As a business leader, you know that having the right technology infrastructure is critical for scaling your operations. An increasing number of fast-growing companies are turning to NetSuite, a cloud ERP platform that unifies key business systems – accounting, inventory, CRM, ecommerce and more – into a single platform. 

But is NetSuite the right fit for your specific industry and business needs? In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the key factors to consider when evaluating if NetSuite is right for your organization.

Key Benefits of NetSuite

Before delving into specifics, let’s quickly recap some of the overarching advantages NetSuite offers:

  • Unified platform: NetSuite integrates your core business systems – financials, inventory, order management, CRM, ecommerce – into a single cloud platform. This eliminates the need for disjointed on-premise software and excel spreadsheets.
  • Scalability: NetSuite allows you to easily scale up as your business grows without the need for costly new infrastructure.
  • Real-time visibility: With all your data in one place, you gain complete real-time visibility across your organization.
  • Industry expertise: NetSuite offers tailored solutions for over two dozen industries, from retail and distribution to software and services.

While those key strengths apply across the board, you still need to weigh if NetSuite is the right solution based on your industry, business model, size and specific needs. 

Let’s explore some of top considerations:

Business Size and Stage

As a rule of thumb, NetSuite works best for medium to large companies, typically $5-500 million in revenue. However, it can still provide value at smaller sizes, especially if you anticipate rapid growth. 

For early stage companies just starting out, NetSuite may be overkill – both in terms of complexity and costs. Once you graduate from QuickBooks or other entry-level accounting software, that’s usually when to explore a platform like NetSuite.

Another key factor is if you plan to sell direct to consumers (B2C commerce) versus just to other businesses (B2B). NetSuite’s robust ecommerce capabilities make it well suited for transactional B2C companies.

Business Model

Your business and revenue model also determines if NetSuite is a good match. For product companies with more complex inventory and fulfillment needs, NetSuite provides deep capabilities around supply chain, warehouse and inventory management.  

For services companies, key drivers are NetSuite’s project management and time tracking features. And for subscription/membership businesses, sophisticated recurring billing management and reporting in NetSuite is a key advantage.

Across industries, companies relying heavily on a sales team benefit from NetSuite’s CRM features – pipeline management, commissions calculations and so on. NetSuite also readily handles mixed models – such as services firms with product sales too.

Your Geographic Footprint 

As a cloud platform, NetSuite gives you built-in flexibility to conduct business globally. It provides multi-currency and multi-language capabilities and facilitates country-specific compliance requirements such as Brazil tax filing.

NetSuite’s OneWorld feature allows you to run multiple subsidiaries across countries/regions while unifying financial reporting at the global parent company level. Keep in mind additional customization is often needed to handle country-specific localization needs.

But NetSuite still has room for improvement in some regions like Asia, where localization capabilities lag versus North American and European standards. So factor in your global expansion plans when evaluating NetSuite.

Industry-Specific Requirements

Now let’s explore how NetSuite fits the unique needs across some major industries:

Manufacturing & Distribution

For product companies, NetSuite shines with supply chain optimization, warehouse management (WMS), bills of materials and assembly builds for light manufacturing, demand planning and more. Features like standard costing provide complete multi-level visibility into costs-to-build while routings and work orders support shop floor scheduling. 

However, some limitations still exist. NetSuite WMS capabilities won’t match best-of-breed solutions like Manhattan. And companies with complex make-to-order needs may outgrow baseline NetSuite manufacturing features over time. But the system scales to support contract manufacturers if needed.

Retail & Ecommerce

NetSuite is very well suited to retail and other transaction-focused industries. Multi-channel selling, customer segmentation and automated merchandising and upsell features allow sophisticated omni-channel retailing.

And turnkey ecommerce integration with NS Commerce, plus a SuiteCommerce advanced option, enables fully branded self-service websites and stores that sync in real-time with back-end financials and inventory data. This combination of omni-channel selling and back-end operational support is a key advantage for retailers using NetSuite.

Advertising, Media & Publishing

The advertising and media world relies heavily on managing accounts receivables and publisher payments. NetSuite sophisticated AR management combined with revenue recognition features make it a good fit for tracking complex ad agency and publisher agreements. Pre-built select integrations also exist for key media platforms like Google Ad Manager.

However, stock media asset management and workflow isn’t a core strength. So additional functionality would need to be built out to support those complex needs. But NetSuite can readily scale to support large, asset-intensive publishers and broadcasters.

Professional Services & Agencies

For professional services firms like marketing agencies, NetSuite shines with project management features, recurring billing management and time tracking. And agencies can benefit from CRM capabilities for pipeline and account management. Integrated analytics provide insights into resource utilization and profitability by engagement.

However, services firms don’t require inventory or extensive supply chain support. So specialized systems like Deltek that focus squarely on agency needs can sometimes be a better fit. But for diversified services firms, NetSuite likely provides ample feature breadth.

Nonprofits 

Matching fund accounting needs for nonprofit organizations requires specialized functionality that NetSuite supports with the NPSP extension (NetSuite Platform Special Edition). This facilitates superior grant and fund management, including frequency restrictions, oversight requirements and more.

NPSP provides nonprofits with the flexibility necessary for donation tracking against campaigns and funds, monitoring overhead ratios and reporting on the full lifecycle of the gifts they receive and resources they expend. Custom fields, records and workflows can all be configured to comply with changing audit standards without requiring major system rewrites. As necessary regulations change, NPSP can adapt through configuration vs coding.

Financial Services

Specialized financial applications for banking, insurance and similar sectors requires significant custom programming on top of base NetSuite capabilities. So out-of-the-box, financial services solutions will provide more robust capabilities.

However, company size often dictates solution choices within banking and lending institutions. And scaled to enterprise-level implementations, SuiteBanking and SuiteFinancials can match these vertical needs for some financial services firms.

Summary – Key Selection Criteria

In summary – expanding into new markets? Prioritizing business insights? Scaling sales and support teams globally? Ensuring regulatory oversight? Each business objective ladders up to a few pivotal technology decisions. Getting them right is crucial to support your vision of success.

To recap, run through this checklist of key selection criteria when evaluating NetSuite:

  • Your growth trajectory and long-term vision
  • Number of employees and organizational structure 
  • Whether you sell B2B or B2C
  • Your geographic footprint and global expansion roadmap
  • Mix of product/supply chain needs versus services project focus 
  • Need for industry-specialized capabilities or pre-built integrations
  • Appetite for customization and specialized platform enhancements  

Carefully weighing these considerations will frame both the risks and opportunities of NetSuite as your cloud ERP backbone.

Why Choose SuiteRep for NetSuite Implementation?

When it comes to seamlessly implementing and customizing NetSuite for your ecommerce operations, few partners match SuiteRep’s expertise. Since 2009, we’ve deployed over 500 stores and processed over $1 billion in sales. Plus with 1000+ NetSuite sites under management, SuiteRep handles more stores than any other agency. 

Here’s why you should choose SuiteRep as your NetSuite implementation partner:

Hands-on Experience

Our team doesn’t just know the NetSuite platform – we actively contribute to developing the core product at NetSuite. Our Vice President of Technology sits on the NetSuite Partner Advisory Council influencing the product roadmap while several developers serve on NetSuite’s Solutions Partner Development team coding outbound APIs. 

Unmatched Customization Capabilities

With dedicated developers on staff plus strong partnerships forged from years as a top NetSuite agency, SuiteRep can build completely custom experiences within NetSuite leveraging headless architecture. And we take pride in blending creativity with technical excellence for truly enterprise-grade solutions.

Proven NetSuite Expertise 

As a Premier NetSuite Agency Partner since nearly the beginning, no other firm has more cumulative NetSuite experience than SuiteRep. Our team holds more NetSuite certifications than anyone globally. You’ll benefit directly from skills honed over 10+ years.

White Glove Services

We believe the “white glove” treatment shouldn’t just be for VIP shoppers. Every client receives our concierge-level service, expertise and attention to detail. That includes dedicated account management, solution architects, and complete transparency into project plans, resourcing and budgets.  

Finally, our fixed-fee quotes ensure no surprise overages. And we stand behind our work. So as we like to say, “You’ll actually enjoy working with us!”

The Bottom Line

Choosing the right commerce platform is hard enough. Don’t trust implementing it to just any partner. With over 10 years focused specifically on NetSuite, no one rivals SuiteRep’s expertise in successfully activating all facets of the platform. 

SuiteRep: We wrote the book on NetSuite deployments – literally!