Most "best ERP" lists are written for one of two buyers: a small business choosing its first system, or an enterprise with a seven-figure budget and a dedicated IT department. Mid-market manufacturing and distribution companies fall in an awkward gap between those two — big enough to have real complexity, not big enough to overbuy. It's worth pausing on what ERP actually means before going further, since the term gets used loosely even by people who hear it daily. ERP stands

Every ERP vendor is talking about AI right now. Not all of them mean the same thing. Some have built AI into the core of the system, where it can see every transaction as it happens. Others have added an AI module on top of a much older platform, one that exports data out, runs it through a separate tool, and hands you a result later. Both are called "AI-powered ERP" in the sales deck. Only one of them behaves like it. If you're evaluating AI-native ERP against a traditional