NetSuite recruiter Anderson Frank recently shared results of its latest survey with me. The study, which was conducted between January and April 2018, surveyed 1,143 NetSuite professionals, analyzed over 10,000 data points, and surfaced some interesting results in terms of the levels and types of activity NetSuite consultants are seeing in the NetSuite space.
NetSuite brands itself as “the world’s number one cloud business software suite,” with a unified business management portfolio that currently provides ERP, CRM, and e-commerce services to more than 40,000 organizations.
Anderson Frank’s survey data indicates that this number will continue to increase:72% of respondents said they’re already seeing an increase in NetSuite projects in 2018 in comparison to last year. Three-quarters of the respondents also stated that they believe they will be involved in an increasing number of NetSuite projects in the coming 12 months.
Digging a little deeper, the data shows some interesting trends at a more detailed level.
Where Do New NetSuite Customers Come From?
Three-quarters of NetSuite professionals surveyed noted that they had been involved in migrating a customer to NetSuite from a competing ERP solution. They reported that the largest proportion of new NetSuite ERP customers—42%—are coming to NetSuite’s ERP solution from QuickBooks (Figure 1). The top reason for this move, according to respondents, is that these businesses say that they are ‘outgrowing’ QuickBooks, and need deeper functionality.
Microsoft’s Dynamics GP, accounted for 7% of migrations to NetSuite; 6% of new NetSuite customers came from Sage; and 2.5% from Infor. The rest of the migrations come from a long list of “other” brands.
Meanwhile, although Salesforce is the undisputed market leader in CRM, NetSuite is beginning to make inroads in this space. 32% of NetSuite professionals said that customers moved to NetSuite from Salesforce CRM.
Figure 1: Migrations To NetSuite
What NetSuite Capabilities Are Businesses Using?
Respondents report that NetSuite customers most commonly use NetSuite’s ERP (88%) and CRM (67%) solutions (Figure 2). NetSuite is also enjoying considerable success with OneWorld. Respondents said that 65% of their NetSuite customers use NetSuite’s OneWorld offering.
NetSuite professional respondents also indicated that 55% of their customers use NetSuite SuiteFlow, and 47% utilizing NetSuite’s SuiteScript solution.
Figure 2: Use of NetSuite Capabilities
NetSuite Benefits
Respondents reported that their clients say the top benefits of using NetSuite include:
- Reporting capabilities, such as real-time dashboards that can provide departmental data quickly
- Instant access to key performance indicators (KPIs), such as sales and forecasts to enable accelerated business decisions
- User friendly interface, including drag-and-drop capabilities and tools that allow for easy personalization
NetSuite Implementation Challenges
Migrating to NetSuite also comes with challenges. Data migration proved to be the main implementation challenge businesses experience in making the move, according to Anderson Frank’s data. Respondents cited failure to cleanse data prior to a migration—bringing old, irrelevant data into the NetSuite system—as the top factor slowing down the migration process.
Other significant challenges businesses face when implementing NetSuite included lack of adequate time and resources for training and change management.
SuiteSuccess—Making Early Inroads
NetSuite announce SuiteSuccess at SuiteWorld 2017. The offering provides a rapid-start methodology that goes beyond traditional implementation approaches, with micro-vertical solutions designed to address industry-specific requirements.
According to NetSuite, SuiteSuccess can take a business from ‘zero to cloud’ in 100 days, and also:
- Reduces IT support costs by up to 65%
- Lowers business continuity costs by 45-65%
- Provides users with 360-degree visibility into the business
- Decreases the time required to complete an audit by up to 40%
SuiteSuccess has made good inroads since its introduction just a few months ago: 15% of NetSuite professionals responding to the survey say they have already completed at least one implementation using SuiteSuccess. Out of the 12 industry-aligned editions available at launch, software, retail and manufacturing have been the most popular verticals for SuiteSuccess to date.
Perspective
Anderson Frank survey data indicates that NetSuite is continuing to grow its market footprint, and that NetSuite customers are expanding their use of NetSuite across a broader range of business functions. SuiteSuccess is off to a good start, and NetSuite’s announcement that it is adding 14 new editions at SuiteWorld 18 in April should help NetSuite increase SuiteSuccess implementations at a rapid rate.
All good omens that SuiteSuccess is fulfilling on it[‘s promise to take friction and cost out of the deployment process—and that it will help acclerate NetSuite’s growth over the coming year.
©SMB Group 2018
Source: Laurie McCabe’s Blog