You may have heard of NetSuite if you’re looking for an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution to help you manage your business processes, data, and performance. NetSuite is one of the leading cloud-based ERP systems in the market. It offers a unified business suite covering various functions such as accounting, finance, purchasing, inventory, and support management. It also can provide real-time insights, flexibility, and global scalability for different types of organizations. In this article, we’ll highlight five key things to know about NetSuite.
Cloud-Based Solution
One of the main features of NetSuite is that it’s a cloud-based solution. As ERP systems evolved and permeated the market throughout the 1990s, one breakthrough was the advent of cloud ERP—first offered by NetSuite in 1998. Cloud ERP software is widely seen as an improvement over on-premises systems, as teams can access critical business information from practically any device with an internet connection.
Cloud technology also can reduce the need to purchase and maintain hardware, help lower IT costs, and lead to faster implementations. This means you can avoid the arduous experience of large version upgrades that are synonymous with on-premises solutions. Instead, you can enjoy the benefits of a reliable, secure, and scalable cloud infrastructure.
Flexibility
NetSuite can be customized from the start or over time as your organization grows and evolves. Depending on your business needs, you can choose which modules and settings to deploy. While on-premises ERP software can be customized, those customizations are tied to the current software and may be challenging to reimplement with future versions, particularly if integrations were developed in-house.
You also can choose from a variety of preconfigured ERP solutions, such as NetSuite SuiteSuccess, NetSuite Global Business Management, or NetSuite SuiteCommerce.
In addition, NetSuite can be tailored with low- and no-code customizations, custom record types and user interfaces, performance dashboards, and automated workflows. You can test new features in your sandbox and release preview environments before deploying any updates in your production environment.
Unified Business Suite
Another key feature of NetSuite is that it offers a robust suite of applications that can support various functions such as accounting, finance, purchasing, inventory, and support management. Data can be updated and shared across modules, helping sustain consistency and accuracy. You also can integrate NetSuite with third-party platforms, such as customer relationship management (CRM), e-commerce, social media, corporate performance management (CPM), and more, to enhance system capabilities.
Having a unified business ecosystem can help streamline business processes, eliminate data silos, and improve collaboration across departments and teams.
Real-Time Insights
Real-time insights can influence daily operations as well as long-term strategy. With end-to-end visibility across your organization, data insights can paint the picture of how your organization is doing holistically or down to granular key performance metrics.
With NetSuite, you can gain real-time data analytics, role-specific dashboards, and a 360° view of your operational capacity. You can use built-in reporting tools and dashboards to inform strategic decisions. You also can customize reports and dashboards to suit your preferences and needs. You can monitor key performance metrics, track progress, and identify opportunities and challenges.
NetSuite also provides AI-powered features to help simplify data management and access deep insights. As an example, NetSuite Analytics Warehouse was recently updated with new AI features to help warehouse and distribution companies make sense of the vast volumes of data they create and accelerate decision-making processes.
Scalability
NetSuite is a scalable ERP solution that enables organizations to add new modules or incorporate additional business units easily. An organization can start with the basic ERP functionality and add more modules as needed—without adding more hardware.
It also can help you scale globally and manage multiple currencies, languages, tax rules, and subsidiaries. NetSuite’s governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) capabilities are designed to handle increasingly complex regulatory, operational, and compliance challenges. Built-in automation can help reduce risk and enhance your ability to track data changes. This can help support data integrity and audit readiness.
Summary
Assessing and selecting an ERP system depends heavily on factors such as your specific business requirements, preferences, and budget. You may also want to consider functionality, flexibility, scalability, ease of use, implementation time, and annual costs.
NetSuite is a cloud-based ERP solution providing a unified business suite, real-time insights, flexibility, and global scalability. It can be suitable for many different types of businesses. From startup to enterprise, NetSuite can help:
- Increase business agility, helping you proactively prepare for—and quickly respond to—any operational disruption or market change.
- Simplify business management, helping you streamline business processes and gain real-time visibility across the organization.
- Accelerate operational impact with improved visibility and flexibility; teams can act quickly and help improve efficiency.
When you’re ready to assess ERP technology, we’ll be ready to assist. Business Technology Solutions at Forvis Mazars provides ERP and CRM platform analysis, design, implementation, upgrade, training, and support services. We are a certified Oracle NetSuite partner offering software licensing, implementation, integration, and consulting services, in addition to two premier program options:
- NetSuite Solution Provider – Helping your business get up and running with its own suite of NetSuite modules
- NetSuite Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) – Helping fast-growing startups and small and midsize organizations supercharge their business management with outsourcing services
Connect with us today to learn more.