Vormittag Associates Inc. (VAI) is one intrepid, longstanding enterprise resource planning (ERP) software vendor. Since its founding in 1978, VAI has remained an independently owned provider of ERP software solutions for midmarket organizations operating in the distribution, manufacturing, retail, and service sectors.

With more than 200 employees spread across the US, the vendor serves over 1,500 companies using its flagship VAI S2K ERP software solution worldwide. This customer base spans various industries, with a presence in manufacturing, retail point of sale (POS), and a focus on distribution-intensive sectors: food and beverage, automotive; pet supply; medical; plastics; industrial; janitorial distribution; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC); plumbing and heating; and more.

VAI began as a regional IBM Business Partner and ERP software developer for small to midsize businesses (SMBs) in the New York area, with headquarters in Ronkonkoma, on Long Island. Over the years, it’s expanded with additional offices across the United States but maintains a global presence in regions where it sells through a network of resellers instead of directly.

In 2009, VAI developed a data center infrastructure in collaboration with IBM to offer the utmost cybersecurity, ransomware resistance, and enhanced performance with high availability and disaster recovery capabilities for any VAI ERP on-premises software user looking to migrate to the cloud. VAI’s sister company, VAI Cloud, LLC, offers a virtual, private, single-tenant cloud solution for new and existing S2K ERP customers, using VAI’s own infrastructure across two colocation data centers.

Customers using VAI Cloud can scale resources as needed, with software updates executed sans significant downtime. VAI recognizes that not every update release will be relevant to all customers and allows them the “no pressure” flexibility to upgrade when it’s best for them. This approach ensures VAI provides continued support to its customer base, even if those same customers choose not to adopt the latest release of S2K.

Enter Connect 2025: AI Arrives

Today, VAI’s cloud-enabled ERP product lines—including S2K Enterprise (for general hardgoods), S2K Food, and S2K Pharma—offer a bevy of modules and capabilities with embedded business intelligence (BI), analytics, mobility, and artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Recently, we attended the vendor’s two-day Connect 2025 virtual conference spotlighting the next wave of ERP innovation fueled by AI integration, near-real-time data insights, and digital transformation.

As in previous years, Executive Vice President Joe Scioscia delivered a convincing keynote unveiling VAI’s ambitious next-generation ERP roadmap, featuring more than 300 enhancements to its flagship S2K platform. Key revelations included the launch of an AI-powered Virtual Assistant, sophisticated analytics dashboards, an expanded e-commerce solution, enhanced mobile tools, and AI-driven upgrades to customer relationship management (CRM) and digital marketing capabilities. Several customers also had time to share how VAI’s ERP solutions have already transformed their operations, highlighting improvements in efficiency, accuracy, and decision-making powered by near-real-time data and AI tools.

The VAI ERP’s new AI assistant is built on the IBM Watsonx platform as a conversational tool that allows users to ask questions in natural language and, naturally, obtain replies. Users can inquire about ERP transactional data or simply ask for help about the software itself.

AI will continue to be a major part of VAI’s ERP development. Currently, the vendor is working to leverage AI for supply and demand planning, process automation, and even simple navigation within the system, deeming these tools the true future of ERP.

S2K Smart Center

VAI’s S2K Smart Center is a role-based, customizable, homepage user environment that serves as a dynamic portal-based application, pulling data directly from S2K ERP. VAI has redesigned the Smart Center homepage with new key performance indicators (KPIs) and added drill-down capabilities from these KPIs, new global filtering options, a menu redesign, and enhanced inquiries with embedded AI.

Smart Center is based on the Liferay DX (digital experience) platform. This dynamic portal pulls data directly from S2K ERP and provides the user with a homepage displaying key metrics, analytics reports, and enhanced inquiries. Smart Center also acts as the foundation for VAI’s CRM application and its new AI ERP Assistant.

The latest S2K e-commerce module has also been redesigned using Liferay DX. While previous HCL Commerce technology will continue to be supported for existing customers, the new e-commerce module will include enhanced content management, AI-powered content creation, digital asset management (DAM), low-code tools, and customer self-service options. HCL has also changed its pricing to a subscription model, once deemed too pricey for VAI’s midmarket customers.

VAI Advanced Analytics

For its part, VAI Advanced Analytics (formerly S2K Analytics) is built on IBM Cognos, featuring VAI’s preconfigured dashboards and reports embedded directly within S2K ERP. Most recently, VAI has added dynamic reports and dashboards that provide near-real-time visibility and the ability to detect opportunities and manage risks the moment they appear, as opposed to weeks later.

VAI Smart Center and Advanced Analytics are both powerful tools that provide valuable insights, but they serve distinct roles within the business environment. The VAI Smart Center is designed to deliver real-time, role-based dashboards directly integrated within the ERP system. Its primary focus is operational visibility, enabling users across departments—such as sales, warehouse, and finance—to quickly access up-to-the-minute data and manage their daily workflows efficiently. This tool helps teams respond immediately to current business conditions, making it an essential resource for day-to-day decision-making and productivity.

In contrast, VAI Advanced Analytics is built for strategic analysis and long-term planning. Leveraging BI technology, it provides deeper insights by analyzing historical data trends, comparing performance over time, and enabling predictive forecasting. This allows executives and managers to understand underlying causes of business outcomes, track key performance metrics, and make informed decisions that drive growth and efficiency over the coming months and years.

Together, these two solutions complement each other: the Smart Center empowers teams to act decisively in the moment, while Advanced Analytics equips leadership with the insights needed to shape the company’s future. By integrating both, VAI aims to help businesses maintain operational excellence today and strategic agility tomorrow.

Front-Office Capabilities for Supply Chains

When it comes to CRM, aligning sales and marketing is crucial for any growth-seeking business. A CRM system helps break down silos between these two departments by providing a unified platform for data, communication, and collaboration, enabling both teams to work together and nurture, prioritize, and increase sales to both new and existing customers.

By leveraging VAI Marketing Cloud, companies can create targeted email campaigns based on specific buying behavior and automate email responses based on customer actions or past online purchases. This solution combines VAI CRM—with a focus on sales force automation (SFA)—and ActiveCampaign, the benefit of which is tight integration with the back end of the S2K ERP system.

VAI’s CRM solution provides features such as rich contact management, notes, to-do lists, calendar functionality, opportunities, case tracking, and integration with both Outlook and ERP systems. VAI developed their CRM system for supply chain representatives, as sales teams in wholesale distribution and manufacturing need full access to ERP data.

To that end, VAI CRM provides sales reps with access to customer, item, vendor, order, and purchase order (PO) information (see figures 3 and 4). This way, supply chain representatives can work more effectively, all while enjoying complete access to sales data, so they can track customers’ buying behavior and react to any opportunities and/or issues.

Tenacious in a Cutthroat Market

VAI faces fierce competition from major ERP players like Oracle NetSuite, Acumatica, Microsoft Dynamics, Infor, ECI, and Epicor, among others. Despite this, some midsize companies still choose S2K over other systems, mainly because of the direct support and contact with the solution’s authors. Additionally, VAI’s industry-specific focus enables them to address the challenges faced by these SMBs more effectively than many of their better-known competitors.

VAI offers further benefits to its customers, such as access to the software’s source code and unlimited user licensing options. We will continue to closely monitor VAI’s upcoming enhancements and market standing, but the vendor should enjoy continued success in its chosen niches.