When you look at SaaS literature or SaaS rating material these days, you undoubtedly have noticed that like in any other market, a number of names have taken ranks of celebrity among the majority of people. Like Microsoft and Apple dominate PCs, Force.com and Netsuite dominate the CRM and multi-facet business suite markets. But, while Netsuite’s CRM is getting lots of PR, what’s up with Netsuite ERP being ignored?
What’s ERP:
Well, before we talk about the Netsuite ERP system, let’s talk about what ERP is. The problem is that a lot of people are used to this being a series of overlapping other niches. So, ERP as its own thing, that’s kind of foreign to many. No shame in it, this is moderately recent stuff!
ERP is enterprise resource planning. This entails product planning, cost and development tracking, manufacturing and production management, marketing and sales, inventory and shipping and payment/finances.
Now you can see where this is traditionally stuff handled individually, not as a sophisticated unit.
Is ERP Better:
Is a solid ERP system to take on all of these aspects an improvement over just a set of SaaS tool chains to comprise it? Well obviously, it would be. This ensures absolute compatibility and integration of the data and modeling that each tool works with, across the board.
Of course, this is a commitment, because it’s all under an umbrella, in this case, Netsuite.
Well, so what?
Why Netsuite:
So we’ve argued that ERP is a good idea as a singular niche unit. So, why Netsuite? Well, with Netsuite, you get this whole system, including their award winning CRM with one single setup. It’s so simple and so instantly powerful.
With their leading competitor, Force.com, you have to keep tacking things together, even if it’s under their umbrella, at a costly level in order to get this effect.
“I want to compare myself, though. What metrics should matter?”:
Well, if you want to compare this ERP solution to their big competitors, here are some things to keep in mind.
#1 – Database Space
Database capacity is critical, and you’d be shocked how often big name solutions are crippling in this department. I’d quote direct comparisons for you, but they’re never the same for very long, obviously. Pay attention to that. The more the merrier here.
#2 – Mobile Support
Ok, mobile support is extremely important. You see, while the browser concept sounds like it should be perfectly compatible over mobile, that’s not entirely accurate.
Sure, mobile browsers are fine now, but how awkward is an on mobile interface scaled on that? So, native apps for Android, Windows, Blackberry and iOS are big pluses.
Conclusion:
Ok, I’ve not really hyped features of this or anything of the like, because honestly, there are too many, because this is a big kit to dissect. But, I just got finished advising you on how to do a comparison of it yourself, that’s how much faith I have in the competence of Netsuite.
So, the Netsuite ERP suite deserves far more attention and publicity than it gets. Netsuite often offers free demos of their stuff, so hey, it’s worth a free demo if nothing else, right?