The concept behind cloud computing is simple: it lets you run computer applications over the Internet, without having to buy, install or manage your own servers. You can run your company’s IT operations with nothing more than a browser and an Internet connection. Applications, operating systems, servers and network switches all reside out of sight and within the metaphorical cloud, the Internet and are managed by your cloud computing vendor.

A New Way of Doing Business

Cloud computing turns conventional software delivery on its head in a number of ways:

• Low overhead: Upgrades, maintenance and system administration take place in the cloud and are managed by the vendor, so you don’t have to spend nights or weekends supervising a new version upgrade or a failed server. One industry analyst study found that cloud-based business software cost 50% less than on-premise software over a four-year period for a 100-employee company
• Ease of access at anytime, and from anywhere: Cloud computing is “always on,” making it easy to grow your business and support remote workers and locations, or support a highly mobile sales or service team, because people can access the cloud any time, day or night, from any browser, desktop ormobile device around the globe, 24×7
• High availability: Cloud software architectures are designed from the ground up for maximum network performance, so they frequently deliver better application-level availability than conventional, on-premise solutions. For example, NetSuite commits to 99.5% availability for its customers, and provides data security such as PCI DSS compliance that would be cost prohibitive to achieve with on-premise software
• Security: For many companies, the level of security and availability, disaster recovery and back-up provided by a software-as-a-service provider far exceeds that which they can provide themselves. NetSuite, for example, provides data security such as PCI DSS compliance that would be cost prohibitive to achieve with on-premise software
• Fast deployment: You can be up and running with ERP, CRM or ecommerce applications, on a local or global scale, within a few months, rather than the six to 12 months it would take to install and troubleshoot conventional servers and software
• Optimized performance: The cloud adjusts to your performance needs, dynamically assigning server cycles whenever and wherever you need them, and automatically adjusting to spikes in your business.
• Subscription-based pricing: You pay as you go, often on an annual basis, unlike conventional systems where you have to make a major up-front investment in licenses, hardware and software. You benefit from better cash flow and far greater IT flexibility
• Energy savings: By eliminating the need for on-premise hardware, cloud computing reduces overall server room electric consumption as well, which can save a mid-size businesses more $10,000 or more per year, according toa recent sustainability impact study.

You’re in Control

Best of all, cloud computing lets you focus on your business rather than on your software. You don’t have to use valuable IT resources to keep business systems on life support. Instead, you can re-deploy them to focus on more strategic business initiatives while leaving your cloud computing vendor to worry about scalability, security, uptime, application maintenance and system upgrades.

And you can be confident in taking your business public, or into new regions of the world, without outgrowing your cloud computing resources, thanks to the world-class datacenters typically provided by cloud computing vendors.

This new NetSuite webinar is aimed at enterprises seeking to standardize ERP across their divisions and subsidiaries without incurring the onerous time and substantial costs associated with deploying or expanding traditional on-premise systems. The webinar will cover all aspects of two-tier ERP, and explain how enterprises can leverage cloud ERP as a critical part of their operational strategy, including best practices, first-hand experience, tactics, deployment strategies, and more.

“Enterprises are struggling with the result of years of fragmented ERP investments throughout their business structures—but rationalizing them, using traditional ERP approaches is prohibitive. It is vital that enterprises now learn how to leverage strategies such as two-tier and hub-and-spoke models, together with cutting edge technologies such as cloud ERP,” said Ray Wang. “These new solutions and strategies can enable enterprises to grow more efficiently and cost effectively, ensure subsidiary flexibility, while accelerating financial consolidation and improve overall visibility.”

The adoption of cloud computing in the enterprise is rapidly approaching a tipping point as more and more companies seek alternatives to costly and rigid on-premise systems. Research conducted by leading industry analyst firm IDC shows the market for cloud technology and services set to more than double by 2014, with more than 40 percent of this growth the result of cloud adoption by companies with more than 1,000 employees. This growth trajectory is being driven largely by the deficiencies of legacy, on-premise business systems, which many analysts believe have become too costly and complex to support the agile business processes required to compete in a dynamic and turbulent world economy. In contrast, the inherent flexibility and low cost of cloud ERP systems makes them an ideal solution to complement an existing corporate ERP investment while enabling the kind of dynamic business process change that is standard operating procedure for today’s complex and global enterprise.

Mr. Wang will be joined by Michael Lockwood, IT Systems Leader for Olympus, Darren Cunningham, Vice President, Informatica Cloud, and the event will be hosted by Paul Turner, Senior Director of Product Marketing at NetSuite.

During this one-hour webinar, attendees will:

• Learn when cloud ERP is a fit to extend into the corporate enterprise applications strategy.
• Hear proven deployment strategies such as two-tier and hub-and-spoke models.
• Get best practices for integration, roll-out, and successful adoption.
• Hear real-world, best-practices case studies.
• Find out how to integrate cloud solutions with existing systems at headquarters.

“Cloud ERP is the perfect fit for large and growing companies, and makes for an ideal enterprise investment,” said Paul Turner, Senior Director, Product Marketing at NetSuite. “The webinar will clearly demonstrate how organizations can standardize on the cloud and retain the power and value of their existing systems, at a fraction of the implementation time of a wholesale IT overhaul, and with a much higher degree of success.”

Follow NetSuite’s Cloud blog, NetSuite’s Facebook page and @NetSuite Twitter handle for real-time updates.

For more information about NetSuite, please visit www.netsuite.com.

NOTE: NetSuite and the NetSuite logo and where business is going are service marks of NetSuite Inc.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements:
This press release contains forward-looking statements relating to expectations, plans, and prospects including expectations relating to the future growth of the cloud computing market. These forward-looking statements are based upon the current expectations and beliefs of NetSuite’s management as of the date of this release, and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements including, without limitation, the risk of continued adverse and unpredictable macro-economic conditions or reduced investments in on-demand applications and information technology spending. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof, and NetSuite disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

NetSuite continues to flesh out its Cloud ERP ambitions with a move into the integrated demand planning space, an area of the market that has proved tricky and elusive for traditional ERP providers.

This could be highly lucrative for the firm. According to Gartner’s Business Case for Demand Planning report earlier this year, as few as one in five companies has adopted a demand planning solution. This lack of an integrated solution leaves many organisations struggling with disconnected ERP, inflexible tools, and out of date spreadsheets to manage demand and denies them the benefit of being able to use real-time data to allign sales forecasts with inventory replenishment plans.

NetSuite reckons its new demand planning bridges the gap between the front office and back office systems and enables firms to:

• Improve inventory forecast accuracy by automatically building inventory forecasts from real time data, businesses can reduce demand planning cycle time, lower risk of error, and operationalise the demand planning process.
• Reduce excess inventory or risk of stock outs by ensuring the right amount of inventory is kept on hand to effectively meet demand rather than having to tie up unnecessary capital in inventory
• Minimize manual restock processes by automating the actual inventory replenishment plan and creating the necessary purchase orders and work orders to meet anticipated demand

Among the early adopters cited for the new offering is Valutek, a manufacturer of latex gloves and other cleanroom-friendly products.

The company’s VP of Finance, Kirk Mathers said:

There are also customer satisfaction implications. By using sales forecasts to build an inventory plan and augment the plan with special predictions, such as marketing input on new product launches, inventory plans can be built using statistical forecasting models such as linear regression, moving averages and seasonal averages, based on historical sales data. These projections can be automatically delivered to upstream providers, ensuring that the entire flow from raw materials to end customer is managed with minimal disruption, resulting in happier customers.

Respected Wall Street market watcher Oppenheimer told clients that this was a good move by NetSuite:

For its part, NetSuite reckons that the new module is a competitive differentiator in a market where new pushes from Microsoft and SAP are changing the competitive landscape. Jim McGeever, NetSuite COO, argues:

The advantages of cloud computing are a perfect match for the strengths and capabilities of today’s service-oriented businesses. With a mobile and tech-savvy talent base, services firms are eager to rapidly expand into new markets, quickly cut ties with unprofitable lines of business, and enable their workforce to operate at peak potential anywhere, anytime. Service-oriented businesses are also reluctant to make large capital investments in IT infrastructure, as a complex data center creates no value for their customers. The cloud gives the services vertical the best tools and technologies available to support these ambitious goals and nimble operating practices.

Ideal as the fit is, services companies still should do some ground work to understand how best to implement and adopt cloud resources. Cloud computing creates unique advantages but also brings with it some special requirements and characteristics. Understanding these in advance of a major cloud computing project will speed adoption and the realization of benefits.

Services companies, and the technology partners helping them make a transition to cloud-based enterprise platforms, should consider these three crucial details when planning their projects:

1. Speed of delivery is significantly higher in the cloud. This sounds like an advantage—and make no mistake, it is—but with this speed comes responsibility. The entire organization should be ready to commit to making the transition to the new technology in a matter of weeks, not months or years as is typical of on-premise deployment. Even global rollouts of a complete ERP overhaul can be done in barely more than one fiscal quarter.

People have been conditioned to expect long lulls in the rollout process, where months can go by while infrastructure work goes on in the background and they themselves have several weeks to slowly transition from one system to another when the go-live date finally arrives. In the cloud, those delays disappear. Cloud solutions require no visits to refresh local servers and desktops with new software, and their interconnected, extensible nature can shorten the time necessary to run legacy systems in parallel with the new solution.

If the entire business is not prepared to commit to an accelerated implementation schedule, then the organizational benefits will be delayed. Field professionals as well as support and administrative groups must all be willing to embrace a culture of rapid change.

2. Change management is even more important in cloud implementations. This is a lesson many have learned the hard way over the past decade of the cloud computing revolution. Because of their lengthy, hands-on implementation cycles, conventional software projects create their own face-to-face opportunities to build consensus and lay the cultural underpinnings for a successful transition. When new server racks are delivered and DBAs are milling about every location in the enterprise, it is impossible not to notice that change is coming. In the cloud, change management must be undertaken with deliberate intent, because so much of the implementation and rollout can be managed centrally or remotely. There is no built-in delay of several months to gradually build consensus while heavy infrastructure work goes on in the background.

Without a change management plan, the first time a remote or international office hears about the transition could be when the trainers show up at the front door. That is a recipe for pushback and disaster, and puts the training team in the awkward position of having to defend the change instead of focusing on the successful adoption of the new business processes.

Be certain that major stakeholders are informed and involved early and often—and that means having an implementation team or partner which can consolidate the input of a wide audience. Early training should be part of this communication strategy. One highly successful approach we have adopted is to encourage a virtual conference room pilot project, using collaborative technologies to engage stakeholders around the world in the requirements, prototyping, and customization phases of the project. Cloud delivery means that the entire global organization can immediately see the fruits of their input, and recognize how the new solution will better meet their needs.

3. The cloud can centralize your services business and enhance knowledge management. This may seem counter-intuitive because the cloud also enhances mobility and the power of a virtual workforce. But it also has the power to reverse the continental drift that has afflicted so many services businesses over the past decades by making it much easier to deliver services remotely to clients. Instead of the old model where each client obligates at least one consultant to get on a plane and individually design and deliver services, the cloud enables practices to operate more centrally, and deliver services just as effectively, without setting foot on a plane.

Instead of a loose affiliation of road warriors, the services culture can become more tribal and close-knit. This significantly enhances the potential for services professionals to collaborate, and bolsters institutional knowledge. Instead of calling field professionals “home” for quarterly or annual knowledge management data dumps, the process is much more organic, natural, and effective. The tribal organization also reduces wear-and-tear on professionals and eliminates the inefficiencies of lost time in transit.

Time is the most valuable commodity to services organizations. With the right planning, moving to the cloud can unlock valuable hours—the months that would normally be lost to on-premise systems work, and the hours every week burned up in airports and airplanes. The result is a more efficient and productive professional workforce, delivered faster and more cheaply than any on-premise or VPN-based solution can. For the implementation partner, the cloud means more efficient projects, less field work, and more time available to engage in requirements-gathering and customization instead of wrestling with servers and software upgrades.

Tim Dilley, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Services and Chief Customer Officer, NetSuite

SAN MATEO, Calif.—April 19, 2011—NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), the industry’s leading provider of cloud-based financials / ERP software suites, today announced an impressive line-up of industry experts and leading enterprise and service company sponsors scheduled to appear at SuiteWorld 2011, the company’s flagship user conference for customers, partners, and developers taking place May 8-12, in San Francisco. May 10th will start with a keynote and new announcements from NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson, who will be joined on-stage by industry luminaries and visionary NetSuite customers.  NetSuite chairman, co-founder and CTO Evan Goldberg will start May 11th by setting the future direction of NetSuite’s cloud-based business software suites. For registration and more details, please visit: www.netsuite.com/suiteworld.

In addition to the many expert speakers, SuiteWorld 2011 will also feature a list of leading enterprise and service company sponsors, including Baker Tilly, Concur, Cybersource, Dell, IBM, Informatica, NEC, Pitney Bowes and WiPro.  And a who’s who of the ERP/CRM landscape will provide their perspective on the direction of Cloud Computing including a speaker roster that includes Forrester Research analyst Paul Hamerman, enterprise computing experts Ben Kepes, Michael Krigsman, Vinnie Mirchandani, Paul Greenberg, Denis Prombriant, and Altimeter Group analyst Brian Solis. To get a complimentary one-day guest pass to SuiteWorld, visit: www.netsuite.com/swguest.

These presentations represent just a small fraction of the exciting content lined up for SuiteWorld 2011. With over 80 breakout sessions, pre-conference workshops, and unprecedented access to top cloud computing executives and innovators, SuiteWorld 2011 will be the high-impact cloud computing event of the year.

CEO Zach Nelson Kicks Off Day One:
Day one will be kicked off by a keynote address—”Big Business Power for SMBs/SMB Business Agility For Large Enterprises”—by NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson, in which he will explore the great technology and business process changes rippling through the enterprise software landscape as cloud computing continues its disruptive growth path. On day two of the conference, NetSuite CTO and chairman Evan Goldberg will present “NetSuite Technology Directions,” outlining NetSuite’s technology roadmap and its implications for customer productivity.

The best and brightest minds in enterprise computing and emerging media will lead informative and enlightening panel discussions at SuiteWorld 2011. Paul Greenberg, author of CRM at the Speed of Light, Beagle Research analyst Denis Pombriant, and Altimeter Group analyst Brian Solis,  whose current book, Engage, is regarded as the industry reference guide for businesses to build and measure success in the social web, will present “Emerging Trends: Social CRM.” This lively discussion will focus on maximizing the value of emerging media, social networking, communities, and blogs to improve business performance. Attendees will learn first-hand from these experts how to tap the power of social media.

Michael Krigsman, CEO of consulting company Asuret, Inc., and Ben Kepes, analyst and commentator for Diversity Limited, will present “Trends in Cloud Computing: The Road Ahead.” This panel discussion is for forward thinkers looking to take the next visionary steps into the future of cloud computing, and identify the key evolving technologies that will enable businesses to stay ahead of the curve.

Vinnie Mirchandani, technology industry thought leader and author of The New Polymath, will make a special guest appearance at the SuiteWorld welcome reception to share his thoughts on businesses that embody the renaissance concept.

While the core content of SuiteWorld 2011 is geared toward existing customers and partners of NetSuite, the conference will also feature a special one-day track for businesses evaluating their move to the cloud.  Anchoring the agenda for this special guest track will be a thought provoking session from Paul Hamerman, Vice President and Principle Analyst at Forrester Research, who will share perspectives on the future of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

SuiteWorld 2011 is sponsored by dozens of the top names in technology innovation today. Platinum sponsors WiPro, a leading business process outsourcing vendor, Epiphany Inc., a NetSuite sales and development specialist, Pardot, a marketing automation vendor, and Merchant e-Solutions, a Preferred Payment Provider for NetSuite, lead the way. They are joined by well-known brands including Cybersource (a subsidiary of Visa), Dell Boomi, IBM, Informatica, NEC and Pitney Bowes. These and other exhibitors will demonstrate how their solutions extend and enhance the NetSuite cloud.

Cloud computing is the hottest trend in software technology today, and NetSuite is leading the pack. The NetSuite Solution Provider Program has brought hundreds of solution providers to the cloud since its inception in 2002. It offers a wealth of opportunities for channel partners to grow their businesses, as more and more companies are looking to cloud computing software solutions to run their business operations. In 2010 NetSuite launched the SP100 Program offering channel businesses aggressive 100 percent first-year margins. Most recently, the company has enhanced the successful program with “SuiteStart Services,” which includes fee waivers, free training, comprehensive go-to-market support and marketing resources, and lead generation support. With these program enhancements, NetSuite’s Solution Provider Program brings even greater value to channel businesses than before.

“The companies listed on the 2011 Partner Programs Guide represent the best channel programs in the market today. Each of these organizations understands that technology alone does not make for a successful channel program. By focusing on delivering a comprehensive and robust partner program, vendors and solution providers can work together to drive business opportunities and revenue,” said Kelley Damore, VP and Editorial Director, for Everything Channel’s CRN.

Research for the 2011 Everything Channel Partner Program Guide and the Five-Star Partner Program rating was conducted by Everything Channel’s research department. Everything Channel analyzed 130 vendor programs rating vendors’ responses to in-depth questions about their partner programs in the five elements of sales support, partner profitability, partner ecosystem development/management, partner communication/marketing, and demand generation. The 5-Star Partner Program rating recognizes the elite subset of Partner Program Guide vendors who give solution providers the best partnering elements in their channel programs. The 5-Star rating is bestowed on programs whose overall rating is among the elite based on company size.

“A Five-Star award is testament to NetSuite’s best-in-class partner program and the commitment that we put forth to support and enable the success of our partners who have adopted the cloud strategy,” said Craig West, NetSuite VP of Channel Sales. “In addition to the benefits our award-winning Solution Provider program provides partners, NetSuite’s product portfolio offers the world’s leading cloud-based business management solution, making for an unmatched partnering opportunity.”

Business software hairballs are the inefficient, ineffective tangle of disparate enterprise applications and middleware that hinders productivity and drives up costs due to brittle integration, incompatible processes, low productivity and high maintenance costs. Companies featured in the program include Advantage Sign Supply, The Chefs Toolbox, Clickstop, avVenta Worldwide and Learning.com, joining thousands of businesses to benefit from NetSuite’s suite of cloud business applications that cures hairballs with end-to-end, cloud-based integration of core enterprise data and processes.

Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly known as Great Plains) is commonly found at the heart of Software Hairball Syndrome, the inevitable result of acquiring and trying to maintain the integration of multiple, siloed business software applications. This mess of disconnected systems often creates an unstable, confusing, and ineffective tangle of ad hoc integrations, processes, and systems. As the business grows, the hairball acts like a parasite, sapping productivity and profits, calcifying data silos, cramping growth and devouring cash flow. By providing one complete suite of cloud business applications, including accounting/ERP, order management, CRM, and Ecommerce, NetSuite can help fast-growing and midsized companies to permanently dislodge even the mightiest software hairball.

With the guidance provided by the Hairball Elimination Kit, businesses can quickly self-identify data silos, wasteful and error-prone data entry, redundant processes and other tell-tale hairball symptoms and take the first important steps towards purging these hairballs from their business software systems. Featured in the Kit are some of the thousands of customers who have already disentangled their hairballs with NetSuite’s complete seamless cloud business system to unlock their value from their enterprise. The kit is available for free download at www.netsuite.com/nohairballs.

“Companies should know that they need not suffer the slow growth, high costs and inefficiencies that software hairballs invariably create,” said NetSuite Chief Marketing Officer David Downing. “NetSuite leads the fight to eliminate Microsoft Dynamics GP hairballs with the world’s leading cloud-based business management software suite, and with the Hairball Elimination Kit, executives can join us in eradicating these enemies of profit and expansion.”

These companies are among the many to overcome Software Hairball Syndrome by switching to NetSuite:

Advantage Sign Supply (www.advantagesignsupply.com), of Grand Rapids, MI has been serving the sign and graphics industry for 20 years from 10 facilities throughout the US. The company’s business software management revolved around a master inventory and AR system written in COBOL, the great-grandfather of enterprise hairballs dating back to the 1960s. Caught up in the tangle was Microsoft Dynamics GP for accounting and AP, and OnContact for CRM which struggled with stability and performance issues under the strain of Advantage’s high-volume business. The hairball’s inefficiencies were responsible for significant excess inventory, and systems could not even be configured to support standard trade credit for buyers. Switching to NetSuite gave Advantage an immediate boost. Real-time inventory and analytics have reduced costly surplus stock, fully integrated Ecommerce has opened new international markets, and the consolidated database and user-friendly interface has slashed the time necessary to process orders and maintain the product catalog by 66 percent and up. “Our hairball was dictating to us how to run our business,” said David Jarrell, Director of IT at Advantage Sign Supply. “NetSuite was able to simplify our business by increasing visibility and unifying our transactions.”

The Chefs Toolbox (www.chefstoolbox.com), based in Sydney, Australia, distributes and sells cookware in Australia, New Zealand, and the US. As the company’s revenues and complexity grew, the start-up software powering the company showed its limitations, so The Chefs Toolbox undertook a migration to Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains. But after one year of intense investment and effort, the project was abandoned. With expansion to the US, and the adoption of new wholesale/distribution sales model looming, The Chefs Toolbox made the bold decision to cut ties with Dynamics GP and switch to NetSuite OneWorld. Replacing the hairball with NetSuite OneWorld saves The Chefs Toolbox hundreds of thousands of dollars, including reduced accounting hours and consulting fees, as well as eliminating the costs and IT overhead of maintaining expensive enterprise servers. “We quickly realized just how deep NetSuite’s functionality is, and how much we would benefit from the cloud-based delivery,” said David Mills, founder of The Chefs Toolbox. “NetSuite is powerful enough for us to enhance, refine, and grow with it.”

Clickstop (www.clickstop.com), based in Urbana, IA, is a multi-brand Ecommerce merchant, selling everything from pet supplies to cargo equipment. The company’s numerous merchant sites spawned several instances of entry-level bookkeeping systems and countless spreadsheets, uneasily paired with Sage Peachtree. This hairball required constant manual attention and endless re-keying, and provided virtually no business insights or reporting. Business processes were error-prone and growth was threatened. Switching to NetSuite saves Clickstop $70,000 per year in IT costs, and NetSuite’s integration and automation saves the company up to 20 hours per week in manual processing tasks. These improvements helped fuel 65 percent growth in year-over-year revenue, accompanied by the hiring of 17 new employees and an impending move to a larger facility. “We knew that we couldn’t continue manually typing and retyping information like our tangle of systems forced us to do,” said Shaun Linderbaum, Clickstop Vice President and CTO. “We always lacked important analysis and reporting. It was slowing our sales down and was much too error-prone for our multi-brand retail business. With NetSuite, our accounting, shipping, Ecommerce and CRM are all integrated, and because NetSuite is cloud-based, it gives us capacity to grow into a large company.”

avVenta Worldwide (www.avventa.com), based in Mount Pleasant, SC, is a digital production and interactive services agency, producing digital assets for top brands including Intel, Starwood, and Merck. To service its clients in Europe, North America, Asia and Latin America, avVenta previously relied on a cumbersome hairball incorporating entry-level bookkeeping systems, salesforce.com, numerous spreadsheets and various legacy systems. The lack of integration slowed the flow of data through the company, creating complications for the short sales cycle necessary to stay current and competitive in the media space. Accurately accounting for professional services activity was difficult because of the disconnected systems, and avVenta’s hairball was forcing it to leave money on the table. NetSuite solutions have provided significantly streamlined operations and ongoing savings. “Before adopting NetSuite solutions, we had no way to track our utilization or bill clients correctly, so we were losing a lot of money simply because we did not know how our time was being used,” said David Kelley, avVenta CFO. “We save thousands of dollars per month and close our books in one-quarter of the time.”

Learning.com (www.learning.com), based in Portland, OR, provides 21st-century learning environments for teachers and students. A hairball made up of entry-level bookkeeping systems, salesforce.com and a myriad of spreadsheets was inhibiting the company’s ability to grow into the broader US and Canadian markets. The poorly-integrated systems could not support the necessary sales channel expansion required to further Learning.com’s business goals. Order processing was slow and the hairball limited the scope of the company’s commission structure. Clearing out the hairball in favor of NetSuite saves Learning.com $150,000 in IT infrastructure costs and dramatically reduced the time necessary to process invoices and commissions, by anywhere from 60 to over 90 percent. Now, Learning.com’s executives, employees, and partners enjoy an integrated, real-time view of all the company’s opportunities and sales activities, and expansion is back on track. “Without NetSuite’s integrated architecture, it would have been near impossible to expand as smoothly as we did, and to be able to do business remotely with a fairly complex hierarchy of sales channels,” said Jerry Soto, Consultant at Learning.com. “That’s one of the main reasons we’ve grown tremendously since 2007.”

When NetSuite went into business in 1998 as NetLedger, it sold a software-as-a-service product that competed with Intuit’s QuickBooks, the ubiquitous small-business accounting tool. Over the years, the company added inventory management and CRM tools, attracting ever-larger customers in the process.

But NetSuite saw more opportunities for growth. “As the product starts to get very complete and robust, what you increasingly find is that the places where there are gaps in your product — where the potential client asks for some function you don’t have — are more and more vertical-specific,” says CFO Ron Gill. For example, software companies tend to look for tailored tools to help with revenue recognition. “When you look at the product, you might not see that need,” says Gill. “But if you’re selling to a lot of software companies, you might have 10 sales reps come back and say that what their clients wanted was this particular tool.”

To identify and fill such gaps, NetSuite has undertaken a complete reorganization focused on industry verticals. It started last year with sales, which previously had a geographic orientation. This year the rest of the company is following suit. Staffers in marketing, product support and implementation, and product development are now dedicated to one of six industries: professional services, software, e-commerce, manufacturing, wholesale distribution, or general business.

The move has had the intended effect, with sales and support staff reporting lots of customer requests for new tools and tweaks to the product. The demand has prompted NetSuite to hire additional developers and open a development center in the Czech Republic.

But the reorganization has also had a surprising benefit for finance, as it has dramatically improved the CFO’s ability to help allocate resources, according to Gill. For example, the marketing spend has become much more efficient. “I can now see where a marketing dollar is most effective at generating a lead and where we turn leads into deals fastest,” says Gill. “It really helps us understand where resources can be deployed most effectively, rather than going by whoever shouts the loudest.”

The change has also generated healthy competition among staffers dedicated to each vertical, adds Gill, which in turn obliges the management team and finance department to be especially precise in their analysis and thoughtful in their decision making.

A downside of the reorganization is that it has placed additional pressure on the finance department, which has remained centralized to preserve a standard approach to reporting and analysis companywide. Finance staffers are finding themselves pulled in all directions as each group seeks its own data for budgeting and planning, says Gill. “There are six times as many people looking for data, which means the finance department has a lot more customers.”

Still, despite the increased demands, the CFO is enthusiastic about the reorganization, and expects the shakeup to help NetSuite identify future areas for growth. “We plan to build a road map for each of the verticals we have, but we’re also identifying the places where we don’t currently play,” says Gill. “I would look for us to add verticals in the future.”

Kate O’Sullivan, CFO.com

Cloud-based business software provider NetSuite (News – Alert) has unveiled NetSuite OpenAir, what company officials are terming “new professional services automation and services resource planning software for the UK and European marketplace.”

Metrics-driven management. Services organizations can manage their businesses using selected metrics. Available analytics range from resource and project management, to KPIs, graphical report snapshots, trend graphs and scorecards.

It’s specifically designed to help global professional services organizations automate and manage key aspects of their business, NetSuite officials say, from marketing to project management, service delivery, billing, revenue management and driving repeat business from existing clients.

According to IDC (News – Alert) Research, uptake in SRP will grow rapidly, with more than a 10 percent annual growth every year through 2013. By then, the global SRP market will exceed $3 billion.

OpenAir is being marketed by NetSuite as delivering the Holy Grail of services applications, including everything needed to run a project-based business. The product includes:

Multi-currency and tax support, with built-in multi-currency support enables transparent billing, VAT calculations, and expense tracking in more than 100 currencies.

Localization for the European market. NetSuite OpenAir is the most localized professional services product for the broader European market, company officials contend, with support for English, Spanish, German and French.

Lower TCO. NetSuite officials say OpenAir’s cloud architecture reduces deployment and ongoing operating costs for project-based businesses by reducing hardware, maintenance and IT personnel costs. Cloud computing architecture in general, they say, provides enterprise scalability without the worry or cost of continuous uptime monitoring, system backups or performance tuning, thanks to an isolated-tenancy dedicated database, “sandbox” test environment and 24×7 global customer support.

Real-time visibility. Dashboards provide real-time, instant view of all services activities and key performance indicators, showing you available resources and client opportunities on a global level. “Client booking data flows dynamically from sales to the services organization,” NetSuite officials say. “Invoices and expenses resulting from service delivery then flow from services to the finance and sales departments.”

David Sims, TMCnet

Picture this scenario: You are a small business owner, wearing several hats at once. You must manage sales, marketing, and more than your fair share of logistics. Inventory falls in your lap, as does human resources. And, your primary role — business development — involves being on the road more often than being in the office. Right now, you are logjammed on the 401, en route to a potential client meeting. Your assistant has just called with news that a new client wants to place a large order. Do you have the capacity to fill it? What does your cash flow look like? Could you borrow money as bridge financing to handle the order? Do you need to farm out some of the work to a business partner?

At one time, busy business people wouldn’t have been able to answer these questions until they got back to the office. Business information was squirrelled away in Excel spreadsheets on desktop computers, or buried inside small business server applications gently humming away in the corner of office. Today, thanks to a concept called software as a service (SaaS), you can have access to much of your business information where ever you are.

SaaS takes the software applications that would normally run on your computers, and runs them on computers somewhere on the Internet. You can access these applications using your browser, making them available wherever you have an Internet connection. Thanks to mobile networks and smart phones, you can plug into your business from pretty much anywhere. Steve Gensens, president of London-Ont.-based medical supplies distributor CSP Medical, has been using this concept for seven years. He signed with San Mateo, Calif.-basedNetSuite, which provides small business SaaS services.

“I have a saved search performed automatically early in the morning. It looks for quotes that we have open so it can send out a reminder, and equipment history so that it knows which devices must be recalibrated,” Mr. Gensens explains. “It sends a personalized email directly to the end-user contact, and then our team members come in that morning and check the report. It’s all automated. With 1,200 open quotes, you can imagine how much time that saves.”

Being able to access business information on the road is becoming increasingly important to Mr. Gensens, who spends roughly a third of his time outside the office, developing more business for his seven-person company. He uses an iPhone to help access information via 3G networks on the road. He recalls a sales meeting he had with a doctor that was running late. “We had another visit we needed to make to a reference site. I looked at the contact information on NetSuite via my iPhone, clicked on the link, and it automatically placed the call,” he says.

NetSuite is just one example of SaaS-based systems that can help busy entrepreneurs manage their businesses. Salesforce may be based in San Francisco, but its customer relationship management software can serve clients anywhere. It has specific solutions tailored for various sectors including financial services, healthcare, and retail. The company has opened up its online platform to developers, making it possible for companies to build third-party applications that can then be offered online using its service. Its AppExchange features a variety of these applications, falling into categories such as accounting, online surveys, project management, and e-mail marketing software.

Other SaaS-based solutions cover functions such as payroll. U.S.-based Esker also offers document processing and accounts payable solutions. “We automate business processes as a service. A lot of back-office process that today are handled with paper can be automated. Accounts payable, order processing, and accounts receivable can be handled that way, as well as inbound sales orders,” says Renee Thomas, director of field marketing at Esker. These online services can even be used to send paper-based confirmation to business partners who are not yet digitized. “We’re talking about using an online service to send email, faxes, and physical mail from an application that you just log into.”

One of the biggest advantages of SaaS is it minimizes the capital outlay small businesses must make to get up and running. Instead of investing in computer hardware and expensive software applications, you can simply pay a monthly fee, often based on the number of users, and begin operating immediately. It also has the benefit of built-in backup. SaaS companies are generally experts at resilience and security. They will encrypt data, and ensure it is hosted in multiple locations, so if disaster strikes, your data will not disappear. Most small businesses do not have that expertise, and there have been many cases of desktop and laptop computers being stolen, complete with unencrypted customer data, which can be a public relations nightmare.

As connectivity speed increases, and as the modern browser software gets more sophisticated, SaaS should be a no-brainer for small business people that are too busy to fit all of their administrative tasks into a day, let alone manage a network of computers.

Danny Bradbury, Financial Post