NetSuite Software Review

NetSuite System CRM Review

By Martin Shifley

 

Founded in 1998, NetSuite was the first serious provider of both on-demand ERP and CRM and has subsequently become the market leader for enterprise-wide hosted business systems.

 

The company's majority owner is none other that Oracle's Larry Ellison and the migration of staff leaving Oracle for employment at NetSuite has nick-named the on-demand vendor "Little Oracle". The staff, culture and drive between the two companies is not surprisingly quite similar.

 

NetSuite became a publicly traded company in December 2007. The successful public offering was described as a raised about $161 million and granted the company a billion dollar market cap, however, since that time the stock has seen a significant fall. According to CEO Zach Nelson, “The IPO was something of a branding exercise for NetSuite. We want to be the SAP of the mid-market, but reaching all those firms is hard."

 

NetSuite's high growth has not been without growing pains. Product stability is questioned by many, the company has seemingly incurred the highest customer churn in the software as a service (SaaS) industry and the hosted delivery has incurred system downtime - which is particularly troublesome as the company has .

 

NetSuite's newest product edition is the release of NS-BOS, the NetSuite Business Operating System, a development platform targeted at ISV (independent software vendors) with vertical market expertise looking to leverage NetSuite's SaaS infrastructure. Whether this release is a or Platform as a Service (PAAS) similar strategy or even whether the development community at large is willing to leave behind open and industry standard technologies such as Java/J2EE or .NET for a proprietary environment is a significant question that will be answered over time.

 

NetSuite's competitive strengths include its broad front office and back office integration, an impressive e-commerce storefront add-on and a recognized brand. The company began with only hosted accounting software (the original company name was NetLedger) and more recently added CRM software. Accordingly, we find the company's back office software suite more competitive than its front office CRM suite. Competitive weaknesses include a difficult to understand user interface, clunky navigation and a portfolio of up-charges that can make your head spin.

 

NetSuite faces varying competitors. The company shows reservation when choosing to compete in CRM-only sale opportunities. For those sale opportunities where they do choose to compete and which do not include back office, accounting software or ERP software, they generally run up against Salesforce.com more than any other single vendor.

 

For sale opportunities seeking both hosted CRM and on-demand ERP, the company may run into either Intacct or Aplicor. Intacct has no CRM software offering but partners with Salesforce.com.

 

Competing for enterprise hosted business systems is a battle waiting to happen. While NetSuite currently pursues these business opportunities, SAP has announced Business ByDesign as the company's entree into the on-demand ERP and CRM industry. SAP intentions for the software as a service industry are suspect by many. While the company 'announced' its Business ByDesign ERP suite in 2007, before finally making it to market. Now that the SAP cloud ERP system has made it to market, several questions remain, such as whether a sidebar business division of the software giant will be able to compete with the more focused and mature SaaS only solutions. Even SAP co-founder and Chairman Hasso Plattner, described SAP's prior CRM product release with disappointment. According to Plattner at an April 10, 2008 event, "." Others also question whether SAP's SaaS strategy is more of a defensive approach designed to slow down its client erosion going the way of SaaS or is a loss leader approach intended to acquire SaaS clients and then steer them toward the company's on-premise flagship product.

We'll be performing another more detailed NetSuite software review and updating this page following the next release.