QAD Champions of Manufacturing 2025 | Ricardo Leitao, QAD

Clips
More from QAD Champions of Manufacturing 2025

Ricardo Leitao

SVP Global Professional Services, Manufacturing and Supply Chain SVP Global Professional Services, Manufacturing and Supply Chain QAD

QAD

play_circle_outline Structured approach evaluates customer maturity and defines tailored IT paths for success.

play_circle_outline Champion Benchmark serves as the initial assessment to guide customer progress.

play_circle_outline Extensions in QAD Adaptive provide flexibility for unique customer process requirements.

play_circle_outline Balancing customer workload and consultant availability is crucial for implementation success.

play_circle_outline Majority of customers eager for modernization to leverage new features and functionalities.

Info
Transcript

Ricardo Leitao, QAD

Ricardo Leitao

SVP Global Professional Services, Manufacturing and Supply Chain SVP Global Professional Services, Manufacturing and Supply Chain QAD QAD

Ricardo Leitao of QAD participates in the QAD Champions of Manufacturing Conference in Dallas. Ricardo Leitao, the senior vice president of global professional services for manufacturing and supply chain at QAD, discusses the evaluation and benchmarking criteria that guide QAD's innovative strategies for implementing technological solutions effectively.

During this session, hosted by SiliconANGLE Media's Paul Gillin and theCUBE Research's Scott Hebner, Leitao shares their extensive expertise in enterprise resource planning services. The discussion ex... Read more

explore Keep Exploring

What is the formal methodology used to assess and guide customers in their use of technology? add

What is the purpose of the Champion Benchmark in helping customers transition to QAD Adaptive? add

What are the features of the QAD adaptive platform that accommodate specific customer needs across different industries? add

What are some of the main difficulties faced during project implementation when working with customers? add

What are the customers' reactions and expectations regarding the benefits and innovations of the QAD adaptive system? add

bolt Powered by CUBE AI

Ricardo Leitao, QAD

search

Paul Gillin

>> Welcome back. Paul Gillin here with Scott Hebner at the QAD Champions of Manufacturing Conference here in Dallas. We're in the final stages, the home stretch of this conference, but still plenty of good content to come. We talk a lot about products in these conversations, but services particularly in a complex environment like ERP are what really make the difference. And our next guest, Richard Leitao, is the senior Vice President of Global Professional Services for the manufacturing and supply chain at QAD. He's joining to join us today to talk about the evaluation and benchmark criteria that you use to get customers from here to there. Ricardo, thanks for joining us.

Ricardo Leitao

>> Yeah, no, thank you. It's great to be here. As you just mentioned, to have a process to help customers to implement. It's fundamentally important for the successful adoption of the technology. If you don't have that, yeah, the customers will not know how to do it, how to start, and I think that is the key point of what we are doing here. It's how to we start, how to help the customer to get into something that we will put them on a path that they can successfully implement the solution.

Paul Gillin

>> And how formal and documented is your process?

Ricardo Leitao

>> So we have a formal methodology in which it starts where the customers are. Our goal is to really understand where the customer is in its cycle of maturity, of using our technology. So the methodology is structured in a way that we are very prescriptive in terms of understanding where they are and we know where we want to drive them around the technology that we are offering, the QAD adaptive at this point. We are able to define specific items around the data structure of the customer or what customizations they have created, what business objectives they're trying to achieve by using our software. So those are some of the initial components of our methodology. Then of course, it's a very standard methodology after we start a project in which we help the customers through all the different stages of truly adopting the technology to support their business processes. Because at the end of the day, that's what we're doing. We are helping them to really be successful with this approach that we're calling system of action. Really helping them to make decisions, not just looking, okay, what is my data? No, no. We want to give a tool that will enable them to successfully manage their manufacturing processes.

Scott Hebner

>> And it's been branded Champion Benchmark?

Ricardo Leitao

>> Champion Benchmark is how we start, is our kickoff. So for any customers out there, what we did was, okay, we need to help them to get into this path of moving to QAD Adaptive. So the methodology that we have, the champion Benchmark is our initial assessment to help us to understand the business objectives of the customer, their current IT landscape, where they are, things that they did in their environment. So by understanding that, we can really design more than design, we have in our methodology predefined IT path for them to go and then we're going to say, okay, based on your business objectives, based on your current IT landscape, your current situation with your solution right now, this is what we recommend and this is what we suggest. So the Champion Benchmark is really the kickstart I would say for a customer to define, "How can I evolve from here? Give me the roadmap, give me the way on how I can be successful with your product."

Scott Hebner

>> And is it a prescriptive roadmap that can actually put into practice?

Ricardo Leitao

>> Yes, yes. It is prescriptive from the sense that we know exactly the different aspects that we needed to talk with the customer from their data level to their customizations, to the specific processes that they needed to ensure that are robust enough to support their operations to integrations. Because I mean, we have in QAD a very robust integration platform that we use today that for customers to be successful in their ERP, they needed to integrate, they need to talk and QAD brings these offers this out of the box. So we need to understand that as well. So in the Champion Benchmark, we're going to get to that level being very specific. Tell me all the applications that you are integrating today, so then we can understand what is required for them to be successful in this new environment using our product and the cloud successfully, not only as an island, because no software today is an island. They needed to integrate, they need to be open and the Champion Benchmark will give all of this information for us that will allow us to move forward into the implementation process.

Scott Hebner

>> So is it a blueprint or is it a physical thing like code, and combination?

Ricardo Leitao

>> Oh, awesome question. It's a combination. So we do have components that are based on a blueprint. Basically we know for specific industries how certain processes needs to be configured. So we have that information. So for the customer, it's much easier if we go and say, "Look, we have done this hundreds and hundreds of time for your segment, for different customers. So this is our starting point." The blueprint is our starting point, so they know how to do it. And certainly you heard from other guests or folks here, we talking about all of the AI components that we are embedding in the software. So that is also something very unique that we will accelerate the implementation as we start a project. So we do have this agentic AI embedded that will help with certain things like the data migration, how we can convert old and legacy customizations into the new architecture of QAD Adaptive. Again, everything starts by understanding where a customer is at this point and that is the Champion Benchmark.

Paul Gillin

>> Is the goal to get all customers to more or less the same level over time as they complete the migration, the modernization? Is your goal to get them to the same final point where you have a consistent set of characteristics across your customer base?

Ricardo Leitao

>> Yeah, that's an awesome question. I think all of the business benefits of using the ERP is that you want to have a set of processes that they are standardized and that is common among different industries. However, customers, they do have some specific needs and the flexibility, and it's in the name, the QAD adaptive has to do with all of that. So we have the core processes that are standardized, that they are based on our best practices for the different industries, but through our low code, no-code platform, we can have an offer to customers, what we call extensions. We can help them in adjust the process to some of the uniqueness of their environment.

Scott Hebner

>> So when you complete an upgrade or a green installation, does the benchmark learn from the success of it or things that went well, didn't go well and then for the next, so it's a learning benchmark is-

Ricardo Leitao

>> Absolutely, absolutely. We have what I will call the practice of collecting the lessons learned. So this is built in the process from the following angle. When we do the assessment, it is prescriptive and therefore we know that for this specific customer, based on certain characteristics of its environment, we have a recommendation, but then we need to measure when we finish or when we are conducting the implementation, if we are achieving what we define it earlier in our prescriptive approach. So it is a mechanism of there is this feedback loop in which we update our initial Champion Benchmark. Absolutely. That's how it works. Another interesting thing that the team developed, and it's really unique. We have this approach that we call our Champion Pace, right? Champion Pace has all to do on how we do and how we implement. So we have, and I think we are being one of the first companies saying we can go live for a Greenfield customer in about 90 days. How that is possible, people will question. Well, if we are working in a very prescriptive environment, if we are working following best practices that we developed over a long-term that QAD is in the ERP business, customers, they can take that. And after that, we have an approach where we can provide coaching and we can continue to evolve that environment. So the idea of going very quick as fast as we can get something that is viable that they can start using, and then we can complement with coaching on specific areas. By specific, I mean maybe customer is interested in optimizing their inventory management. So that is a very specific thing that we have to do for inventory management for that particular customer. Another customer may have a need around something on the sales process. We can focus on that with our coaches that are experts on that particular area. So that is what comes after. So that is I think something unique that QAD is promoting here in this event, and we are very excited that customers are really, really responding positively.

Scott Hebner

>> We had Zach here earlier going through-

Ricardo Leitao

>> Through all this process, right?

Scott Hebner

>> Is it fair to say from a customer perspective, they're two sides of the same coin? They're different, but they complement each other?

Ricardo Leitao

>> Yeah, I think the starting point of the process is the benchmark that I was talking about, but then we have this fast-paced implementation, which is what you just mentioned that Zach explained. I think there are a few additional things that I have to mention. The quality on how we do things, that is paramount. I mean, from an implementation point of view, at the end, a customer, a business user, they want to ensure that we are providing the value that they expect, that they invested in that upgrade or in this new implementation. So the focus on quality and provide the business outcomes that the customers are expecting, that for us is paramount. That's how the team is structured to work. The traditional delivery on time, delivery on budget, those are a must, but we need to do all of that on time and on quality or with quality, which is super important for us.

Paul Gillin

>> What are some of the quality metrics you use?

Ricardo Leitao

>> Yeah, so I think one of the key metrics is to ensure that when we do testing, for example, that we do a very robust testing that we can say, "All right, are we able to address all the problems or how many issues we have as we go through the testing process? Are we improving or not?" We have two or three checkpoints throughout an implementation in which we do testing. We have at least three steps. Are we improving from the first moment that we did the initial testing with the client, to the second and finally to our user acceptance test, which is the last and final round before someone go live? So the number of issues is one metric that we measure to ensure that, okay, are we doing better? Are we doing not so good? So that is one of the key ones. The other metric has to do when we have an ERP, you have to ensure that the transactions are being processed with performance. So we also look from performance, and so in our testing as we go through an implementation, we want to simulate, okay, customer you have how many users you expecting? Oh, 300, 500. Okay, let's run some testing around that to see if the output of the system is reasonable within certain criteria that we consider good for supporting the application and the customer. So that is another important, I would say quality metric, the performance.

Paul Gillin

>> What are some of the biggest challenges you encounter?

Ricardo Leitao

>> The challenges, I think one interesting aspect when we are implementing a project that's never a one side type of project, we needed to work with the customer. So I think we know that when a customer is going through an implementation, they have to balance their daily life, their daily work with the team that is doing the implementation. So that I think tends to be one of the moments in any given implementation, the ability of a customer to commit the amount of hours. So that's where again the overall Champion Benchmark, the Champion Pace comes handy, because our approach is to go to a customer and say, "Look, if in the past I need you like full eight hours for this period of time, now we can cut that in half or we can cut that by, I don't know, 40%, because we're using some of these agentic AI." So I don't need to spend the same amount of time like I used to do in the past, because we have all these different tools that are giving more productivity to the consultant and to the customer. But that I think still tends to be one of the challenges, how to balance the customer availability, commitment. They all want the system, but they also needed to run their day to day. So that's I think one of the areas in which everything that QAD is putting on the paper right now is bringing, actually not put on the paper, but bringing a solution is really going to be super helpful for them, because we can cut time, everything that we can cut time for them for us, everybody's happy.

Scott Hebner

>> You triggered a question when you said for the consultant also, right? The person that's delivering the professional services. We just ran a survey called the agentic AI features index and I did a cut for this conference across manufacturing, and 61% of the leaders said that they agree with the statement that they'll be the last to manage a human-only workforce. So in your case, do you see as time goes by agents being infused into your workforce? And I'm not talking about replacing people, but being the partners of the professional services people that are out there, you see that as digital labor essentially becoming an inevitable.

Ricardo Leitao

>> Look, I think this is a fantastic point. I do believe that and I'm working on tools with AI to accelerate our upgrade process. What is the whole point? There are certain tasks that inevitably the AI can do much faster than the consultant. You can throw a large amount of data code and AI will provide some output. So I see those tools as agents that can make the lives of the consultants better from a productivity perspective. So if I was a consultant today, I still have my technical, I would say DNA, that I like to be hands-on in certain things in technology-related. I go for AI and I say, "Wow, yes, I can be much more productive." Of course I do not take 100% what is being output from the AI. We have to do the validation and all that good practice around that. But I see in few examples that my life, for example, for generating certain types of reports, I can reduce that by honestly 70% and I can get things much faster.

Scott Hebner

>> They become the champions for the consultants.

Ricardo Leitao

>> Exactly, exactly. So it's really like a lever, a tool. Again, especially in this market, customers, they do expect talking to people to have the implementation done properly. So again, unless we project maybe in the next, I don't know, 15 to 20 years that we're going to have some sort of a beyond AI, the robot actually to talk to the person, which is super ultra-futuristic, right? In the business of software in general, these are more productivity tools for the consultant, right? And then I think also free up the time of the consultant to do more for the customer. Okay, what can we talk about improving your process? Because the basic I can do much faster now. The data conversion, the data migration, the analysis on your legacy code to your new platform, to your integrations, AI helps with all of that. So I believe that we are going to have a time that we will have in our iPads or phones, these agents customized for your business. Actually, at the product level, you most likely talk to people already here saying that we are embedding this in the software, but imagine you have this as tools for you to implement the software and that's pretty much the goal. So it's a fascinating topic. I believe that some people they have, "Oh, I'm going to be replaced." No, your role will evolve, and I think we saw this in several other interactions of technology that the role of the technical or functional person basically evolves, but it's still critical for the business.

Paul Gillin

>> Where is AI accelerating the evaluation process the greatest?

Ricardo Leitao

>> So you talk about evaluation of the environment of the client environment. So there's several angles which is part of our benchmark data. We may have a customer that is running on a very old version, so I needed to understand what changes they made in the software. So there are two ways of doing that, a very manual way that is, okay, print out all of the changes and let's start to review the reports and so on. Or I can get that same information electronically run on an agent that knows what the context is about and the agent will tell me, "No, this model compared to your baseline has 20% of changes." And by knowing that information, I can at that point say, "20%. So that's not so bad. I mean, it's a regular environment." I may have another customer in which they made more changes, 30%, 40%. That will impact how we going to go in terms of implementing that. But that is one example that helps us on the qualification. Analysis of data, comparing two different models, could be two different programs. All of that, if you train the agent, within time the agent will know the context and then you start to refine the type of answers. So that is where we are evolving our practice for implementation.

Paul Gillin

>> That's good. Where do you see this? What percentage of your customer base is in need of some kind of modernization at this point?

Ricardo Leitao

>> I think the majority of the customers, they are really eager to receive all of the benefits that comes with the QAD adaptive. When you think in terms of the changes, you may have heard it's not just a simple evolution of what we had before. It's really bringing new innovation, not only these AI components, but the user interface and business functionality as well. New modules that customers can say, "Oh, okay, this was a great thing that I," the customer developed in the future. And this by the way, is part of our Champion Assessment, because when you go to a customer, maybe there are functionalities that the customer developed that are now in the new product. So I can go to the customer and say, "You know what? How many people you have in your company that are maintaining these functionalities in your version that is not out of the box?" "Oh yes, I have five, six consultants, developers." Or they needed to hire people. Guess what? This functionality now is an out of the box feature in the new version. So we are helping them to save in order to, they don't need to maintain that code anymore. So this is part of the analysis of the benchmark as well. Then we can measure and then we can give to the customer. You have for example, customized the application and most likely a portion of those customizations, you don't need that anymore, because you can use out of the box features. Some maybe we're not even using and you don't know, because they developed this over the years and they don't know what they are using and not. Maybe there is a portion that we may need to do some evolution using some of the new features of Adaptive to evolve those old customizations in what we call extensions in the new platform. Again, this is all part of the assessment. This is all how AI can help us to identify those components. Now if I can break some news here, the area that we are working now with AI is how can we use the whole AI generative approach not only to evaluate, not only to document, not only to compare baselines, but how can we use that to indeed generate the future? So from whatever they are, they're as is to the to be, right? Whatever manual work that I have to do, how can I use AI? We are in the midst of that. We have already some components of that embedded in our methodology today and that will continue to evolve. We envision this point. For existing customers, they needed to evolve from where they are. The fastest we can do, the more features we can provide and we can do that with quality. That's the dream. So there is no better use case for adopting AI agents and practices. Then this example, because we are going to accelerate how we can move this as is to this to be model. So that's how we are evolving with some of the other partners of QAD that are focused on this space. Yeah, it's going to be a very nice thing for the next, I would say six to nine months as we have all these customers interested in moving to Adaptive and simultaneously we are growing our practice around AI as well.

Paul Gillin

>> So AI changing the product, AI changing the people who make the product work.

Ricardo Leitao

>> Exactly.

Paul Gillin

>> Ricardo Leitao, you're in a fast changing world and good luck to you. Congratulations to you on the success that QAD is having.

Ricardo Leitao

>> Yes, no, thank you so much, Paul. Thank you, Scott, for your time for the questions and yeah, I think AI is here in a positive way and QAD is making difference on that.

Paul Gillin

>> We'll be right back from Dallas, Paul Gillin with Scott Hebner at the QAD Red Zone Champions of Manufacturing Conference. We'll see you in a minute.