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10 Tips for Getting the Most Out of SuiteWorld 2013

With a new location, a new slate of sessions and a wealth of new NetSuite partners and customers, SuiteWorld 2013 promises to be the best one yet.

The NetSuite conference is moving from San Francisco to the San Jose Convention Center this year to accommodate the roughly 5,000 attendees expected to be at the show May 13-16. And a show with that kind of turnout with more than 180 breakout sessions requires a little preparation. Here are 10 ways SuiteWorld attendees can ensure they get the most out of the conference.

1. Research.  SuiteWorld offers a wealth of information for getting the most out of your NetSuite deployment with sessions that cover every facet of the suite. Factor in some free time, but be sure to spend the time up front figuring out your business needs and the schedule that makes the most sense for you. Then you’ll be better positioned to come home with actionable information.
2. Go Early. SuiteWorld’s preconference in-depth training workshops offer a deep dive into all areas of the solution for intermediate to advanced NetSuite users, spanning reporting, OneWorld, workflows and more.
3. Take Note of the Keynotes. NetSuite leadership (CEO Zach Nelson, CTO and founder Evan Goldberg, and COO Jim McGeever) will open each day with a keynote session providing entertaining, informative insight into NetSuite’s progress, product roadmap and vision for the future of the cloud.
4. Learn at Lunch. SuiteWorld has three ways to make your lunch more than just a break from the show to scarf down some food.  Tuesday offers a chance to sit down with show sponsors to get answers to your questions about the cloud, integration or simply network. Wednesday offers the chance to meet with the user group community and share best practices across multiple roles. Wednesday also presents the chance to have lunch with SuiteWorld bloggers and NetSuite product experts. Just sit down at the table with the topic you’re interested in.
5. Brainstorm. If the excitement of the show and the energy of progressive companies executing on their vision has you inspired, wander over to the SUITEideas area to whiteboard your ideas and get insight from NetSuite product experts on how to execute on your own vision.
6. Network. There’s perhaps no better way to learn and grow at SuiteWorld than by talking and sharing with fellow customers and partners. In the session rooms, the hallways, the coffee area, it’s a chance not only to learn how to get the most out of your NetSuite implementation, but potentially find the right partner or business opportunity. Better yet, chill out in the SuiteLife lounge where you can rest, recharge and network in comfort.
7. Meet the SuiteGuru. Sit down with our technical experts and get your specific questions about CRM, Ecommerce, ERP, OneWorld, OpenAir, the SuiteCloud platform or Web design answered in 30-minute meetings. But be sure to schedule them, pre-registration is required and seating is limited.
8. Tour the Floor. Wander the show floor, pick up some schwag and find the solution your business needs to accomplish its vision. It’s all on display. When you’re done, wander over to the SuiteStore to pick up your official SuiteWorld gift from customers such as Incipio (iPhone 4 or 5 case), Nakajima (Hello Kitty swag), Philz Coffee (lb of coffee), Liberty Water Bottle (official SW water bottle) or School of Rock (t-shirt). 
9. Get Out. You’ve traveled to San Jose, now take some time to get outside. Take a walk, go out to eat at one of the area’s signature restaurants, soak up Silicon Valley.
10. Get Down.  After all the contacts are made, the questions answered and your mission accomplished, be sure to grab a cold drink and have a suite time at Wednesday night’s SuiteCelebration Gala.

We look forward to seeing you. Be sure to follow @NetSuite and #NSW13 on Twitter to keep up to date on the show. If you’re looking for more inspiration, check out the scene
from last year:

 

For more information on SuiteWorld 2013, please visit: http://www.netsuite.com/portal/press/events/nsw2013/main.shtml

Manufacturing the Cloud: Objects in the Rearview Mirror

“Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are.” – Jim Steinman

I grew up listening to the music of my older brother and sister, which in the Davidson household in ’70s Glasgow, Scotland, meant a steady diet of what we now call classic rock but in particular AC/DC, Deep Purple, Blue Oyster Cult, Meat Loaf and UFO (who by the way recorded the best live album ever, “Strangers in the Night,” but that’s another story), to name a few.

Then the 1980s came around and as everything got glam I started to find my own musical path which is quite diverse and nowadays on my playlist you will find pretty much everything including rock, R&B, pop, rap and jazz—just not a lot of country :)

The school system in Scotland is vastly different to what we have in North America and at the tender age of 15 I started my first full-time job as an apprentice at Weir Pumps in Cathcart, the south side of Glasgow. I spent four hours a day on buses and trains going to and from work each day listening to music on my Walkman. It just so happened that the bus stop for my last ride home was outside a record store called 23^rd Precinct. Every day as I waited for the bus I would go in and peruse the latest releases. That’s how I got to have over 300 LPs and 200 45s in the basement. So you won’t be surprised to hear that I spent most of my money on LPs and subsequently concerts.

I’m a firm believer that your past experiences in life shape who you are as a person and influence the decisions you make in the future.

The same is true in business.

The best business advice I ever received was from the owner of the first ERP solution provider that I worked for. We had experienced tremendous growth and had established a solid team of consultants and so I questioned why we were still doing quarterly business plan reviews. “Gav, strategy is everything. Having a good team in place accelerates the rate at which you execute the plan, so if you have the wrong strategic plan you’ll just end up in trouble faster than if you were stumbling your way through it.” This was the first time I considered the strategy of business.

So I encourage you to find the objects in your own rearview mirror. Identify the good things that have happened and try to replicate them. Just as importantly, what bad things happened? How are you going to make sure that they don’t happen again? What’s your strategy? It’s important to take nothing for granted. Objects in your rearview mirror may be closer than they appear… or as the brilliant lyricist Jim Steinman flipped it around for Meat Loaf, they “may appear closer than they are.” Sometimes you have to look and think to tell the difference.

We recently had a customer choose NetSuite partly because of a bad thing happening, and they didn’t have to look too far back into their rearview mirror. They had been evaluating NetSuite and loved the idea of the cloud but couldn’t quite decide. Then as fate would have it, their server went down and the owner of the company spent the entire weekend trying to restore all of their data. The rest, as they say, is history…

SuiteWorld Sneak Peek: SuiteCloud Platform

With the countdown to SuiteWorld 2012 under way, we’ve been using this blog to highlight some of the ten tracks (featuring more than 100 sessions) that will be featured at our second annual global conference for NetSuite customers, partners and developers on May 14–17.

This post takes a look at the conference track on the SuiteCloud platform, but first, here are links to previous posts on the tracks for financial management, supply chain and CRM. Look for more posts in the near future about the tracks on ecommerce, professional services and consulting, solutions for manufacturing, wholesale distribution and high-tech firms, and customer successes. Or check out the full abstracts of tracks and sessions.

We’re highlighting these tracks because, besides all the fun, networking and gala events in one of world’s most beautiful cities, San Francisco, SuiteWorld is fundamentally about learning. It’s about not just using NetSuite technology, but mastering it to drive business performance.

Which brings us SuiteCloud, a comprehensive offering of development tools, applications and infrastructure.  Thousands of developers use these integrated platform of development tools, applications and infrastructure to build add-on apps and customize NetSuite to meet unique company and vertical needs. But whether you’re a newbie or a seasoned veteran, there’s always something more to learn on making the most of SuiteCloud.

SuiteWorld is the perfect place to do so—a dynamic, collaborative environment that encourages sharing and exploration. Want to learn the latest on graphical customization, building automated workflows and customizing with scripting tools? This year we’ve broken the sessions into groups for developers and for administrators, so they’ll be something for everyone in this track.

For administrators:

• Unlocking the Power of SuiteFlow: Explore how to customize business processes with SuiteFlow’s point-and-click workflow functionality.
• Advanced Search and Analytics: Pivot Reporting and Power Search Tips: Learn advanced techniques for using NetSuite search and reporting, including the new Pivot Report.
• Best Practices for NetSuite Administrators: Join our lead NetSuite administrator for advice and tips on customizing user roles, prototyping customizations and much more.
• Master Class: Understanding CSV Imports with NetSuite: Find out expert tips for making the most of the CSV import assistant for data preparation, migration and more.

For developers:

• Advanced Platform APIs for Developers: Explore the latest SuiteCloud and SuiteAnalytics APIs and best practices for applying them in your development projects.
• Managing Your Application Lifecycle with SuiteBundler: Learn methodologies and best practices for managing the lifecycle of solutions on SuiteCloud using NetSuite’s latest platform toolset.
• From the Ground Up: Fundamental Concepts for SuiteCloud Customizations: This introductory session is ideal for the basics on using SuiteCloud to tailor NetSuite to your unique business processes.
• Ignite Your Website with SuiteScript Server Pages: Learn about NetSuite’s new platform for building hosted web applications and igniting your static HTML content with dynamic data.
• Understanding NetSuite’s Application Integration Technologies: Take a deep dive into using SuiteTalk and RESTlets for integration with external applications, with tips on single sign-on.
• SuiteCloud Platform: The Road Ahead: Get a glimpse into SuiteCloud product direction and ask your own questions of NetSuite product managers.

Our SuiteWorld Pre-Conference Training on Sunday and Monday, May 13–14, offers even more learning opportunities. Why not arrive in San Francisco early for more learning and more fun?

Manufacturing the Cloud: Location, Location, Location

With changes in the global economy making it increasingly difficult to plan anything long term with any certainty, the ability to be agile and to change plans quickly and cost-effectively becomes all the more important. NetSuite is inherently agile and not just because of our configurability (as covered in my last blog) but because your company information is centrally managed with reduced infrastructure.

Ownership of data is a question often raised by prospects during a sales cycle. Of course the data is always the property of the customer, but another aspect to this that is less commonly discussed is control of your data—in essence, your company’s intellectual property. With NetSuite, you have complete control over who has access to your data, what data they have access to and, possibly most important, when they have access to it—and all of that can be adapted in an instant, as business needs dictate.

Traditionally the task of adding (or moving) a subsidiary or location within an organization required months of planning to source and order new server hardware, allocate resources to configure it and most likely install client-side applications on every PC—with the inevitable problem that PCs won’t take kindly to the latest install.

With NetSuite, adding a new subsidiary or location is simply a matter of configuration—letting you focus on managing the business side of your new facility towards profitability. Take Groupon, for example. When they deployed NetSuite, they rolled it out in five countries in six weeks, and 26 countries within six months. That kind of accelerated growth and expansion (largely through acquisition) would simply not be possible with traditional on-premise applications. Or what about the myriad of companies that are considering relocating or bringing back at least some aspects of their production to North America. Its critical to have technology that facilitates this rather than hampers it. NetSuite was in its infancy when Bill Gates published the following in his 1999 book, Business @ the Speed of Thought: Using a Digital Nervous System:

"To function in the digital age, we have developed a new digital infrastructure. It's like the human nervous system. Companies need to have that same kind of nervous system—the ability to run smoothly and efficiently, to respond quickly to emergencies and opportunities, to quickly get valuable information to the people in the company who need it, the ability to quickly make decisions and interact with customers."

Doesn’t that sound familiar?

Gavin Davidson — Vertical Market Expert, Manufacturing

Manufacturing the Cloud: Platform 9 ¾

One of my favorite pieces of creative writing has been the outrageously popular Harry Potter series. In particular, I’ve always appreciated how the author managed to weave little pieces of realism into the story by referencing common elements of modern society to offset the wild and wonderful world of wizardry. Take for example the concept of taking a train to Hogwarts, and only being able to access that train from a special platform — platform 9 ¾.

At NetSuite, we have our own special platform — we call it SuiteCloud. While we recognized a long time ago that the cloud is the place to be, we also recognized that not everyone is ready to hop on a broomstick (or worse, travel by floo powder) to get there. We also recognized that no matter how logical we might think our native business processes or flows are, every business is in fact unique. And not only that, business processes can and should evolve over time to become more efficient.

The SuiteCloud development platform helps bridge the gap between NetSuite’s core business processes and those of our customers by providing a number of tools, including SuiteBuilder, SuiteScript and SuiteTalk.

SuiteBuilder allows the user to personalize NetSuite by adding a checkbox to an Item record as a flag for reporting, or by adding custom records (essentially custom tables) to track any information that isn’t native to NetSuite. There are many uses for this type of functionality but a common use seems to be setting up custom records to track data that is stored in one of the many disconnected silos of information that the average business has—typically in a local spreadsheet or database.

As requirements become more complex, SuiteScript (based on the industry standard JavaScript) can be used to provide validation logic or automate business logic. The key here is that any customizations (fields, records, etc.) added using SuiteBuilder are also available to SuiteScript. That means we can not only capture that information that was once kept in isolation and integrate it into the overall business architecture, but we can enhance its effectiveness as well.

Finally there is SuiteTalk, the ability to have NetSuite communicate with your legacy and third-party applications via web services because we realize that it’s not always practical to migrate your information to NetSuite.

Of course we are constantly monitoring enhancement requests by customers, aligning them with our product roadmap and adding core functionality every six months. So while your SuiteCloud configurations will upgrade seamlessly, they may eventually not be required at all!

So there you have it, NetSuite’s answer to platform 9 ¾ and taking the train to Hogwarts. What are you waiting for? Hop on board! We welcome not only you but we welcome the uniqueness of your business and look forward to helping you see how that business looks where it belongs — in the cloud.

Gavin Davidson — Vertical Market Expert, Manufacturing

Manufacturing the Cloud: The Air Conditioned Server Room

So it looks like cloud computing is here to stay after all. Like most innovations, there are a few early adopters while the majority sit back and look on with interest to see where it’s all going to go. Evolution is a pretty cool thing—just ask Darwin.

I’ve been in manufacturing for over 25 years and have seen how manufacturing has evolved.

Over that time I’ve worked with some pretty sophisticated solutions. Or at least that’s what ERP is meant to be—right? A solution to a problem? So if that’s the case, why do some ERP systems often cause more problems than they solve? Shouldn’t a company be more efficient after implementing their solution of choice than before? That would seem logical—but logic doesn’t always come into the equation.

Logic would dictate that not having to buy, maintain, upgrade and care for a plethora of servers to run the abovementioned on-premise ERP “solution” would be a good thing. However, some manufacturers have traditionally been more inclined to spend money on a shiny new piece of production equipment than on an ERP solution. Of course, on-premise ERP does afford the comfort of being able to walk into a specially built, air conditioned server room, admire the large rack of equipment and chat with the IT guy who is lovingly attending to it and praying that that latest virus isn’t going to bring the whole infrastructure crashing down.

With more and more companies now outsourcing their manufacturing operations to specialized manufacturers all across the globe, isn’t now the time to also outsource the management of your IT infrastructure? SaaS solutions (ERP, mail, document management etc.) are uniquely positioned to facilitate this outsourcing with anytime access from (in NetSuite’s case) a variety of devices including your iPhone, iPad and others.

At the beginnings of cloud computing, there was a period when SaaS ERP meant that organizations had to sacrifice functionality for a lower cost of ownership, but that is no longer the case. Take the example of NetSuite, which enables companies to leverage a modern architecture and outsource their financials, marketing, CRM, manufacturing and more. All on a platform that is significantly more flexible and able to evolve, and updates automatically and painlessly.

So today we challenge Darwin’s theory of evolution, at least as far as it applies to the world of ERP and the air-conditioned server room. Let NetSuite worry about keeping your ERP solution running so that you can worry about the evolution that’s most important—the evolution of your business into one that is more efficient, agile and profitable.

- Gavin Davidson, Vertical Market Expert, Manufacturing

Record Number of NetSuite Partners Expected at SuiteWorld 2011

With less than two months to go before the big event, NetSuite has already surpassed 1,000 registrants for SuiteWorld 2011 and the number of customers, partners and developers just keeps growing. While SuiteWorld 2011 is NetSuite’s first user conference, it follows on the heels of last year’s successful SuiteCloud partner-only conference. And SuiteWorld this year includes dedicated content for the NetSuite partner ecosystem.

With an agenda featuring content for every type of partner, NetSuite is preparing to host its largest annual gathering of channel partners, system integrators, software developers, and strategic business partners as part of SuiteWorld 2011.  NetSuite partners are signing up in droves as event sponsors and conference attendees to experience the numerous benefits SuiteWorld offers, including:

• Learning about the latest product features and benefits from NetSuite and our SuiteApps partners
• Gaining access to NetSuite experts in product management, channel enablement, and customer support
• Networking with other business partner professionals and NetSuite executives
• Tapping the collective knowledge and best practices of NetSuite experts in sales and marketing to accelerate your success in the market

This year NetSuite is lining up an exciting agenda for our business partners. On Monday afternoon, May 9^th all partners are invited to attend a Special Partner Update session that takes place just prior to the SuiteWorld Welcome Reception. Then, from Tuesday through Thursday, NetSuite delivers a wide range of breakout sessions to assist partners in selling and marketing NetSuite, including:

• The Art of Solution Selling with NetSuite
• 5 Keys to Success in Marketing Lead Generation
• NetSuite Solutions & Competitive Selling – Part 1
• NetSuite Solutions & Competitive Selling – Part 2
• Vertical Solutions: Running a Wholesale/Distribution Business Faster and Smarter
• Vertical Solutions: Powering the Next-Generation of Software Companies
• Vertical Solutions: Transforming and Elevating Professional Services
• Vertical Solutions: Managing a Manufacturing Business with NetSuite
• Vertical Solutions: Leveraging NetSuite.org to Reach New Markets and Sell into Nonprofits
• Dueling Demos – NetSuite in Action

We look forward to greeting our NetSuite business partner community at SuiteWorld 2011 and delivering yet another valuable and rewarding experience. Come join us May 8-12 in San Francisco!

Amede Hungerford - Sr. Director, Partner Marketing

Stop the Software Integrations!

For many years, small businesses have been purchasing “best-of-breed” business systems for every department of their organization and then dealing with the repercussions of those decisions later.  It makes sense at first because this approach solves your most immediate pain, shuts up the most loudly screaming department head for awhile, and seems to be the least complicated way of solving their problems.  So companies end up with one system for sales, another for accounting, maybe Excel to manage their inventory and fulfillment processes, a few custom-built systems in the middle, another database to handle customer service and support, a platform for their ecommerce needs if necessary, and Excel everywhere else.

However, as companies grow and become more mature, this cornucopia of systems, labyrinth of databases, and hairball of business software integrations becomes unmanageable.  

IT spends all of its time and money creating new integrations, maintaining old ones, and then re-creating these integrations each time the company upgrades one piece of their software puzzle—and, as a result, the department has no time to create solutions to help the business grow and be more productive.  

Analysts spend days and weeks tying data from one system to another and wasting  time that could be better spent on other projects.  Executives and decision makers have to wait weeks, or even months, to get these reports and, by the time they receive them, the information is outdated and filled with inaccuracies caused by having multiple “versions of the truth.”  

Employees spend unnecessary hours of their days typing data from their sales force automation system into their order management systems, accounting systems and support systems. They’re unable to spend their time on more strategic, high-impact projects that leadership wants to make progress on.  

Customers receive their orders late and too many receive the wrong packages because of a broken order management process caused by siloed systems and manual processes.  Because there are multiple customer databases running, sales and service representatives can’t answer basic customer question about inventory levels, order status and customer issues, and sales representatives don’t have adequate processes and information to manage renewals and identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities. 

Finance takes weeks and months to close their books because they are collecting and appending data from multiple sources.  And the business ends up paying much more on licenses for several systems, so even more money is wasted.  

Ultimately, these issues cause the business to start losing to their competition because it can’t efficiently scale its business for growth, can’t move quickly enough, and can no longer provide the strong customer experience their customers expect.
At NetSuite, we have a name we use when we run in to this all-to-common business affliction——Software Hairball Syndrome (SHS).  We’ve created a humorous video about this business disease.  Check out the video.

We have also launched a competition for businesses who tell us about their own software hairball.  The most painful cases of SHS that we receive will win a two-night trip to San Francisco for our annual Hairball Awards competition.  If you have SHS or know of another business that suffers from this affliction, register for our contest today! 

-Rob Israch 
Director, Demand Generation 

SuiteApp Spotlight: Bringing Cloud Content Management to NetSuite with Box.net

Did you ever send a document to a customer only to find out it did not include the last edits from a colleague because those are still stuck in your inbox?

You store a lot of business information in NetSuite and use NetSuite to collaborate with colleagues around that information. Can NetSuite also help you to collaborate around - say - spreadsheets?

NetSuite is very good at manipulating business information that is stored in standard and custom records and making that information available to everybody in real time. If you need to track text documents, spreadsheets, presentations or other files, you can attach them to NetSuite records to keep those files together with the relevant NetSuite data. However, providing the ability to collaborate around those files is not core ERP/CRM functionality.

Customers have been asking us for a SaaS solution that allows them to collaborate around files from within NetSuite. Following these requests, we've partnered with Box.net to bring cloud content management and collaboration to NetSuite. 

Box.net was founded in 2005 on the idea that users should be able to access and share their files from anywhere. The Box.net solution is already in use by over 3 million individuals, small businesses and Fortune 1000 companies, and is now integrated with NetSuite.

Think of "Box for NetSuite" as the central cloud for your company's non-structured content, keeping departments and outside parties in sync by providing a central platform for crucial business files. For example, your marketing team can ensure that your sales representatives always have the latest collateral, your sales team can work on a proposal in a central place, or your professional services team can collaborate internally and with the customer on a Statement of Work that is attached to the relevant customer record in NetSuite.

With the integration, Box’s collaboration and workflow tools are now accessible directly from within NetSuite, making it easy for users to access, manage and share files without leaving NetSuite. The Box.net team has done an excellent job integrating their solution. NetSuite records have a Box.net tab (just like NetSuite’s “Files” tab) from where you can attach files to records and make them available to others in view-only or edit mode. Roles and permissions follow the NetSuite permissions: if a user has access to a certain record, he or she also has access to the associated files stored on Box.net.

1. Box.net tab on NetSuite record

Additionally, there is a user interface built into NetSuite from where you can store and collaborate on files that are not associated with CRM, ERP or Ecommerce records, bringing the full functionality of Box.net inside NetSuite.

 
2. Box.net's full user interface inside NetSuite

One of the great features of Box.net is that not everybody needs to have a Box.net license to collaborate. For instance, a Sales Rep with a Box.net license can make a proposal available to a customer and even though the customer does not have a Box.net license, she can still collaborate on the proposal through a web browser or Box.net’s iPhone, iPad or Blackberry app.

If you are looking for cloud content management, I encourage you to check out Box for NetSuite on SuiteApp.com. If you would like to be contacted by the Box team, you can fill out this form.

All About the Cloud Conference

Last week the SIIA (Software & Information Industry Association) hosted the 2010 All About the Cloud conference in San Francisco. This conference is 2.5 days packed with information on the latest trends and developments in the industry. Attendees and exhibitors encompassed software companies from start-up stage to blue chip, Fortune 100 companies, as well as service providers who provide on-premise vendors with services that will help them make the leap to the cloud.

On the second day of the conference, SIIA announced the winners of the CODiE awards, the industry’s only peer-reviewed awards program. NetSuite was the recipient of 3 CODiE awards – more than any other vendor. We were awarded Best Relationship Management Solution (beating out Salesforce.com), Best Business Software Solution (beating out Intacct), and Best Cloud Infrastructure Software.

It was a great show and we look forward to connecting with all of the prospective customers and partners that visited our booth.

- Carl Pezold