I presented in the NetSuite Business Cloud seminar series in its final leg – in Chicago and Atlanta. The 6 week tour had previously been to London, Sydney, Manila and New York. While I did not envy some of the NetSuite employees for that travel, jet lag et al, the energy level in the 2 sessions I participated in was really high.
The customer panels and the lively audience q&a that followed were particularly striking. In Chicago, it was Dave Weiss, Director of Internet Marketing at Wrigleyville Sports (they sell Cubs and other sports merchandise), Jim Holtzman CFO of Fieldglass (a SaaS contractor management solution) and Aaron Judy, VP of Technology & Operations at Wonderlic, Inc. (The cognitive testing company). In Atlanta, it was Chris Hauser, CFO, NASCO (healthcare claims processing) and Calvin Jackman, Controller, Mycom North America Inc.(telco network management services).
What was striking to me was how widely NetSuite has penetrated these enterprises – in some cases 80+% of all employees are using the system. How well integrated some of their web stores are with NetSuite. How NetSuite has made effortless for these growing companies. currency and local tax maintenance via other web service providers. How several of them talked about their growth without needing to add back office staff or IT infrastructure. How these customers sought out and bought NetSuite in spite of fact that it does not have sales offices in either city.
Most SaaS success stories we hear are about on the edges – CRM, HR related. It was great to hear core transactional experiences with customer orders, materials and supplier issues and of course, financials.
Hey Vinnie.
Had a great time at the event, and it was nice to meet you.
You know, I've been around for a long, long time in the ERP implementation business. It's unbelievable how many implementations either fail or are very late in delivery, or come in over budget. And the upgrade process? Fuggedaboudit.
NetSuite is the first system I've ever implemented that just worked. Upgrades have been silky smooth. No more falling behind two major versions on your ERP system because the accounting department went gun shy after an upgrade-gone-bad.
And it's all in the cloud - I can work from anywhere at any time. Like right now at 2:20 AM on a Friday night.
It's a great system.
Posted by: Dave Weiss | November 07, 2009 at 03:24 AM