NetSuite Founder and EVP Evan Goldberg announced a slate of products that business can use to move “full suite ahead” during his keynote presentation at SuiteWorld, NetSuite’s annual conference. The new products join NetSuite’s lineup of functionalities that work together as one suite, the power of which Goldberg illustrated with company stories.

Goldberg applauded the ingenuity of NetSuite’s 32,000 customers – a jump from 27,000 at the time of last year’s keynote – before detailing the system’s latest functionalities.


NetSuite CPQ

Earlier this year, NetSuite announced the acquisition of Verenia CPQ, and this functionality is newly available in NetSuite, Goldberg said. He showed how sales teams can use NetSuite CPQ to configure, price, and quote (CPQ) complex offerings. First, they might walk their customers through a series of options that have been validated to all fit and work together, leading to the perfect product configuration. The system calculates pricing and promotions in real time, then teams can complete a quote and turn it into a formal proposal. With customer approval, that proposal becomes a sales order.

Goldberg also explained how NetSuite CPQ links to the rest of the suite: A configuration drives a bill of materials, which flows into NetSuite manufacturing modules. CPQ activities reflect in NetSuite financials, too.

Goldberg highlighted Granite Equity Partners, a private investment and long-term holding organization that uses NetSuite CPQ alongside NetSuite’s ERP, reporting and analytics capabilities. With NetSuite CPQ, Granite helps portfolio companies update product configurations and pricing levels for complex offerings.

NetSuite Ship Central

NetSuite is also introducing Ship Central, Goldberg said. The “end-to-end shipping experience” guides warehouse workers through the packing and shipping process from a mobile device or kiosk. Teams can use Ship Central to avoid inefficiencies like accidentally disregarding specific packing instructions and shipping orders in multiple boxes when just one would suffice.

Goldberg showed how warehouse employees can use Ship Central by scanning cartons, pallets, or orders to quickly find shipments that need to go out. The system groups products with common criteria, like carrier and address, into a single shipment. It also lets teams print customizable labels, reprint labels, and change label details at any point. Finally, Ship Central provides carrier tracking numbers for real-time tracking of a shipment’s location.

Ship Central communicates with NetSuite’s inventory and order management solutions, automatically updating orders in NetSuite as soon as they’re fulfilled and shipped. It also updates inventory levels, order status, and financial data in real time.

NetSuite SuitePeople Workforce Management

Managing employees in a way that spurs retention shouldn’t be as hard as it is for many companies, Goldberg said. He debuted SuitePeople Workforce Management, a solution born from the acquisition of Adi Insights which targets worker shift scheduling, time tracking, and wage calculation.

SuitePeople Workforce Management recommends staffing levels based on forecasted customer demand, nixing the need for spreadsheets. Workers clock in and out with a digital time capture solution, and managers can set up photo or fingerprint when clocking in for added verification. The system automates wage calculations, which can flow into SuitePeople Payroll, NetSuite’s payroll solution. Then, payroll auto-updates to the NetSuite general ledger.

NetSuite AP Automation

Goldberg next showcased NetSuite AP Automation, a solution designed to make processing invoices and paying suppliers highly efficient. Bills are scanned into NetSuite, which creates bill records and handles 2- and 3-way matching. Bill payments can be made directly from NetSuite with embedded payment services from HSBC, and businesses that use HSBC virtual credit cards can earn cash back rewards.

NetSuite AP Automation automatically imports bank and card data into NetSuite each day, Goldberg said, which smooths reconciliation.

Company Success Stories

Goldberg introduced a selection of companies, many household names, that have fueled recent achievements with NetSuite.

Bombas: John Wheeler, VP of business systems for sock and apparel brand Bombas, took the stage to explain how the Bombas accounting team uses automation from NetSuite and NetSuite partner Avalara. Avalara President and COO Amit Mathradas described how the solution automates compliance with the oft-changing rules of United States tax jurisdictions – which allows the Bombas team to spend more time on its mission of donating clothing to those in need.

Steeda Autosports: Goldberg next highlighted Steeda Autosports, the world’s biggest manufacturer of aftermarket Ford performance parts. Amid a pandemic-driven demand uptick, Steeda adopted NetSuite. For the first time, the company could display inventory availability from its warehouse, distributors, and suppliers on its ecommerce site in real time. The back-end boost contributed to 25,000 ecommerce transactions last year.

Thread: Accessories retailer Thread then took the spotlight with its revamped demand forecasting process. Thread consolidates data from NetSuite, Shopify, and Google Sheets in NetSuite Analytics Warehouse, then uses the resulting insights to forecast demand. Its marketing team uses those insights to adjust its campaigns, and finance and sales use them to quickly determine where they stand against forecasts.

March of Dimes: Goldberg then introduced the story of March of Dimes, one of the oldest nonprofits in the country. The organization ran a 30-year-old business system until four years ago, when it automated tedious accounting tasks with NetSuite. The shift contributed to March of Dimes raising $23 million through its annual March for Babies event last year.

Studio McGee: Studio McGee started as an interior design service before launching an ordering service, D2C ecommerce store, and brick-and-mortar store. Along the way, the business replaced Xero, Stitch Labs, and ShipStation with NetSuite. It added SuiteCommerce MyAccount to customize invoices and make ACH payments in the system, then NetSuite Analytics Warehouse and NetSuite Planning & Budgeting. Operationally, the company has added subsidiaries to handle ventures like its licensing deal with Target.

D2C companies continue to face high shipping costs and long waits to receive product, said Studio McGee President Patrick Ord in an onstage chat with Goldberg.

“Monitoring all those dynamics is really challenging, so we rely on NetSuite to understand our landed cost and manage our inventory,” he said.

Pitch Competition

The keynote wrapped up with a pitch competition in which three founders showcased their startups before a panel of judges including Goldberg; Anita Roberts, founding partner at venture capital firm Silicon Hills Capital; Preston James II, CEO and co-founder of entrepreneurial diversity initiative DivInc; and David Heath, founder of Bombas.

Tony Aguilar, founder of Chipper, pitched his app which helps users pay off student loans, lower their payments, and qualify for forgiveness programs. OpticSurg founder Dr. Tran Tu Huynh detailed her product’s use of augmented reality to boost collaboration among healthcare providers. And UInclude co-founders Toshe Ayo-Ariyo and Sonal Patel demoed how hiring teams can use their tool to find more candidates faster by crafting more inclusive job descriptions.

After an audience vote, Chipper took the pitch competition’s top prize. Each startup earned entry into the NetSuite Accelerator, along with its pipeline to processes, best practices, guidance, and technology from the NetSuite team.

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