Karmak held one of the largest user conferences in its corporate history this week at the Hilton at the Ballpark in St. Louis.
More than 310 attendees—the most since the pre-Y2K conference—and a record number of vendors joined Karmak for the three-day Leadership & Technology Conference. The event featured multiple keynote presentations, OEM and buying group meetings, vendor product demonstrations and more than 50 breakout sessions geared to help educate and train users to optimize their experience with Karmak’s platforms.
“My first Karmak Conference was a great experience—spending the week with our client base reinforces the importance of our laser-focus on providing our clients with world-class software and service. Having conversations about the direction we’ve set for the next twelve months validates our decisions about where we’re going as a company,” says John Pacione, who joined Karmak as president and CEO in April.
As the main events of the week, Karmak says it developed its breakout session schedule based on user responses to last year’s post-convention survey. The company says users could choose the sessions most relevant to their business. Some events were led by Karmak staff, some by users and others featured more open forum conversations to allow users to share tips and best practices for the software.
“We’ve had a business relationship with Karmak for 30 years. Conference is a great opportunity for us to connect with people we’ve been working with for years. We thoroughly enjoyed this year’s event. Karmak’s customer focus is evident,” says Jim Ussery, executive vice president for Nextran Corporation.
This year’s convention also featured a major milestone for Karmak as its Windows-based platform, Fusion, is now Karmak’s biggest DMS. Released in 2012, Fusion’s total users far exceeds the company’s goal for Fusion set at last year’s conference.
“We’ve had a lot of momentum leading up to this year’s conference. Fusion, our flagship product, has officially surpassed Legend, Karmak’s legacy DMS in overall customer count, locations, and users and we’re all very excited about it,” says Scott Elbring, vice president of Sales and Marketing.
Motivational speaker Kevin Brown, vertical storage systems Modula, and Helion Trucking Technologies’ Founder and CEO Erik Nachbahr also presented excellent keynote addresses during the event.
Nachbahr’s Wednesday address was an enlightening and informative look at cyber security, and the steps dealers and distributors should take to best prepare themselves against attacks.
Brown followed on Thursday morning with a tremendous look at customer service, and how businesses can focus on creating extraordinary customer experiences.
The 2018 Karmak Leadership & Technology Conference will be held Oct. 16-18, 2018, at the Hilton at the Ballpark in St. Louis.
