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NetSuite Changes Suit(e): Peaceful Coexistence

By | April 17, 2009, 4:00am PDT

Back in the 60s the Cold War left pushed for a solution to the U.S./Soviet ongoing conflict that they termed “peaceful coexistence.”

NetSuite with its last two announcements, virtually on top of each other, seems to be aimed at selective version of that very same solution - peaceful coexistence with salesforce.com and SAP.

NetSuite & salesforce.com: From Cloud to Cloud

First, last week, NetSuite announced SuiteCloudConnect with its partners - in particular, Pervasive, Cast Iron, Boomi and Celigo - set of tools and connectors/APIs that would allow customers to integrate salesforce.com CRM applications with NetSuite ERP applications.  Apparently this took salesforce.com by surprise with CEO Marc Benioff responding (according to MyCustomer.com)

“I don’t know anything about this.” “No one called me, no one talked to me about it. I don’t know what it does. I’ve never had a customer contact me about Netsuite integration.”

Actually, there’s no reason he should know anything about it until he reads about it nor is there a reason anyone needed to call him. So that doesn’t indicate anything in particular. But more on this later.

NetSuite and SAP

Within a week of the salesforce.com “we should all get along” announcement, NetSuite released their newest version of their “global edition” OneWorld, which adds the SuiteCloud Connector for SAP so that companies with large investments in SAP on premise systems can retain their investments and still run divisions or a “local” entity in another nation on NetSuite.  This is ERP-to-ERP, unlike the salesforce.com connector which is ERP-to-CRM.

I’m not going to go to deeply into the technology that NetSuite is providing. In short, the two applications are built around connectors to salesforce and SAP. These connectors are based on classic web services like SOAP, and use Javascript, ODBC and CSV.  But I would like to comment on the strategy I see with NetSuite

NetSuite and Peaceful Coexistence

I’ve been a critic of NetSuite’s sniping at SAP, as I am a critic of any vendor who spends time denigrating other vendors rather than standing on the merits of their products and their provided customer experience. However, this time they’re making a wise move, actually focusing on their strengths and exploiting the holes in both SAP and salesforce’s portfolio.  The hole in the SAP portfolio is their lack of a SaaS product - that was supposed to be filled by Business By Design, their currently low profiled or backburnered SaaS product aimed exactly where NetSuite is aiming. For salesforce.com, they just don’t have ERP products. NetSuite does.

All in all, nothing in the world of technology is as simple as it seems. Will this be as easy as web services based on common standards seem to make it?  I doubt it. But is it a good strategy? If NetSuite manages to make it cost-effective it will be.  Zach Nelson is striking while the iron is hot, which may be an arcane dated expression, but its a really smart strategy.

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Topics

Salesforce.com Inc., NetSuite Inc., SAP AG, Sales Force Management, Sales, Paul Greenberg

In addition to being the author of the best-selling "CRM at the Speed of Light: Social CRM Strategies, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers," Paul Greenberg is President of The 56 Group, LLC.

Disclosure

Paul Greenberg

Paul Greenberg has no investments in any firms that have CRM related or enterprise related applications or solutions, nor does he have any investments in any stock or other form of ownership in a consulting firms that does any form of enterprise application consulting or CRM consulting. However, at one time or another Paul has had almost all the significant CRM vendors as clients performing services as a consultant who would view and review and suggest product enhancements, changes or suggest how to cure product deficiencies; possible engagements to suggest go to market strategies for each company as they launched a new CRM solution. He has been engaged as a speaker at public events by these companies covering a mutually agreed upon topic and has written white papers sponsored by the vendors - which have no mention of the vendor and do not endorse the vendor�s products- but instead are based around thought leadership and ideas. None of these engagements whether they are consulting or works for hire, ever has impacted Paul�s thinking good or bad, on any of these companies. Paul is in fact known for his honest straightforward public assessments of these companies. They are not immune to his public critique even when they are clients. When it is germane, Paul will disclose his relationship, if any, to a company that he might be writing about in either a positive or negative way.

Biography

Paul Greenberg

In addition to being the author of the best-selling CRM at the Speed of Light: Social CRM Strategies, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers" Paul Greenberg is President of The 56 Group, LLC, a customer strategy consulting firm, focused on cutting edge CRM strategic services and a founding partner of the CRM training company, BPT Partners, LLC, a training and consulting venture composed of a number of CRM luminaries that has quickly become the authority for the CRM industry.

His book, CRM at the Speed of Light: Essential Customer Strategies for the 21st Century, now in its fourth edition, is in 8 languages and been called "the bible of the CRM industry". It is used by more than 70 universities as a primary text. It was named "the number 1 CRM book" by SearchCRM.com in 2002 and is one of two books recommended by CustomerThink. The Asian edition of CIO Magazine named it one of the 12 most important books an Asian CEO will ever read. Paul has also authored two other books including "E-Government for Public Officials" (Thompson Publishing, 2003).

Paul is also the Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management CRM Centre of Excellence, and the Executive Vice President of the CRM Association.

Paul is considered a thought leader in CRM, having been published in numerous industry and business publications over the years and having traveled the world speaking on cutting edge CRM and topics geared to the contemporary social customer. He has been called "the godfather of CRM", the "Walt Whitman of CRM" and even "the Bob Dylan of CRM" by analysts and organizations throughout the industry. He is known particularly for his work on the use of social media, such as blogs, podcasts and wikis and social networks/communities in CRM as tools and channels for customer collaboration with a company. He is seen often as the "voice of the customer" and is well known within the CRM industry for this work. His blog, PGreenblog has been named the #1 CRM blog every year from 2005-2010 by all industry award providers. He also has a podcast, Experience on the Edge, that has garnered a myriad of industry kudos and his collaboration with Brent Leary on the always funny, often cutting, CRM Playaz" is the most popular broadcast in the CRM world.

Paul was also named one of the most influential people in CRM by CRM Magazine in August 2008. In 2010, he was inducted into CRM Magazine's CRM Hall of Fame.

He is a member of the Destination CRM Board of Experts and the SearchCRM Expert Advisory Panel as well as a member of the Board of Advisors for GreaterChinaCRM for many years. He also sits on the Board of Advisors of the CIE Institute and and multiple other companies.

Currently, Paul lives in Manassas, Virginia with his wife and five cats. To reach Paul, please email him at paul-greenberg3@the56group.com. You can follow him at Twitter or join up with him on LinkedIn or Facebook.

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