the conversation, not as a replacement for what worked, but as an evolution designed for how operations now run.
To accommodate this variability, teams adapt the system around them. Teams add customizations to handle operational outliers. Additionally, they introduce manual steps to bridge process gaps. Teams also export data to spreadsheets or secondary tools to gain visibility the core ERP no longer provides.
Over time, these adaptations create friction. Visibility begins to lag behind operational reality, processes become more difficult to maintain, and even small changes require greater effort and coordination. The system continues to function, but it becomes less effective at supporting timely, confident decision-making as complexity increases.
As organizations reassess ERP fit, understanding how modern, distribution-specific cloud platforms are designed becomes an important first step. Cloud-based platforms like Infor CloudSuite Distribution reflect that evolution. Built for distribution-intensive and hybrid operating models, CloudSuite Distribution handles variability and interconnected workflows.
Instead of forcing operations into rigid process paths, the platform aligns to how work actually flows across orders, inventory, pricing, service, and delivery. For many FACTS users, this marks a natural next chapter. It restores alignment between ERP design and modern operational reality without a disruptive reset.
As organizations reassess ERP fit, understanding how modern, distribution-specific cloud platforms are designed becomes an important first step. Infor outlines its approach to supporting complex, distribution-driven operations in a short resource. The resource explains how CloudSuite Distribution reduces friction, improves visibility, and supports growth as operational complexity increases.
For teams considering what comes after FACTS, this provides a practical way to explore what has changed and what a more aligned ERP foundation can look like.
As your business grows, so do the complexities of tax compliance. Trust Aktion and Avalara to develop a winning game plan. Avalara tax compliance solutions are the go-to for distributors who need to ace their tax compliance game.
Get ready for 2025 now – register for this webinar featuring the tax experts from Avalara and the distribution industry business technology experts from Aktion Associates.
Margins are thin. Expectations are high. And one pricing mistake can wipe out the profit on an entire order.
For distributors juggling contract pricing, tiered discounts, and rebate programs, it’s easy for things to slip through the cracks, especially when you’re relying on spreadsheets or legacy ERP systems not built for this level of complexity. If your team is spending more time fixing errors than optimizing margins, it’s time to rethink your pricing infrastructure.
In this blog, we’ll break down what’s driving today’s pricing chaos and how Infor CloudSuite Distribution helps you bring control, visibility, and profitability back to the process.
Today’s distribution landscape demands precision. Inflation, rising customer expectations, and tighter margins have made it harder to maintain profitability, especially when pricing and vendor programs are managed through manual workarounds.
Distributors are feeling the squeeze in the form of credit memos, inconsistent pricing, and lost rebate dollars. Yet they’re still expected to deliver accurate, flexible pricing across contracts, customer types, product categories, and timelines. Many also manage complex rebate programs with manufacturer-specific rules and cutoffs. But when those moving parts live in spreadsheets, custom reports, or bolt-on tools, risk creeps in, and as we’ve seen in our blog on disconnected systems, the cost of inefficiency adds up fast.
Disjointed systems lead to:
For distributors looking to scale, these aren’t just minor annoyances; they’re margin killers.
Pricing problems often start small: a one-off override, a missing rebate code, a manual price entry error. But over time, these small errors compound into significant operational and financial pain.
Manual processes create room for mistakes at every step: Sales reps may use outdated pricing, finance teams might struggle to track rebate accruals, and operations end up buried in credit memos, corrections, and back-and-forth emails just to keep things afloat.
But it’s not just time lost. It’s trust lost. Customers notice when pricing isn’t consistent. Suppliers get frustrated by missed rebate deadlines. And leadership is left guessing about true profitability because reporting can’t keep up with the complexity.
According to a 2024 distributor survey, 87% of distributors say rebates are critical to profitability, but only 43% track what they’ve earned from each manufacturer. That gap reflects just how easy it is for money to slip through the cracks and how urgently better systems are needed.
If your pricing system relies on manual fixes and crossed fingers, you’re putting both revenue and relationships at risk.
Infor CloudSuite Distribution was built for this kind of complexity, not as an add-on or workaround, but as a core capability. It gives distributors the tools to manage pricing and rebates with confidence, accuracy, and transparency.
Here’s how it makes a difference:
When pricing isn’t a guessing game, everyone benefits: your customers, your suppliers, and your bottom line.
If your team is constantly chasing pricing corrections or struggling to manage rebate programs manually, it’s time for a change. Infor CloudSuite Distribution gives distributors the tools to simplify complexity, protect margins, and operate with confidence.
Webinar Description
Whether you have a single warehouse or a large multi-national distribution network, Infor has solutions to fit your needs. As business gains in complexity, your organization can grow into the solution that addresses your challenges that increase your ability to offer and perform essential value-added services. Hosted by Rob Dallas, this webinar will address why more building material distributors choose Infor CloudSuite Distribution ERP to run their business. At the conclusion of his presentation and demo of CloudSuite, Rob will be available to answer questions.
When speed and accuracy are critical to customer satisfaction, businesses rely on their warehouses to keep the supply chain moving. Infor® WMS combines warehouse fulfillment with embedded labor management and 3D visual analysis to give unprecedented visibility into inventory, orders, equipment, and people.
