Is Netsuite integration difficult? That’s a question I’ve seen asked by a lot of people very often in recent times. With the SaaS revolution afoot, people are taking a big interest in some new companies capitalizing on the practicality of niche software design this has opened up. Force.com is a big name, as is Moodle. But, Netsuite is another big one tossed around.
The thing is, people know Moodle is an LMS, and that Salesforce is a CRM tool, but most people don’t really know what Netsuite entirely is. So, people hear about Netsuite integration and they assume it’s a third party service to tie in with Salesforce or something else.
Well, there does exist some interop stuff for that kind of thing, but that’s not what’s meant in this case. Well, in a way it is, and isn’t at the same time.
Integrating Netsuite is basically the adoption of Netsuite services into your business process. From here, a series of sub services are implemented, such as business intelligence, ERP, CRM and the like.
However, with adoption of this, comes integrating other services you use with it, such as mail systems, existing CRM, and whatever else you might have running. Well, this is all doable. As for the specific techniques, well those are all documented and hard to describe in general, because it depends on what it is.
But, some advice I can give in brief about an integration and adoption task like this are as follows.
#1 – Define Your Future Business Anatomy
Knowing you are adopting technology to enhance your business and to evolve into the future, know ahead of time what all software you want doing exactly what, at the same time.
This lets you know the systems you will be using, and how well they all play together. This also lets you map the points where they interact to be sure that they can.
#2 – Build a Team
Set up an SaaS team whose job is to know SaaS, understand how to use it, and implement and maintain it. These are your new web service account jockeys, a special breed of IT. They will plan, implement and tie together all of the services, and keep them running.
Don’t just set up a bunch of stuff, turn it on, and then go on running in ignorance, because if it launches at all as a successful infrastructure, it will be not long at all before it crashes to a halt.
#3 – Implement in Stages
Have a set of stages planned out for adoption, starting with your Netsuite services you plan to use. Choose other services around it, in steps ordered by need, which are compliant with Netsuite. You will need a lot less of them, as Netsuite has a lot of services inside it.
Netsuite integration is more about strategic planning of your services and established processes than it is about actually setting up Netsuite itself. All of the technical aspects are documented, and most of them don’t take much more than a few button presses to set up and tie together anyhow. But, this stuff, people don’t think of.