NetSuite hosted SuiteWorld 2012(opens in new tab) in San Francisco this past May, and once again our customers demonstrated the enthusiasm, creativity and passion that drives success in their business—and drives NetSuite to continue delivering solutions that improve business performance.
In the Services Vertical, that energy was especially evident in the many presentations our customers gave on their use of technology and their success in optimizing business performance. Customer sessions at SuiteWorld were a gold mine of information on successfully running and growing a services organization, covering topics that ranged from better managing profitability targets on projects to aligning the best resources for multiple projects. The topics covered would be of value to any organization focused on services or with a services department.
Product-based customer companies like BMC and GXS, at which services groups are driven by product deployment, provided their insights on success, while consulting executives, such as Collaborative Consulting VP of Operations Richard Curzi, outlined why it’s critical for profitability to drive every project (because of course there is no product to subsidize the practice).
For those with questions about how a professional services automation(opens in new tab) (PSA) system can provide the data needed to plan a business and measure success, our customers delivered insights discussions on those topics as well. Justin Harvey from Sirius Computer Solutions explained how his company uses NetSuite PSA(opens in new tab) to streamline financial operations across multiple business units and focus on strategic business questions. George Peden from Ensequence runs his global practice in the cloud, which he couldn’t have done a few years ago. Both Sirius and Ensequence are benefiting from real-time collaboration across global teams and a “single version of the truth” on their projects.
Additionally, there was plenty of information provided for any organization looking to run its entire PSA(opens in new tab) and ERP(opens in new tab) in the cloud under NetSuite Services Resource Planning (SRP). Lewis Rife from Coaxis shared how his IT group doesn’t use a data center for its operations, and how and why that matters in their investments in IT. And Doug Harr, CIO of Splunk—who knows cloud services as well as any CIO out there—shared best practices to maximizing the value of a cloud investment and getting the whole company to rally around the right systems decisions.
But without a doubt the best conversations weren’t on stage, but were in hallways, across lunch tables and in the NetSuite Partner Pavilion—wherever our customers gathered to probe each other about their businesses. Every business is better when it listens to its customers, and our understanding of our services customers increases exponentially with every SuiteWorld.
While it would be great to experience all that SuiteWorld provides throughout the year, our customers have to go do what they do best—run their business to maximize project effectiveness for their organizations. Luckily for them, and for us, they run their projects on NetSuite.
- Ed Marshall - General Manager, Professional Services Vertical