Growing business, expanding reach

Jim McGeever delivering his keynote speech

Nearly two years after it was acquired by and folded into tech giant Oracle, cloud-based business solutions provider NetSuite, as it used to be called, found itself on a faster route to growth.

Its executive vice president, Jim McGeever, said the past 18 months or so saw Oracle NetSuite recording some of its best achievements so far in its history.

“We have recorded the highest customer and employee retention, highest customer satisfaction, most number of new customers and faster revenue growth,” McGeever told customers, partners, employees, analysts and the media in his keynote at the SuiteWorld 2018, which was held late last month in Las Vegas.

Honeymoon stage

He said Oracle NetSuite customers posted an average of 17-percent growth in 2017 while their peers outside of NetSuite grew by only 8 percent.

With the honeymoon stage not even over yet, Oracle NetSuite is already gearing up for a more aggressive expansion of both its product offerings and market reach.

During the three-day

SuiteWorld, the company unveiled several new offerings, including artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities embedded in its cloud-based business solutions software.

In the same gathering, officials announced Oracle NetSuite’s expansion to and establishment of in-country presence in six of the world’s fastest-growing economies—Germany, France, China, Japan, Brazil and Mexico—armed with its NetSuite OneWorld, a unified global business management solution, with added localized product capabilities.

Artificial intelligence

“With new artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities within NetSuite, we’re equipping our customers to understand not only what has happened with their business, but what will happen in the future and how they can stay ahead,” McGeever said.

Designed to provide customers the tools and real-time insights they require to meet the evolving demands of the business, NetSuite has incorporated in its unified cloud suite advance machine learning and sophisticated data science.

Proactive decision

These AI and machine learning capabilities will enable businesses to make proactive and timely decisions and take action using their NetSuite application, the company said in a statement.

“Having business applications that can deliver predictive, prescriptive and automated outcomes is going to be imperative for businesses that want to grow and succeed in the years to come,” a company statement quoted R. Ray Wang, principal analyst and founder of Constellation Research, as saying.

The intelligent cloud suite, according to the company, can deliver benefits across the entire business organization.

AI and machine learning capabilities enable finance and procurement people improve audit risk analysis, analyze past payment history with vendors and customers, and enhance cash flow predictions.

These capabilities will help HR professionals the right people for the right jobs in the organization as they will be able to create comprehensive profiles of the candidates based on the performance of the people in the organization. They will also be able to predict high performers who might be a flight risk and automate employee self-service functions.

For people in charge of the supply chain, the intelligent cloud will be able to identify risks or potential problems in the chain and provide potential solutions.

It will allow faster and more efficient movement of products. It will ensure getting the right products to the right places at the right time which are key to growing businesses.

In the manufacturing department, the intelligent cloud helps in scheduling work and setting warehouse timetables based on past performance or predicted demand.

AI and machine learning will enable commerce professionals boost “searchandising” and improve online sales and conversions by serving products that customers are more likely to buy based on key indicators such as past purchases search history and results of similar buyers.

Accurate information

For people dealing with customers, these capabilities help in getting accurate information about customers’ preference, requirements and likelihood of renewal.

These capabilities will help marketing people optimize their campaigns by identifying the types of campaigns that lead to conversion at what frequency and types of sales based on demographics, profiles in the customer base and activity on the website.

For sales professionals, AI and machine learning support intelligent interactions that guide agents through the sales process.

Market expansion

Given the peculiar and ever changing regulations in many countries around the world, it becomes more challenging for businesses to drive growth locally and globally.

To help customers face this challenge, Oracle NetSuite makes available localized product capabilities and in-country customer support focusing initially on six of the world’s fastest growing economies, which are the usual expansion targets of various businesses—Germany, France, China, Japan, Brazil and Mexico.

Through the expanded NetSuite OneWorld’s localized capabilities, Oracle NetSuite provides businesses that are based or are establishing a presence in these target countries a complete business solution featuring country-specific functions in local languages, currencies and tax systems.

There will be in-country support teams to help and guide these businesses.

OneWorld is a cloud-based on-demand platform that addresses real-time global business management and financial consolidation requirements designed for midsized companies with multinational and multi-subsidiary operations.

Governance requirements

It enables these companies to function using a single account, dealing with different currencies, taxation system and governance requirements.

In China, for instance, NetSuite OneWorld has capabilities that meet China-specific requirements and rules on reporting, accounting and taxation.

In Germany, OneWorld has obtained the certifications validating its use by subsidiaries of multinational corporations in the areas of automated period end closing entries, general ledger impact locking and, soon, legal central bank reporting, fixed asset reporting and bank and cash management updates. OneWorld for France-based companies delivers period end closing journals, reporting, general ledger impact locking, and foreign currency gains/losses variance reporting.

Native support

For Brazil, OneWorld supports services-based companies, particularly in the areas of electronic invoices, electronic statutory reporting and electronic payments integration.

In Mexico, NetSuite customers can benefit from native support for this country’s latest electronic invoicing and electronic accounting requirements.

In Japan, the suite provides enhanced summarized invoice support that enables users to easily follow consolidated invoicing and validation requirements.

At the rate things are going, it looks like parent firm Oracle and NetSuite are really a perfect fit for each other.

Oracle NetSuite, which continues to operate as a separate business unit, leverages Oracle’s existing infrastructure and vast resources globally to expand its reach and grow its business at a faster pace.

NetSuite’s strength in providing cloud-based business solutions to smaller or midsized companies within a very short time, on the other hand, enables Oracle to penetrate this segment of the market that huge companies such as itself find difficult to reach.

“We bought it to grow Netsuite… take it more globally than ever before. We are ecstatic about its prospects,” Oracle CEO Mark Hurd said in a video message aired during the conference.