Why NetSuite is perfect for a growing business

Please note: This post was written by Highlander prior to their rebrand to FluidOne Business IT - Sheffield.

There’s no doubt that the last few years have resulted in unprecedented business challenges. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak, and the operational and commercial obstacles that came with it, businesses are still even now readjusting back to ‘normal’. The ripple effects of COVID-19 have been joined by political uncertainty, the ‘great resignation’, geo-political crises, and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

Each of these have had a significant impact on organisations of all sizes, operating in every industry. But despite the barrage of challenges, one thing that has remained is a desire from businesses not simply to overcome them, but to revise approaches, stay innovative and drive continued growth. After all, change often brings opportunity, and for many organisations, especially small to medium sized businesses, now is the time to be proactive and make sensible investments that ready your organisation to capture all future opportunities.

The businesses that have been successful through this difficult period are those with genuine visibility over their performance. Their elevated insights help them set strategies and support faster decision making. But while this is the ideal scenario, many businesses lack the level of insight needed to genuinely interrogate performance. These businesses’ crucial Line of Business (LoB) apps predominantly exist in siloes, which limits integration and blocks an overarching view of performance.

Building up a complete view of where a business is at today can still be achieved but requires significant input from multiple teams. This also takes time, which can delay decision making and, in the worst-case scenario, see that key decisions are rushed or that opportunities are missed. This is where Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions, like NetSuite’s cloud-based ERP, come into their own.

NetSuite brings together disconnected software for back-end processes such as accounting, HR, and manufacturing as well as front-office processes such as ecommerce and marketing automation and consolidates them into a single tool. This creates a single unified platform for all your core business functions that supports seamless operations, delivers real-time data sharing, and ensures complete visibility of your business’ performance at any given time.

With nearly 50% of companies either planning the implementation of an ERP, or already operating one, it’s certainly the best ‘next move’ to be innovative. Understanding where solutions like NetSuite can add value to your business can help you get ahead of others by building a flexible platform that moves, adapts and grows in line with your business.

Here are just some of the reasons why NetSuite is perfect for ambitious businesses:

With all of your core business functions consolidated within a single software platform, you can better access and interrogate key performance metrics in one place. Using a customised dashboard, you can see the performance of your business in real-time. This means seeing everything from financial metrics like revenue and turnover, to detailed breakdowns of resource utilisation and project progress all in one place. Empowered with these insights, you can refine and evolve business strategy and make informed decisions with confidence, even when deadlines are at their tightest.

It might seem obvious, but growing businesses are typically the ones who are maximising on their talent’s potential, and having the right technology in place can go a long way to supporting that. Even if you already have best-in-class tools in place across different departments, the disconnects between these systems can put additional manual burdens on teams needing to harness the support of others in the business. This all takes up time and headspace which could instead be dedicated towards value-creating efforts that move your business forward and keep your people engaged. This also increases the likelihood of mistakes, which further challenges the productiveness of your teams.

By unifying core business functions with NetSuite, you can unlock clever automations that streamline important business functions. This not only accelerates key processes, but removes the burden on your team and gives greater confidence that operational milestones are being met. Read our previous blog to discover other ways that NetSuite helps you do more with less.

As your business looks to grow, you’ll likely identify opportunities to expand and evolve your teams along the way. Adding to your resource will create more capacity to take on bigger and more lucrative projects. But this only adds value if your new recruits can hit the ground running.

With NetSuite deployed across your organisation, both existing and new employees benefit from a consistent and joined-up experience. Not only this but onboarding new staff is easier when your entire business is running from the same software platform. New starters can be trained to use a single system and are better placed to effectively liaise and collaborate with other areas of the business. And should you find yourselves expanding the business through future acquisitions or mergers, you can more easily bring additional business entities into line with your own processes.

By now you can hopefully see the value an ERP can bring to growing, ambitious businesses, but we must stress that no two businesses are the same. To get the real value from your ERP, you need to ensure it’s perfectly aligned to the unique demands and requirements of your business. While NetSuite comes with many of the standard features you’d expect, it’s far from a one-size-fits-all solution.

NetSuite’s modular approach allows you to easily build out a solution with new functionality and capabilities to ensure that nothing you require needs to sit outside of your ERP. Where additional modules aren’t available, powerful APIs allow you to add NetSuite-ready applications created by approved developers via SuiteApp integrations. And should you need something that’s truly unique, NetSuite’s SuiteScript platform supports the creation of customised scripts to deliver truly unique functionality.

With NetSuite in place across your business, you can unlock genuine value-adding capabilities today with a platform that’s ready to meet whatever demands you might have in the future. As a fully cloud-based solution, NetSuite can also be deployed without the cost, delays or complexity of more traditional on-premises based solutions – helping smooth your deployment and unlock the benefits faster.

If you’re interested in NetSuite and would like to learn more about how it could support your business, get in touch with the team.