From Velocity Week to Your First AI Win, By Mary Bennett, VP Sales, and Krishna Patwari, VP Analytics & AI

A week that changed the conversation

What an energizing week in Orlando! The NSA Computer Exchange team spent three days at Infor Velocity Week 2026 with Infor executives, product leaders and, most importantly, distributors like you.

Infor CEO Kevin Samuelson and CTO Soma Somasundaram opened with a vision for the Agentic Enterprise: AI agents, automation and process intelligence working side by side with your people. The headline is simple. AI is no longer just answering questions. It is starting to do the work, with the same permissions, approvals, and audit trail your team already uses.

For distributors, that is good news. Whether you run CloudSuite Distribution (CSD) in the cloud, SX.e on-premises, or another platform entirely, the foundation you’ve built is exactly what AI needs to deliver value. The question is no longer whether AI will reshape distribution. It’s where you start.

What we heard from leadership

Across keynotes, product sessions, and a candid distribution executive panel, five messages came through loud and clear.

1. Fix the process, then automate it. “Don’t automate a broken process; you’ll just make bad habits happen faster.” Infor’s Process Mining shows how orders actually move through your business. In one example, it revealed returns being restocked without a quality check. Fixing that cut expedited freight by 50%.
2. Margin is the fastest payback. Research shared on stage showed that a 1% price improvement can lift EBITDA by about 22% for distributors. That’s why the top-ranked distribution agents focus on margin and discount leakage, turning RFQs into quotes, and catching stockouts before they happen.
3. Start small, earn trust, then scale. Pick one painful, narrow problem that a business owner cares about. Midwest Wheel took four weeks to deliver its first AI use case and just seven days for its second, using the same technology. What changed? Trust.
4. People make it work. The executive panel agreed that resistance to change, not data or technology, is the biggest risk. Bring your skeptics in early. They often become your strongest champions.
5. Keep humans in charge. Agents work only within each user’s existing security, every action is logged, and a person approves anything irreversible or tied to dollars. Governance isn’t an afterthought. It’s built in.

 

The mood in the room was optimistic and practical. A poll in one session showed about 90% of attendees already running AI pilots, but only about 10% in production. The distributors who close that gap first will set the pace.

What’s new in CloudSuite Distribution this October

The October CSD release puts AI right into the screens your team uses every day:

• AI agents for daily work: Customer, Vendor, Product, Order Inquiry, Purchasing and Quote agents, plus a GenAI assistant built into Global Search.
• Snap a photo, find the part: Product Advisor now recognizes product images and matches them to items in your catalog.
• Faster order entry: Quick Line Entry searches and cross-references by default and keeps your lines when you switch screens, and Advanced Line Entry flags open orders and quotes.
• Automation (Velocity Suite): create sales orders and quotes, reconcile bank statements, and digitize bills of lading and packing lists.
• Works with the tools you already use: connect CSD to Microsoft Copilot or Claude through secure, governed connections.

 

Even better, several AI features are already part of standard CSD at no extra license cost, including note summarization, the Insights button on inquiry screens, product attribute generation and the public Knowledge Hub. Dunning letters and vendor scorecards are moving into the standard product too. Many customers simply haven’t turned them on yet.

Infor Velocity Suite: where AI meets business value

If standard AI is the on-ramp, Velocity Suite is the highway. It brings together the capabilities that turn AI into results:

• Industry AI agents: 20+ pre-built agents for distribution, such as quoting from email, substitute product suggestions and purchasing support.
• Process Intelligence: see how your processes really run, find bottlenecks and rework, and compare branches.
• Robotic Process Automation: take repetitive tasks like AP invoice entry, PO acknowledgements and bank reconciliation off your team’s plate. OCR is included.
• Generative AI: private knowledge hubs for your own SOPs, pricing intelligence, and product recommendations at order entry.
• Agentic AI: agents that coordinate work across processes, always with the right controls and human oversight.

 

The real power comes from combining them. Process Intelligence finds the inefficient purchasing workflow, and automation and AI fix it. Velocity Suite also comes with a catalog of 500+ pre-built industry use cases, and with NSA’s Velocity-certified team, new use cases go live in weeks, not months.

The result? Less manual work, faster processes, better accuracy, and more time for your people to focus on customers and growth.

Their first AI win is already here

Distributors aren’t waiting. Each of these started with one painful process, and AI now does the heavy lifting:

 

Customer	First AI win	Result
Midwest Wheel	AI parts recommendations at the sales counter, then proof-of-delivery automation	30% faster sales orders and 95% faster customer resolution; live in 4 weeks, then 7 days
State Electric Supply	Process Mining after moving to the cloud	Diagnostic time cut in half; process issues found 85% faster
Martin Supply	AP invoice automation	4,500+ trade invoices a week, ~70% hands-free
Team Air Distributing	Availability, rebate and pricing agents	~2,000 hours a year redirected; onboarding time cut in half

The common thread: start with one process, let automation clear the routine work, and keep your people focused on the exceptions. Martin Supply’s tip for getting there: clean item data, like part numbers and units of measure, is what makes automation work.

Your AI journey: five steps to get started

You don’t need to transform your whole business overnight. Here’s the path we heard again and again, and the one we recommend:

1. Turn on what you already own. Standard GenAI in CSD is enabled with a no-cost order form and a few admin settings. It’s a low-risk way to build comfort with AI.
2. Pick one painful, narrow problem. Choose something time-consuming that people complain about, with a business owner ready to champion it. “Non-stock PO approvals” beats “purchasing.”
3. Measure today’s baseline. Time, clicks, and errors today are how you’ll prove value tomorrow.
4. Look at the process before you automate it. Process Intelligence shows where the real delays and rework are hiding.
5. Prove it, then scale. Infor’s adoption path takes a use case from discovery to first go-live, often in under four weeks. Each win makes the next one faster.

 

For executives: treat AI as a business initiative, not an IT project. Start with outcomes like margin, service levels, or hours saved, and give a respected business leader ownership.

For IT teams: standard AI features are switched on in the CloudSuite Self-Service Portal, and the October release adds governed connections to Microsoft Copilot and Claude, admin interaction logs, and guardrail controls. Infor is also opening up its data platform, with a Power BI connector and a new Data Warehouse on the way.

Running SX.e on-premises? You can start too. AI-driven insights and recommendations work on-premises today, and a move to the cloud unlocks the full range of agents and automation. We can help you map both paths.

Not on Infor? The same lessons apply to any ERP: process first, one use case, a clear baseline, and humans in the loop.

How NSA can help you take the first step

Technology alone doesn’t deliver results. The right strategy, process know-how, and user adoption do. NSA Computer Exchange is certified to implement all aspects of Infor Velocity Suite, was named 2026 Infor Partner of the Year for North America Source and Co-Sell Distribution and has spent decades working exclusively with wholesale distributors.

Pick the starting point that fits you:

• Free GenAI enablement help. We’ll walk you through the no-cost Embedded GenAI order form and help you switch on the standard AI features you already own.
• AI use-case workshop. A focused working session to choose one high-value, narrow use case, capture your baseline, and map a clear path to value.
• Velocity Suite strategy session. We’ll review your business challenges, explore the right mix of agents, automation and Process Intelligence, and build a practical, phased roadmap.

 

Want to learn alongside your peers? Krishna co-leads TUG’s AI in Distribution Network, where distributors share what’s working, what isn’t, and how their AI readiness compares with the industry. We’d love to see you there.

Your foundation is ready. Let’s build on it.

We left Orlando energized by Infor’s vision, its investment in distribution, and most of all by what customers are already achieving. The future of distribution isn’t just about having a modern ERP. It’s about using it to work smarter, faster and more profitably.

Let’s find your first AI win together Contact your NSA Account Manager or reply to this newsletter to book your session.

About NSA Computer Exchange

NSA Computer Exchange — The Human Side of ERP — is an ERP consulting firm that helps distributors get the most from Infor CloudSuite Distribution. Learn more at nsacom.com.

NSA Computer Exchange is an Infor Channel Partner and Alliance Partner, a member of the AD Service Provider Division, and the recipient of the 2025 Infor Partner of the Year Award for North America Source and Co-Sell Distribution.