NetSuite SuiteWorld18 Recap

By - May 8, 2018

After the first full year of integration with Oracle, NetSuite’s SuiteWorld conference gives us a good indication of how the alliance with NetSuite is going and what we can expect going forward. NetSuite wasn’t a typical acquisition from Oracle, and they stood up a Global Business Unit to allow it to continue to operate and grow independently while still leveraging its massive network. Executives are playing well, often seeing Jim McGeever and Mark Hurd together (this year with Mark joining via satellite) and we know Evan Goldberg and Larry Ellison go way back.

That said, we’ve been wondering what going global really means for them, as well as patiently waiting to see which Oracle products might start showing up in the mix.

A couple of highlights before the larger digest of announcements to follow.

Intelligent Suite

First, the introduction of the Intelligent Suite, intended to provide more automation and leveraging machine learning. This is a great decision for NetSuite and I’m pleased to see them start down this path. We’ll see how this evolves, but give NetSuite a positive check mark in this category.

Globalization

With Oracle, NetSuite has the ability to grow on a global scale and touted being in 199 countries. The big hurdle here is around localization to which they announced that they need to be local to the core. Jim admitted failure of global launches back in the early 2000’s when entering markets such as England and Japan. They created separate business models because they were led to believe you had to do that to succeed. Well those all failed and they’re convinced that you need to stay true to what made you successful in North America and take that to these other countries and from there localize it.

NetSuite’s goal here is “to be more German in Germany than SAP.” They intend to accomplish that with local experience, local product and local teams.

NetSuite’s Jim McGeever talks about being local on a global scale during his keynote at SuiteWorld18 in Las Vegas, NV

SuitePeople

The last item I’ll bring up is around Human Capital Management (HCM). Last year NetSuite announced SuitePeople. This year they’ve taken it a step further by adding an integration to Oracle’s Taleo Business Edition. This is one of the first sightings of integration into other Oracle products that crossover into the middle market.

For the nuts and bolts, here are some basic notes around a sample of announcements:

  • Platform
    • Full REST support
    • UI functions available to developers
    • Webstorm IDE support
    • Next Gen Analytics with API (in Beta, Planned GA 19.1)
      • Query, Pivot, and Charting
      • Revising Metadata
      • Saved Search not going away
    • SuiteQL (SQL)
    • Intercompany Framework
    • SuiteTax
  • SuiteCommerce (“Standard” name dropped) is GA
    • Fits many target segments
    • Extensions, templates, Community
    • 6 Themes today, more coming by industry
    • SiteBuilder not sunset… yet. Won’t support forever
    • Payments API, Solupay, Merchant eSolutions, more coming
    • Upgradeable to SCA (SuiteCommerce Advanced)
  • SuiteBilling
    • Pro – Power of the Suite
    • Pro – Integration to Advanced Revenue Management (ARM)
  • SuiteCommerce In-Store
    • 1 introduces offline capability
    • Offline improves performance
    • Expecting wave of NS-POS migration + new
  • Oracle Products
    • Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS)
      • now in GA
      • Flat file integration – not as robust as Adaptive integration
    • Taleo Business Edition
      • Single direction integration
    • Logfire (Oracle WMS Cloud)
      • Targeted to top 20% of NetSuite users, NS WMS to be enhanced for 80%

Special announcements

Enough with the product updates already…here’s what you’ve really been waiting for…The announcement from the week before SuiteWorld that RSM and Explore Consulting are joining forces. With the transaction expected to close July 1, 2018, there were a few key factors for the deal. First, the expanse of RSM in the Pacific Northwest. While already having offices in the Seattle area, this significantly expands our presence in the region and we’re excited to see future growth. Second, while both RSM and Explore Consulting were consistently a top 5 partner in the NetSuite ecosystem. The Explore Consulting team had a much more robust e-commerce practice which is a focus area for RSM. Joining these companies will bring an unparalleled look into industries that are looking for an omnichannel presence.

Amidst all the news, it can’t be ignored the strength of RSM’s NetSuite team who brought 60 people to the SuiteWorld conference. Add in the Explore team members who were present and a few of RSM’s international firms and the total RSM presence at the conference was 80 people.

For the 6th year in a row, RSM received Partner of the Year honors, taking home the Worldwide Solution Provider Partner of the Year award.

Professionals from RSM’s NetSuite practice on stage at SuiteWorld18 in Las Vegas, NV accepting the award for NetSuite’s 2018 Worldwide Solution Provider Partner of the Year

RSM was a Gold sponsor of SuiteWorld and had a booth right outside of the keynote hall. We were happy to meet and greet with many of our clients and friends and even enjoyed having Suite Stanley stop by. While we talk about all things NetSuite we had a couple of areas that were highlighted at our booth this year.

  1. NetSuite shortcuts – we gave out a laminated NetSuite shortcuts document to help everyday users of NetSuite navigate the system. These went like hotcakes and we were happy to provide an easy way for folks to get more familiar with the system. These are available for download on our website here.
  2. Advanced Revenue Management (ARM) brochures – With much discussion on revenue recognition and the ASC 606 topic, RSM had an ARM task force at SuiteWorld ready to answer all questions related to 606. We provided guidance on all emerging standards including the upcoming Lease Accounting standard, we also provided a case study on our client Carbon Black who just went public, and even had some lessons learned stories from early adopters.

Speaking of ARM, RSM’s education session, “Navigating ASC 606 with NetSuite ARM and Multi-Book: Practical Guidance from a CPA Firm,” was one of the biggest hits of the week with many walking away saying it was the best session they attended all week. It was a packed room with over 150 people in attendance.

RSM education session on ARM and ASC 606

We love meeting with our clients and future clients at SuiteWorld. One way we love to engage is by giving away free stuff. Like the 16 winners of our giveaways. We had 15 people walk away with an RSM YETI coffee mug and one person walk away with a Cambridge Sound Management in home sleep system.

And we can’t do a SuiteWorld recap without talking about the rock show. My personal choice of music will bias me to say that this was the best SuiteWorld rock show yet, but having Ludacris there was as epic as it gets.

Ludacris joins the Royal Machines at NetSuite’s SuiteWorld Rock Show

Until next year, my recommendation would be to subscribe to RSM’s blog where you can get up to date information on NetSuite including invites to our monthly webinar series. You can do that on the right by adding your email to the “Receive New Posts by Email” section.

As we wrap up, I wanted to include some photos of our winners and as always if you have any needs regarding NetSuite, please reach out to our professionals at erp@rsmus.com or 855.437.7202. You can also visit our website at www.rsmus.com/netsuite.

 

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