NetSuite Introduces ERP For Services Companies

NetSuite introduced a version of its enterprise resource planning [ERP] software suite for services companies today, including support for multi-country and subsidiary management.

NetSuite follows in the footsteps of Salesforce.com and CODA, which have also recently introduced cloud-based ERP suites for the burgeoning services sector.

NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson, who rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, explained that services companies needed a product tailored specifically to their needs, as opposed to customizing a product that had been originally created for manufacturing companies. “There are very different processes for companies that sell things, as opposed to companies that sell time,” he said.

Nelson said that the new SaaS service, NetSuite OneWorld SRP, gives global services businesses comprehensive real-time visibility, integrated financials, resource optimization and services management from corporate, to subsidiaries, down to the individual project level across geographies, currencies, and tax jurisdictions.

The product includes automated multi-currency management, built-in support for international tax and compliance, and revenue recognition management. The application also includes global dashboards and reports that combine financial and operational project drivers (such as utilization, profitability) for projects, subsidiaries, geographies and at the corporate level.

But as opposed to tracking a piece of inventory as a traditional ERP application would do, the SRP application can track employees, projects, time and other elements of a services-oriented business.

Nelson demonstrated the different views of the same order seen by a company’s CEO and by a sales representative, as well as an iPhone app with reports redesigned to make the best use of the iPhone’s rectangular form factor and flick technology for moving from one report to the next.

The new service is the result of a joint effort between NetSuite and Open Air, a project management software vendor that NetSuite acquired in 2008. Both existing Open Air and NetSuite customers can log on to the new service using a single sign-on, Nelson said.

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