LAS VEGAS - If it seems like new features and product improvements are coming to the NetSuite platform faster than ever — they are. In the five years since Oracle acquired NetSuite, total product investment has doubled, and NetSuite has used that funding to double down on customer-centered design. That means soliciting feedback from thousands of customers and addressing their biggest pain points to help them run their businesses better.

SuiteWorld21 Keynote Speaker Gary Weissinger

During Wednesday morning’s keynote at SuiteWorld 2021, Gary Weissinger, NetSuite’s senior vice president of product management, highlighted a number of recent and upcoming system improvements designed to help customers acquire clients, optimize cash management and profitability, enhance their products and service offerings and empower their employees.

Here are a few highlights from the Day 2 keynote:

New Tools to Increase Sales, Customer Counts

Acquiring more customers and increasing spend from existing clients is a critical goal for almost any company. The new Customer 360 feature builds on the existing functionality of SuiteCommerce and NetSuite CRM to deliver all key information and insights on buyers in one place.

Customer 360 tracks behavior and shows key performance indicators (KPIs) like customer lifetime value, customer profitability, year-to-date sales, remaining credit and other key numbers. A menu allows users to choose between categories, like sales and relationships, to find the insights they’re looking for. The goal of all this data, of course, is to help sales reps sell more.

“As Kevin [O’Leary] said yesterday, this data about your customers is incredibly valuable, and as he called it, ‘the new oil,’” Weissinger said.

Weissinger demonstrated how a user can see browsing behavior by customer and item to determine whether it’s the right time to approach a buyer about purchasing an item. The tool can also leverage data to provide intelligent product recommendations, which are already available in NetSuite’s SuiteCommerce ecommerce solution and coming soon to NetSuite CRM.

Also available are 10 prebuilt NetSuite Connectors that make it easier than ever to reach prospective customers wherever they are. Connectors cover popular marketplaces and ecommerce sites including Amazon, eBay and Walmart; leading ecommerce platforms like Shopify and Magento; and fulfillment providers such as Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and ShipStation.

These seamless integrations automate the flow of data between NetSuite and the other systems and services necessary for modern commerce. For example, when someone marks an Amazon order as fulfilled in NetSuite, Amazon is notified and can pass along that update to the customer.

NetSuite is releasing an array of additional 360 dashboard features in areas such as cash management and projects.

New and Improved Supply Planning

In light of ongoing major supply chain disruptions, NetSuite rebuilt its supply planning function. Users can see the impact of multiple scenarios, like moving from a 3PL to in-house inventory management or using contract manufacturing,

“We know that you need to be able to react more and more quickly to changes in your business environment,” said Laura Maready, principal product manager for retail at NetSuite. “So we created a dedicated planning repository so planning runs light and fast.”

In addition, a new planning workbench helps employees filter all these plans by item, product location, category and more so they can see what matters to them. Employees can save their favorite views within the planning tools for a quick snapshot of where things stand and what actions they need to take that day.

Infrastructure and UX Improvements

As NetSuite continues the transition to running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) data centers, Ryan Grisso, NetSuite’s senior vice president of product engineering, noted some of the benefits of the move. With the support of Oracle, NetSuite can now stand up new data centers dramatically faster than it could before. That means more customers will be closer to data centers, reducing latency and leading to other performance gains.

Customers will be able to schedule their transition to OCI to minimize disruption, and Grisso said customers will soon be able to schedule major NetSuite version upgrades for a time that’s best for them.

NetSuite is also taking the lead from Oracle when it comes to user experience. Weissinger previewed how NetSuite will adopt elements of the Oracle Redwood design to provide a user experience more similar to that of popular consumer apps. For example, a rep might initiate a sale by clicking an “Add” button next to the appropriate items within NetSuite, imitating the experience of online shopping.

“The system will work hard to understand you, not the other way around,” he said.

Connecting HR to the Suite

NetSuite’s SuitePeople solution processes more than $3 billion in payroll transactions annually, but that’s not to say it’s just a payroll tool. Hanif Ismail, vice president of product management and strategy, showed how employers can quickly set up overtime rules with daily and weekly thresholds and parameters for holidays. As employees log hours, the payroll system then knows how to split up regular and overtime pay, and can even visualize this breakdown in a color-coded schedule.

Setting up a 401K employer match is similarly straightforward, with the employer filling out just a few fields to provision that benefit.

Ismail explained that employee goals can be directly tied to work done within NetSuite. For example, when an employee makes 30 cold calls and records that activity in NetSuite CRM, that progress will be reflected in the goal to make 100 cold calls in a given week.

In 2021 alone, NetSuite has rolled out 160 enhancements that customers requested. And that number will continue to rise. As Weissinger stressed at the end of his keynote, customer concerns will always shape the evolution of the NetSuite.

“I want to thank you for entrusting us with helping you do your jobs, run your businesses, pursue your missions,” he said. “It’s a responsibility we take incredibly seriously, and we will continue doing everything we can to power your success.”