How does a global company seamlessly replace its legacy accounting system with NetSuite’s OneWorld without creating any downtime in the business? That is what Rick Bradley, head of IT at the Meltwater Group, will share with attendees of the Software Track at SuiteWorld 2014 in San Jose, Calif.
The Meltwater Group, an international IT organization with 54 subsidiaries around the world, migrated from a collection of legacy accounting systems to NetSuite’s OneWorld global ERP platform. Meltwater wanted to standardize and centralize all of its operations and data onto a single set of enterprise applications that could support multiple languages, currencies and tax systems. The company also needed a platform that could be integrated with its proprietary corporate CRM system, and would provide better visibility into its geographically dispersed operations. For example, one of Meltwater’s subsidiaries, the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School had been limited by paper- and Excel-based budgeting processes, which caused the annual audit to take more than a month of work by a half dozen auditors. When the school moved to NetSuite, the time needed for the audit was reduced to just a few hours. It also improved overall business efficiency by 50%.
But managing that transition from Meltwater’s disparate collection of ERP applications, processes and data formats to a single cloud-based platform was a challenge that required careful planning and a rollout schedule aimed at minimizing the disruption to business. Bradley will explain how the Meltwater IT team approached the project, the unique issues they faced, and the results of the migration.
So if you haven’t already mapped out your schedule for SuiteWorld 2014, download the show agenda(opens in new tab) and the Software Track sessions(opens in new tab) now and start creating your own agenda now.