Activity is rife on all sides, from Oracle’s announcement of its new partner-based SMB sales strategies that make the buying process easier through a new SMB buying process, and provide support for remarketers through the addition of another tier in the distribution channel, to NetSuite’s release of the 2007.0 version of its on-demand service.
With its new release, NetSuite is moving up in the market, taking it closer to the SMB ground covered by SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft, through the addition of features designed to automate complex operations and make processes simpler for growing mid-sized companies.
Advances fall into three main areas. Easy ERP describes a set of NetSuite Assistants, which are wizard-like tools designed to simplify setup, data import, and administration. These address some of the more complex areas of ERP functionality, such as multi-dimensional product configuration and transactional form layout that can affect productivity across the business.
The company has also tackled multinational sales requirements with Global CRM and PRM that enable orders, forecasts, quotas, and commissions to be managed on a per-country basis in local currency. Data from each country can then be rolled up into a single dashboard for a consolidated global view across the organization.
SuiteAnalytics is the third major advance, with NetSuite adding accessible real-time business intelligence capabilities to the application, minimizing the need for third-party tools. These include functionality like detailed scorecards, and the ability to incorporate Excel-like custom formulas within any NetSuite Dashboard and saved search.
The BI functionality has gone down well with Steve Carr, sales and marketing director at ACAL, a company that has used NetSuite for two years. It is providing us with greater ability to manage our business using the enhanced forecast accuracy reporting, he said.
Fabrice Cancre, COO of Olympus NDT, is also looking keenly at the dashboards. Our NetSuite dashboards give me and our top managers real-time views and analytics into our global sales, he said. We manage our entire business using NetSuite including quotations, sales orders, managing forecasts by product, ecommerce, financials, and multi-location inventory. With this new release of NetSuite 2007.0, we’re very excited about SuiteAnalytics and the Global CRM multi-currency with consolidated forecasting capabilities to help manage our business globally at an even broader scale.
Vendors offering traditional on premise software were also keen to show off their progress. Microsoft has announced that Innovative Wireless Technologies had selected Microsoft Dynamics SL, over Deltek, JD Edwards, and SAP Business One, to replace its outgrown QuickBooks accounting software. IWT, which develops custom-engineered wireless solutions for commercial, military, and government applications, said it selected Dynamics SL because it was the most representative of IWT’s business model and would enable it to capture timely information, have up-to-date insight into critical project information, and efficiently manage materials and supplies. The system is expected to go live on October 1.
Using a portal, project managers are expected to be able to have timely access to critical information, where currently they have to rely on finance professionals. The new system was also selected because of its ability to support IWT’s need to create customer solutions, providing the company with the option of offering build-to-ship, or accumulating data within a specific project, adding labor or other value-added options. Using Dynamics SL, the company believes it will be able to accurately track materials, labor, and products, regardless of the revenue model being employed. It is also looking to SL to help it comply with government regulations such as those set out by the Defense Contract Audit. Finally, the user interface was an important factor in the selection, as the system was to be used by users familiar with Microsoft Office.
SAP was also demonstrating it SMB credentials. It announced that calatog and online dog accessories retailer Pooch had selected Business One to underpin its business and run its e-commerce operation. The San Francisco-based start-up uses SAP Business One to track inventory, manage contacts with suppliers and wholesalers, and expose products to its customer base. The intention is to have the e-commerce tool fully integrated with the online store, which is scheduled to launch this summer to provide a single interface for product catalog, order processing, and online customer service capabilities.
