With SaaS (software as a service) becoming very popular lately, and allowing CRM to become such a core of business, we’re starting to see competition really spark up at last. For a while there, everyone just kind of did their thing, and that was that. Now, they’re all getting aggressive. Netsuite financials is an example of this. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
CRM Contenders:
CRM is where Netsuite became famous, just as Force.com did. In the beginning, Salesforce seemed to claim the top, and retain it fiercely. With the app exchange system it had from near the beginning, and the exposed API which let it integrate with other services, competition was more or less pointless.
But now, Netsuite has the same kind of expandability and capacity to integrate, which means that it’s on. With this big move, they’re also branching into a whole lot of new niches. This is where we come to Netsuite financials.
We’ve Been Here Before:
We’ve alluded to this in the past, talking about other new Netsuite offerings. But, it bears discussing again. You see, Netsuite is kind of overstepping a development period Force.com had on their way to this.
Netsuite is offering an overall package, with their high quality CRM as a core, and other systems and service extensions being able to be added on or removed at any time.
We see this from Force.com, with Salesforce and Financialforce, but Netsuite took it a step further, making them just layers on one solid platform. And, in the case of their financial system, it’s a solid platform.
This can tie in with HR tracking, BI valuing, and of course, CRM, and that makes for a powerful tool.
See, CRM is now the core of business. Marketing uses it, sales and product management use it, and customer service uses it as well.
Before, if customer service or product management needed the other financial aspects and balances that come along with everything, it’d be hard to keep it synced up properly.
It made for a lot of manual data transfers, even if things don’t integrate natively. This is why Force.com’s modularity was such a big hit.
How is It:
Netsuite’s financial system is as good as their CRM system. That actually says a lot, because the only reason Netsuite was overlooked in the past was its lack of that extension system which it now proudly supports.
In all truth, this financial system rivals Financialforce quite amazingly and successfully. There’s not much else to say, in all honest. It simply works well, and that’s all there is to it.
Conclusion:
If you aren’t already married to an SaaS platform, and you’ve overlooked Netsuite so far because you thought it still didn’t support this wide spread functionality and power, then you’ve learned something quite valuable.
I would’ve liked to have given you a more in depth look at Netsuite financials, but honestly, a point for point comparison of this has been done quite adeptly already. You need financial software, and if you’re maybe a bit put off by Salesforce’s high price, then this is a terrific alternative. Heck, it’s not an alternative, it’s an equally valuable and powerful choice all things said.