Item: NetSuite ERP
Rating: 8
Author: Michael Horton

Overall Satisfaction with NetSuite ERP

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

NetSuite ERP, as with many other, similar Oracle products is a well designed and (eventually) quite a logical, straight forward, and user friendly tool (once you learn all the caveats and ins & outs) which allows you to easily retrieve and analyze several different types of data from all the differing departments in an organization. It puts all the data into one neatly packaged place. Our organization has assisted clients (I'm a finance operations consultant) in both - implementations, and process imrpovement using this tool. It's a really great all around data storage, organization, and analysis tool. It puts everything in one place and allows you to organize and retrieve in whichever way you like, from whichever dataset/department you need, and this can save so much time when compared to relying on others within the organization to provide you cruical data, since the data is all in the same place, therefore no need to reach out to other departments for much needed data, thereby not causing you to end up waiting on someone else to produce YOUR report.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Logical & Straightforward Organization of Data - it makes sense!
Managing Several Different Data Types from Multiple Departments Without Becoming Convoluted and without sacrificing user friendliness.
New implementations are not difficult to set up at all, and therefore is easy to train newly introduced staff.
There are so many opportunities to innovate in your own way, using the product in your own way, to suit your departmental or analysis needs.
So many opportunities to automate processes and reports!

Cons

Sometimes NetSuite ERP is difficult for many clients to set up
It is definitely not ideal, or even practical, for small to medium businesses
For many organizations, they are unaffordable

Return on Investment

Improved overall time management and efficiency, allowing finance and operations teams to focus on the bigger picture and meaningful analysis.
Direct impact on quarterly profitability for a large health services client of %5 QoQ, due to better coordination and insight into where business efforts and priorities were more appropriately applied, directly resulting in enhanced operations and strategic management.
Greatly enhanced cross-departmental collaboration, as everyone was able to easily retrieve and review data and customized reports created and automated for their department, instead of relying on others, in other departments to provide the data they needed.

Usability

As mentioned previously, it isn't universally applicable in all situations, such as smaller businesses. Generally speaking however, it is amazing as it streamlines so many pieces of business management reporting and strategic decision making, and saves so much time that in the past, we would spend a lot of time just crunching the numbers. In finance, we are always systems that are user friendly, offer a high level of automation, and allows us to focus on the important RESULTS of the data, instead of just spending most of our time compiling it. The fact that it's cloud based also saves us time when for example, the machine crashes, as well as it being much more easy to work while traveling.

Alternatives Considered

Workday Adaptive Planning, Oracle Hyperion and SAP Business Warehouse

In the past I always had a puzzle to assemble, with regards to data and management & ad-hoc reporting. With NetSuite ERP, as mentioned previously, everything is in one easy to retrieve place, and all the systems are there and cohesive. Although Workday Adaptive Planning and HFM are useful EPM systems, they lack the added functionality of being able to drill directly down into the details as they are not simultaneously, an ERP system. With those systems it is very often necessary to sign into the ERP (or whichever system, respectively). SAP Business Warehouse in my experience, was not at all user friendly in so many ways, in comparison. Creating dashboards, templates for predefined reports, as well as ad hoc reporting and analysis, are all very straightforward and very automatable in Netsuite, saving my team, as well as clients to whom we have deployed NetSuite ERP, so much time, effort, frustration, and in the end - money. From what I have learned collaborating with other departments, I believe they all would say the same. Perhaps not necessary to re-emphasize, but as mentioned before, it's not a one size fits all situation. I wouldn't recommend it for smaller businesses, such as fewer locations, departments, product lines, etc. to handle. The value for the money there, might not be as easily realized. Then again, it's all relative. There's no such thing as perfection. But my bias definitely leans towards NetSuite ERP in most cases (as well as the other Oracle products I have used in the past).

Key Insights

Do you think NetSuite ERP delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with NetSuite ERP's feature set?

Yes

Did NetSuite ERP live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of NetSuite ERP go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy NetSuite ERP again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Microsoft SharePoint, Oracle Hyperion, Workday Adaptive Planning, SAP HANA Cloud, SAP Business Warehouse

Likelihood to Recommend

NetSuite ERP is great for larger companies with many pieces and types of data to manage - as it comes with several functions service multiple departments on every level of data analysis from summarized dashboards and automated reports, to transaction level data investigation. It's intuitive and actually does improve efficiency, as saves your team from having to do a lot of data retrieves from multiple systems, just to build one report, for example. For small to medium companies, it isn't as feasible as many other systems (even Oracle's other systems) as it is quite pricey and the justification for that would obviously be all of the features and capabilities it has to offer - which likely wouldn't be utilized. Perhaps I have a bias towards Oracle though. I really do prefer Oracle products to begin with - HFM, Essbase, Oracle BI, etc. - for the automation possibilities and straightforward functioning they all have.

NetSuite ERP Feature Ratings

Comments

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Very Solid All-Around System for Medium to Large Enterprises

Software Version

Modules Used