NetSuite 10.0 offers aerial view of customers.

"We're working from the cockpit with proper instruments, rather than working with a crystal ball," said Sean Rollings.

NetSuite's senior director of product marketing wasn't talking about weekend flight training on a 747, nor was he recounting a flashback to an air attack that never took place; rather, he was talking about the use of NetSuite, Inc.'s version 10.0 of the company's flagship NetSuite solution, an intelligent, integrated and simpler-to-use application that includes CRM, financials/ERP, e-commerce and employee management/productivity features.

As noted by the company, for years CRM vendors have been assertively proffering a "360-degree view of the customer" to allow visibility into every interaction, though without actually delivering wholly. Stand-alone CRM systems are typically designed to manage data related to internal sales processes (e.g., forecast generation), while actual customer data (e.g., customers' purchase history) reside in separate systems.

NetSuite offers the true view. Released last October, NetSuite v10 offers all data (real-time and historical) in one application; with integrated data and business workflow, real-time visibility across the enterprise, in a modular implementation. Version 10.0 tenders the same functionality as its predecessor versions, though now with numerous added capabilities, regardless of whether it's delivered as an Internet service or as an on-premise solution. The application's cardinal distinction: its One System architecture, which allows CRM, ERP and e-commerce processes all to be managed in a single database pari passu--simply, it offers a true 360-degree view of the customer. Further, it extends this approach by adding manifold new capabilities.

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Upsell Manager: Sure, I'll Take One Of Those, Too

Building on its already-unique order management functionality, version 10.0 offers an intelligent agent, called Upsell Manager, for automatic real-time or historical mining of a customer's database of purchase transactions to suggest cross-sell/upsell opportunities. NetSuite Upsell Manager automatically suggests products and proposes services that a customer is likely to purchase based on statistical intelligence gained via analysis of aggregate customer purchase history stored within NetSuite; each customer and opportunity record has a new profile tab that suggests the products or services a sales rep should offer based on this automated and actionable intelligence. Additionally, marketing personnel or individual reps can leverage this intelligence to create cross-sell campaigns targeted at customers identified by NetSuite Upsell Manager as having a high likelihood to purchase products or services.

NetCommerce Analytics: Orwellian For Attaining Specific Data

CRM systems generally are not designed to support e-commerce, despite today's customers expecting a company's Web site to be the primary interaction system record. NetCommerce Analytics takes selling on the Web to another echelon. Whereas generic Web reporting tools often provide only aggregate analysis significant to number of page hits or most popular pages, NetCommerce Analytics can provide such data on a customer-by-customer basis. Even more powerful, NetCommerce Analytics, sold as an add-on module, also tracks click-stream data on a user-by-user basis, so sales representatives can see the most recent activity of a client or prospect on a Web site as easily as they can log a phone call. They can see everything about a prospect's or customer's Web site activity, whether based on aggregate or individual customer profiles and behavior; in doing so, they have improved opportunities of service. They can see everything, instantly attaining insight to understand customers' wants and needs.

Dashboards: Track It, Get It

A dashboard can be similar to a politician: the dashboard is only as good as the data that underlie it. And a politician is only as good as his or her stances of issues that underlie.

NetSuite tracks every interaction between a vendor and its customers, and its patent-pending dashboards deliver this information more richly and in real time. The company's real-time dashboard comes with 15 prepackaged roles and drag-and-drop capabilities; the real-time dashboard provides data from every department of a company, allowing executives and employees to spend more time analyzing and acting upon data, rather than overtaxing their time and effort in gathering those data. Added to v10.0 is key performance indicators (KPIs) access, such as forecast, new orders, accounts receivable, support cases and items to ship, anytime/anywhere. Graphical reports and snapshots--including keyword conversion to purchase--are highly customizable, offering flexibility to publish dashboards to specific users. Users are enabled to drill down into the information for penetrating understanding. Further provided in the business application is the ability to deliver external Internet content directly to a user's dashboard.

Sometimes Only The Seasons Change

As well as all aforementioned added functionalities, version 10.0 of NetSuite still offers its CRM features: sales force automation; marketing automation; customer support and service; partner relationship management; and productivity tools.

Financials/ERP features still include the following: order fulfillment; purchasing and vendor management; financial management; inventory management; and payroll and employee management.

The suite's e-commerce features: a database-driven Web store, for all wholesale/distribution business functionality; a database-driven Web site; Web analytics; an international/multicurrency option for choice of currency to transact with; multisite and domain redirects; a customer and vendor center for self-service, order tracking, payments and purchase orders; and online support.

And finally, the employee management and productivity features include the following: role-based dashboards; group calendaring and collaboration; employee records; expense reporting and purchase acquisitions; and employee self-service.

Targeted at growing and medium-sized businesses, and offering true CRM--as opposed to only prospect management--as well as second-generation e-commerce, NetSuite v10.0 is available now with plentiful features and functionality. Forget the crystal ball in knowing and understanding what's going on in your business. The behavioral intelligence, order intelligence and customer intelligence NetSuite provides are of indispensable distinction for those who want the proper instruments when in the cockpit.

By David R. Butcher, Assistant Editor, Customer Inter@ction Solutions