NetSuite Launches BPO Partner Program, Answering Strong Demand for Cloud ERP, CRM and Ecommerce Suite


New Program Offers BPO Providers Lower IT and Operational Costs, More Flexible Platform and Better Client Experience

NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), the industry's leading provider of cloud-based financials / ERP and omnichannel commerce software suites, today announced the launch of the NetSuite BPO Partner Program. Designed for partners who provide Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) or Business Process as a Service (BPaaS), the new program is the industry’s first and only BPO program that gives these partners a unified cloud-based solution of ERP, CRM and ecommerce to support clients of any size ranging from small businesses and fast growing start-ups to multi-national Global 2000 corporations. The program also allows BPO partners access to the NetSuite SuiteCloud, a powerful development platform that provides the flexibility to tailor NetSuite to client-specific needs and/or extend NetSuite to meet industry-specific needs.
 
As cloud adoption accelerates, the launch of the NetSuite BPO Partner Program answers the increasing demand for NetSuite’s superior cloud business management suite. Some of the inaugural partners include Capgemini, McGladrey and Accretive Solutions. For more information about the new NetSuite BPO Program, please visit www.netsuite.com/bpo.
 
“With this new partner program we’re providing the best of both worlds to BPO providers and their customers -- an enterprise-class financial system that can be deployed anywhere in the world at a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the time of traditional on-premise ERP,” said Jim McGeever, NetSuite COO. “We’ve seen strong market demand for this type of program and we’re looking forward to working closely with our BPO partners to simplify the outsourcing model and aggressively lowering their operating costs moving forward.”
 
Businesses face pressure from all sides -- pressures on margins, increasingly competitive business environment and customers demanding better service. Businesses are responding by outsourcing a wider range of front and back-office processes to cut costs and improve margins and to help transform their operations to drive business growth and innovation. BPO is a strategic step for companies seeking to improve service levels, reduce costs, streamline processes, improve process efficiencies, and gain access to efficient processes without investing in additional personnel, IT infrastructure and technology skills.
 
Today, customers want to partner with BPO providers who can add value to their business and provide competitive advantage so that they can focus on their core competency. To meet this need, BPO providers will need to bring value-added services as well as innovative solutions to delight their clients. NetSuite’s BPO Program does exactly that: 

  • Enables BPO for Clients Ranging from Small Business to the Global 2000. A big challenge for many BPO providers is providing services to both large and small clients. Large clients require the functionality of an enterprise-class solution, but the cost of purchasing and running these solutions is too high to serve their smaller clients.  Providers are often forced to use multiple solutions, which increases costs around training, personnel, and other operating costs. NetSuite has the depth of functionality required to serve large corporations globally, but is priced in a way that allows providers to serve their small business clients as well.
  • Broad Feature Set. NetSuite offers a feature set that is not available through other solutions. In addition to a robust set of core financials, such as AP and AR functionality, NetSuite has built-in reporting and analytics capability that allows BPO providers to offer an integrated Record-to-Report service to clients. NetSuite also offers a broad range of specialised F&A functionality, such as native revenue recognition and recurring billing that often must be "bolted on" to other solutions, resulting in higher costs to the BPO provider. 

In addition to a more extensive set of capabilities in F&A compared to other ERP vendors, BPO providers can use NetSuite to support services in other areas, such as NetSuite's world-class SuiteCommerce solution for outsourced ecommerce or NetSuite's Project Management capabilities to help clients manage and bill projects more efficiently.

  • Custom Workflows, Bundles, and Integration Capabilities. NetSuite’s easily customisable solution is a critical feature for BPO providers. NetSuite offers BPO providers robust customisation and integration tools with the SuiteFlow workflow builder, SuiteTalk web services API and SuiteBundler.

SuiteFlow and SuiteTalk allow BPO providers to customise the solution to meet the needs of their practice and increase efficiencies, as well as develop custom solutions designed to meet the needs of individual clients. SuiteBundler allows providers to “bundle” these customsations and workflows, push them to any client’s account and to modify the customisations and workflows across client accounts on an ongoing basis – a capability unique to the market that offers substantial benefits to partners with large practices or practices that are focused on a specific industry.

  • Extend Functionality with SuiteCloud Developer Network. NetSuite's SuiteCloud Developer Network (SDN) Partners is an integral part of the NetSuite BPO program. SDN Partners allow BPO providers to extend NetSuite into complementary areas such as HRIS with partners such as Ascentis, managing specialised requirements like Sales Tax with partners such as Avalara, and many other solutions that SDN Partners provide to further streamline processes.
  • Superior Client Experience. Compared to other ERP solutions, NetSuite provides a vastly superior end-client experience. End clients can log into NetSuite to gain a deep understanding of their financials, approve payments or other transactions, and access income statements and a broad range of other financial reports. BPO providers can also include value based information regarding their business services, industry insights and other useful information to the dashboards used by their clients. Unlike most other ERP solutions, client access is done natively, without the need for a bolt-on portal that must be built and maintained by the BPO provider, further reducing costs and allowing providers to focus on delivering their core services.

“The combination of BPO and the cloud is a natural evolution of the market,” said Christine Dover, Research Director Enterprise Applications and Digital Commerce at IDC. “Businesses can outsource their processes to BPO providers and BPO providers can turn to SaaS vendors to manage the IT infrastructure and software maintenance. The result is a scalable, efficient market that presents savings and agility for all sides with great prospects for growth.”
 
A select number of BPO providers have participated in a NetSuite pilot program for the last few years and have experienced a broad range of benefits when comparing NetSuite to other business management solutions on the market.  Early partner participants in the NetSuite BPO Program serve a wide range of customers and include: Accretive Solutions, Arthur Lawrence, Bennett Thrasher, Capgemini, KDV, McGladrey, and TempCFO.
 
“Innovative cloud technologies like NetSuite are an important component of our Global Enterprise Model,” said Carole Murphy, Head of Business Transformation Services at Capgemini BPO.  “We are pleased to partner with NetSuite for the provision of our innovative virtual company, a solution co-developed with our clients that provides an agile and secure platform for entering new markets and capitalising on new business opportunities.”
 
“At McGladrey, we understand the unique issues and challenges facing middle market leaders,” said Brian Becker, National Technology and Management Consulting Leader with McGladrey LLP, the nation’s leading provider of assurance, tax and consulting services. “After years of implementing NetSuite and providing BPO services to middle market leaders, we see this new program as a game changer. Our clients will now have the opportunity to reap the same efficiencies and cost savings that have historically only been available to larger entities.”
 
"Accretive Solutions has been providing quality outsourcing services to our clients since the 1980s and we're always looking for new and better ways to serve our clients," said Mairtini Ni Dhomhnaill, SVP National Business Outsourcing Solutions at Accretive Solutions. "The NetSuite BPO Partner Program is just the sort of advancement that gives both Accretive Solutions and our clients an advantage in the marketplace."
 
NetSuite is currently accepting new partners to the program. To learn more, please visit: www.netsuite.com/bpo.
 
Today, more than 20,000 companies and subsidiaries depend on NetSuite to run complex, mission-critical business processes globally in the cloud. Since its inception in 1998, NetSuite has established itself as the leading provider of enterprise-class cloud ERP suites for divisions of large enterprises and mid-sized organisations seeking to upgrade their antiquated client/server ERP systems. NetSuite excels at streamlining business operations, as demonstrated by a recent Gartner study naming NetSuite as the fastest growing top 10 financial management systems vendor in the world. NetSuite continues its success in delivering the best cloud ERP/financial suites to businesses around the world, enabling them to lower IT costs significantly while increasing productivity, as the global adoption of the cloud accelerates.
 
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For more information about NetSuite, please visit www.netsuite.com.au.
 
NOTE: NetSuite and the NetSuite logo are service marks of NetSuite Inc.