Our very own Paul Tindal attended NetSuite’s SuiteWorld 2018 conference and said it was an “exciting success”. Growth is the SuiteWorld theme this year, encouraging us to “Grow” as NetSuite grows into new areas, with more scale and focus than ever before under Oracle’s leadership. Pulled from great keynotes, hundreds of sessions, a giant expo hall, and updates to the NetSuite product, below are just a few highlights from Paul to recap the event.

NetSuite Partner Kick off included sneak peeks of new NetSuite features and roadmaps in advance of Evans’s keynote and featured special guest – Ricky Smith Jr (and his card throwing super-powers!)

NetSuite is now THE most widely deployed ERP (not just cloud ERP)

Tuesday Day 1 – Jim McGeever’s Key Note

A lively opening to the key note speech…complete with marching band and guys on stilts….The Greatest Show on Earth? There were a couple of guest customers (Rachel Zoe – fashion designer – and Kara Goldin from Hint)

Grow Wire

The announcement that garnered the most buzz was undoubtedly NetSuite’s new social community/media site for entrepreneurs, Grow Wire. This self-proclaimed “toolkit to help you grow your ideas” includes articles, contributed content and questions from the community, case studies podcasts, and even video content.

SuiteSuccess

NetSuite also officially welcomed 14 new editions of its unified business software platform, SuiteSuccess at SuiteWorld. Those include:

• Starter: For small and rapidly growing company needs.
• Commerce: For retailers and other ecommerce-focused businesses.
• Technology Services: For technology services providers (i.e. project management, sales, order and financial management).
• Consulting Services and Consulting Services Emerging: Two new editions for consulting services organisations.
• Food and Beverage Manufacturer: For food and beverage manufacturers (i.e. demand planning, tracking and traceability).
• Advertising, Media and Publishing: Three new editions for agencies, media and entertainment and publishers.
• OneWorld, Administrator and Accounting: Three new editions for existing NetSuite customers to support global growth.
• Manufacturing and Manufacturing Emerging: Two new editions for manufacturers at different stages of growth.

Mark Hurd CEO Oracle joined via conference call to give his thoughts.

With the acquisition of NetSuite, Mark Hurd CEO of Oracle said that “the cloud has changed things at Oracle. In the past large companies were our customers. Now we can service any size company. Big idea – any size company can have access to the top technology.” The SuiteWorld 2018 keynote emphasised Oracle’s continued investment in NetSuite and their addition of more distribution, more customers and more locations–without adding Oracle’s overhead.

Hurd stated that the NetSuite acquisition had gone exactly as they wanted. They bought with these goals in mind:

• Grow the business
• Grow internationalisation
• Grow micro-verticals
• Cost less and get more
• Provide more innovation
• More secure

It is clear to see that NetSuite and Oracle are on a continuous upward path towards growth, expansion, and continuous improvement.

Paul had a good to chat with Jim McGeever and Evan Goldberg following the opening day keynote.

Jim McGeever stated that “NetSuite is going local to the core. NetSuite’s goal is to provide a local experience, a local product and support by a local team no matter what country you are from”.

Wednesday Day 2 – Evan Goldberg’s Key Note

Keys to growth

Automation, Insight, Control, Agility and Collaboration

Suite Commerce Launch

In the spirit of enabling quick growth for companies of all sizes, NetSuite also announced an innovative new ecommerce product, SuiteCommerce. The service promises to get companies’ commerce solution up and running in 30 days or less, accelerating the speed of business growth significantly.

The SuiteCommerce highlights include:

• New Themes and SCIS available offline (SuiteCommerce InStore).
• Full-Featured SaaS Ecommerce
• Easy Implementation
• Simple Drag-and-Drop Management Tools
• No-Fuss Expandable Capabilities
• Learn more about SuiteCommerce here.

Supply Chain

• Inventory Tracking – inventory status
• Warehouse Automation
• Quality Control
• Change Management

SRP (Service Resource Planning)

• New Resource Search tool
• New billing methods – including a subscription-based price book with introductory offer pricing

Human Resources

SuitePeople to integrate with Taleo Talent Management Solution

Technology

• Infrastructure – new oracle infrastructure using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
• Next Gen JavaScript – starting with ES2018 and following ES.Next to stay current
• Integration – full RESTful support for all records and functions within the core product
• New Customisation structure for cremating and publishing custom fields/lists etc.
• New User Interface!
• Complete new look to User Interface including a new design studio for creating content

NetSuite + AI and Machine Learning

NetSuite is getting smart with the world’s first intelligent cloud suite. While NetSuite’s business intelligence (BI) capabilities have long-provided NetSuite companies with great insights via reporting, the cloud-native solution will now allow companies to get ahead of that data with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities.

SuiteWorld – The Gig!

Warm up act were the Suite Guru’s with Evan Goldberg on drums!

Followed by Royal Machines and specials guests including Macy Gray.

Wednesday Day 3 – Jason Maynard’s Key Note

Final day of the SuiteWorld Conference started with Jason Maynard and his special guest Magic Johnson. Giving insight into his successes (and failures) in not just basketball but the many business ventures he has been involved in over the years. Fabulous, Funny and Inspiring guy! Even with a hangover from the Big Gig!

When Oracle first acquired NetSuite in 2016, there was plenty of speculation around what that meant for this cloud-native ERP solution. Now, two years later, the answer seems to be clear — growth. That message was clearer than ever at SuiteWorld as NetSuite and Oracle prepared attendees to get Ready, Set, Grow.

In the words of NBA legend Magic Johnson: “It’s not enough in the marketplace just to deliver anymore – we’ve got to over-deliver to get the retention we’re looking for.” And NetSuite definitely over-delivered on announcements with plenty of upgrades and new resources for its community to go around.

 

There were a plethora of sessions to attend over the course of the week, too many to attend them all.

I finished the week off with an evening and following day off training on the new Advanced Manufacturing features of Netsuite….rock and roll! It is Las Vegas after all….Tindal has now left the building!

And who said I wasn’t working hard in “Sin City”!