Vendor Focus: Netsuite

Focus believes that companies are seeking business benefits from their IT investments beyond cost avoidance and reduction. Chief among these business benefits are improved prospect conversion rates and customer and partner relationship management and increased revenues and profits. To achieve such benefits, increasing numbers of companies are looking at cloud-based solutions to minimize those IT investments. Solutions such as those offered by NetSuite can help a broad range of companies to achieve such benefits, if adopted and implemented effectively.

This analysis is presented to align with the key solution and vendor characteristics identified as critical to buyers in the Focus Research Methodology. These include product, cost and vendor considerations.

Product Considerations: NetSuite offers a portfolio of on-demand solutions for a wide range of business-critical functions – NetSuite Financials, NetSuite CRM+, NetSuite Ecommerce for Web sites and online stores and SuiteAnalytics. NetSuite OneWorld is an on-demand offering that supports real-time consolidated management of multiple locations, currencies and languages. The company also offers the NetSuite SuiteCloud platform, designed to support custom and vertical applications and business processes. There is also a growing SuiteCloud Developers Network and SuiteApp.com applications directory, according to NetSuite.

Cost Considerations: NetSuite prices its solution beginning at $99 per user per month, with a “base fee” of $499 per month, according to the company. Pricing can vary depending upon the features and functions selected. The company offers an application for a free trial at its Web site.

Vendor Considerations: Based on briefings with NetSuite executives, Focus believes the company is poised to take advantage of current market trends. These include increasing adoption of cloud-based solutions for business-critical functions such as financial management, CRM and ERP. In addition, the continuing success of market leader Salesforce.com and its partner ecosystem, combined with the promotion by SAP of its Business ByDesign on-demand offering, provide increasing market validation for NetSuite and its partners.

However, these companies also represent formidable competition for NetSuite. Emerging competitors such as Salesorder.com also present possible challenges to the company. (Salesorder.com’s customers have so far been smaller than most typical NetSuite users, but nothing prevents either company from going after the other vendor’s current primary market.) NetSuite will have to continue and extend its proven abilities to innovate and compete, and leverage its thousands of current customers, to extend its market leadership and presence. To the extent that it can succeed in these efforts, Focus believes that users can count on NetSuite to be a significant competitor in CRM, ERP and related areas for the foreseeable future.

The Focus Research Methodology has identified three basic Buyer Types for solutions such as CRM, ERP and business management systems. These are Basic, Intermediate and Advanced Buyers, differentiated by characteristics including company size, available relevant expertise and complexity of the business challenge.

Focus believes that all active and prospective buyers of solutions such as those offered by NetSuite should make a careful assessment of business needs a first step of their buying processes. Focus Market and Comparison Guides are designed to aid in efforts to assess and prioritize business needs, and to use these to evaluate candidate solutions and vendors. Assessment of needs and resources can also help you to decide the Focus Buyer Type that most accurately describes your company.

Basic Buyers who are new to or just getting started with CRM, ERP and/or hosted business solutions should explore the features of NetSuite’s basic offerings and apply for a trial. This will enable those users to figure out if NetSuite’s solutions can help their businesses under “near-real-life” conditions at minimal cost and risk.

Intermediate Buyers, especially those already experienced with CRM, ERP and/or hosted solutions, should compare the features of NetSuite’s packages with one another and with relevant competing offerings. Those users should apply for trials of the solution or solutions that match their specific needs most closely. Some Intermediate Buyers may find that they need multiple add-on features to provide all of the functionality their businesses need. In such cases, those users should also explore NetSuite’s developer network and online applications mart, as well as comparable resources from any competitors under consideration.

Advanced Buyers already using CRM, ERP and/or hosted business management solutions should compare the features of those incumbent solutions to those offered by NetSuite and its partners, and to business needs and goals. If incumbent solutions and vendors are meeting current and anticipated business needs effectively and economically, Advanced Buyers should stick with what’s working. If the features, pricing and/or vendor support offered by NetSuite solutions are worth further exploration, Advanced Buyers should apply for a trial. Those Advanced Buyers should also identify at least one local NetSuite reseller or integrator familiar with their specific business needs, goals and characteristics. If no such local resource is available, those Advanced Buyers should seriously consider available alternatives, and carefully consider their internal abilities to deploy and support hosted solutions, before proceeding.