🧠 The Modern ERP Digest – Edition 25

Curated by Aaron Engelsrud | Published on PeopleSoftCloud.com

Aaron • Jan 2026

🎉 Edition 25 – A Milestone Worth Celebrating

This week marks a small but meaningful milestone: Edition 25 of The Modern ERP Digest.

I started this Digest last year with a simple goal: cut through the noise. There was (and still is) a flood of information across PeopleSoft, ERP, cloud platforms, AI, and infrastructure. Valuable insights were scattered across blogs, press releases, analyst reports, and community posts, but were rarely brought together in one place.

The Digest exists to do exactly that: consolidate what matters, add practitioner context, and help ERP leaders make sense of a rapidly shifting landscape. Reaching 25 editions tells me there’s real value in that approach, and I appreciate everyone who’s been reading, sharing, and challenging ideas along the way.

Now, on to this week’s signals.

☕ This Week’s Focus

Edition 25 reflects a familiar but intensifying theme for 2026: AI ambition colliding with operational reality.

Oracle continues to place big bets on AI-driven platforms as markets scrutinize leadership changes and long-term returns. At the same time, ERP vendors are reshaping the competitive field, and PeopleSoft practitioners are doubling down on performance, governance, and day-to-day operational excellence.

This is what modern ERP leadership looks like right now. It includes balancing strategy, execution, and risk.

⚙️ Oracle, AI & Platform Strategy

🔗 Retailers Mitigate Risk with Oracle’s AI-Driven Supply Chain Collaboration
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/retailers-help-mitigate-risk-with-oracles-ai-driven-supply-chain-collaboration-302657847.html
Oracle highlights how retailers are using AI-driven collaboration tools to improve visibility and resilience across supply chains. The key takeaway isn’t the AI buzz, it’s the focus on risk mitigation and coordination, two areas where ERP still delivers real value.

🔗 New Adapters and Connectivity Enhancements in Oracle Integration 26.01
https://blogs.oracle.com/integration/new-adapters-and-connectivity-enhancements-in-oracle-integration-26-01
Oracle Integration 26.01 introduces expanded adapters and connectivity improvements. For hybrid ERP environments, these enhancements continue the push toward cleaner, more maintainable integration patterns rather than brittle point-to-point solutions.

🔗 Oracle Announces Board Departures (CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/09/oracle-announces-board-departures-george-conrades-and-naomi-seligman-.html
Oracle announced upcoming board departures, a reminder that leadership evolution often accompanies strategic inflection points. Governance matters, especially when organizations are making multi-decade bets on AI infrastructure.

🔗 Can Oracle Stock Rally in 2026? (Forbes)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2026/01/05/can-oracle-stock-rally-possible-and-here-is-how/
Forbes explores scenarios where Oracle could see renewed stock momentum—driven by cloud revenue growth, AI services, and disciplined execution. It’s a useful lens for separating fundamentals from speculation.

🔗 Inside Oracle’s $50B AI Bet (PredictStreet)
https://markets.financialcontent.com/stocks/article/predictstreet-2026-1-7-the-ai-goliath-inside-oracles-50-billion-bet-on-the-future-of-computing
A deeper look at the scale of Oracle’s AI investments and what success would need to look like to justify them. The article reinforces a familiar truth: big bets only pay off when adoption follows.

📊 ERP Market & Industry Shifts

🔗 Ellucian Acquires Anthology’s SIS and ERP Business (Campus Technology)
https://campustechnology.com/articles/2026/01/05/ellucian-officially-acquires-anthologys-sis-and-erp-business.aspx
Ellucian’s acquisition reshapes the higher-ed ERP market yet again. Consolidation continues, and institutions are being forced to reassess vendor strategy, roadmap confidence, and long-term platform viability.

🔗 Five ERP Strategic Implications for Operations Leaders in 2026 (ERP Today)
https://erp.today/five-erp-strategic-implications-for-operations-leaders-in-2026/
ERP Today outlines five trends shaping operational leadership this year, including automation and AI governance, as well as platform consolidation. The throughline is clear: operations leaders are now platform leaders.

👩‍💻 PeopleSoft Community & Practice

🔗 Upcoming Webinar: Troubleshooting PeopleSoft Performance
https://gideontaylor.com/event/troubleshooting-peoplesoft-performance-five-costly-mistakes-and-the-mechanic-mindset-that-helps-you-fix-them/
This upcoming webinar focuses on common PeopleSoft performance mistakes and a practical “mechanic mindset” for diagnosing issues. A solid opportunity for admins and DBAs looking to sharpen real-world troubleshooting skills.

🔗 PeopleSoft Change Assistant – A Practical Walkthrough
https://curiousdba.netlify.app/post/peoplesoftchangeassistant/
A hands-on look at PeopleSoft Change Assistant, including how it works, where it helps, and how to avoid common pitfalls. This kind of grounded tooling knowledge continues to separate smooth upgrades from painful ones.

🔗 Managing Ad Hoc PSQueries in PeopleSoft
https://blog.psftdba.com/2026/01/managing-ad-hoc-psqueries-in-peoplesoft.html
A pragmatic guide to controlling and organizing ad hoc PSQueries. Governance here isn’t about restriction. But rather it’s about protecting performance and maintaining trust in shared reporting environments.

💬 Aaron’s Take

Reaching 25 editions reinforces something I’ve seen repeatedly in ERP work: consistency matters more than noise.

Oracle is making bold AI investments. ERP vendors are consolidating. Markets are optimistic one week and skeptical the next. None of that changes the day-to-day reality for ERP teams who are responsible for keeping systems fast, secure, and useful.

The strongest organizations right now aren’t chasing every headline. They’re improving integration discipline, understanding performance bottlenecks, governing reporting responsibly, and making thoughtful platform decisions.

That’s the work this Digest has always tried to highlight—and it’s the work that will define successful ERP teams in 2026.

Thanks for being part of the first 25 editions. Onward.

🌐 Join the Community

If you’re new here or joining us as we move deeper into 2026, you can subscribe at PeopleSoftCloud.com to receive:

✅ Weekly ERP, PeopleSoft, and cloud insights
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✅ Signals worth paying attention to

Here’s to the next 25.