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The team at Audaxium would like to wish everyone a very happy holidays.
This past year has seen us help many NetSuite users, become more productive, launch web stores, and improve customer satisfaction. In the new year we’ll continue doing that and have a few more exciting announcements.
May you have a great 2010.
There are a lot of NetSuite customers out there.
There are a lot of NetSuite customers out there who are using NetSuite’s support tools to keep their customers happy.
But how many of you are measuring just how well your support reps are doing at increasing customer satisfaction? After all, that is the goal isn’t it?
It’s perfectly possible to use a NetSuite custom record, a couple of saved searches, a form, and, optionally, a script to automate things, to track and report on satisfaction. Once a case is closed, the system can send out an email to the customer contact asking for their feedback. The customer clicks, fills in a simple form, and they’re done.
If you don’t know how to set this up, give us a call and we can walk you through it, or set it up for you. If you do know how to do this, then just go set it up!
Consider tracking the rep who is assigned to the case, the customer, the contact who created it and the product or other main category you use to manage cases.
Also allow your customer to put in some comments and you’ll now have a great way to see how your support team is doing and hand out some pats on the back, cupcakes, or cold hard cash for those reps that exceed at keeping customers happy.
If you’re an existing NetSuite user, you’ll know, because of the notification on your dashboard, that NetSuite 2009.2 is just around the corner. If you’re new to NetSuite, 2009.2 is obviously the second release of 2009. Each year NetSuite is rolling out 2 releases, the .1 version seems to contain more major enhancement, and the .2 release some of the less sexy, but still worthwhile improvements.
To find your sneak peek documents, simply click the help button, and type Sneak Peek into the search tool. But since it’s out there in the wild already, you can also link directly to it here.
While this version didn’t knock my socks off at first glance, there’s a few things in here that I think demonstrate how NetSuite is improving the product to better align with how businesses work, rather than rolling out flashy, but useless functionality.
Here’s a few of the things I think will make existing customers smile.
Previously you could use a case form on your website that would create a case directly inside the system, but you couldn’t attach a file. This lead some customers to create their own forms which would then send an email to NetSuite that included the attachment. NetSuite has a 5 mb file attachment limit on this method so some customers then would use a YouSendIt form as well.
Now you don’t have to worry, and can have customers attach files directly, saving a few extra steps for the support reps.
Previously you couldn’t add a “Trend Graph” to other tabs. Now you can. Yay! It’ll make those other tabs that much more useful, especially when you want to keep your Home dashboard nice and light, and move certain information to the other tabs.
Today you can have one “Custom Search” on a dashboard. Now you can have 3. The work around was to use report snapshots but this will give end users that much more flexibility in dashboard setup. It’s small but I love this enhancement.
“In previous releases, the user’s preferred form for an imported record was automatically used for validation and to display the set of fields available for import.” Man was this ever annoying. Now I’ll be able to select another form that doesn’t have restrictions when importing. There’s nothing like importing 5000 records and then having it fail because your preferred form didn’t like what you did!
For those out there who didn’t want to code up complicated web services apps to import POs this could be huge. If you’re a reseller and you’ve been hand keying in Purchase orders this will be one thing you’ll want to test ASAP.
It’s been rather busy here at Audaxium but just as soon as were eager to look at the new Lead Qualification and conversion rules in depth. NetSuite will now help with the capturing of critical information on the lead record, and attaching it to existing prospects, opportunities etc. Don’t let your sales team keep processing leads the same way, check out these enhancements and see what they can do for you.
To turn on this part of this feature you’ll have to go to “Setup, Company, Enable Features”. Then you’ll see a “Lead Conversion Mapping” setup in the sales section where you can define what information gets copied over to Contacts, Opportunities, and Tasks.
You’ll also see a “Convert” button on a lead. If it’s an “Individual” you’ll be able to hit the convert button, and create a contact, company, opportunity, and task at the same time. Neat. I know a lot of companies create leads as companies only, and not individuals. They’ll have to ponder this now.
We all do it. We tell a special customer that they can buy product X for a specific price. But what happens when that doesn’t conform to one of your price levels? Previously you’d have to remember every time you created a Sales Order. But now you’ll be able to set a custom price level right on the customer record.
Just make sure, when you are updating prices, that you have a search that shows you all those customers with custom price levels!
In 2009.2 you’ll be able to lock, check and update, then close periods. And there will be a better audit trail on who has closed and opened periods. Previously a period was either open or closed, and if an adjustment needed to be made, you couldn’t tell who opened the period. (Although you could tell who made the change to the transaction of course)
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It seems like a decent release for NetSuite. If you’re a NetSuite user, head over to Beta and check it out. If you want to get a demo of NetSuite and it’s new functions, just let us know!
Garbage in, Garbage out! I hear this comment almost every other day. And it’s not me saying it, it’s the customer.
Then why oh why are most companies in such a state of disrepair when it comes to their customer information?
How can we fix this up when we implement NetSuite?
How can we make sure that it doesn’t happen again? Or at least not to the same degree.
But first let’s get to the top 3 reasons why this happens. Read More »
Just what is the best browser for use in NetSuite?
The other day a customer asked me this question and I gave my usual response based on the feeling I get while using various NetSuite instances. Normally I feel Chrome is fastest, and Internet Explorer slowest with others falling in between. Firefox is my usual choice as Chrome has some known issues (we won’t call them bugs) with NetSuite. Safari also seems to hold up well in the speed department as a few NetSuite users I follow on twitter keep raving about it and I found it fairly snappy as well.
Just for kicks I decided to do a rather unscientific test of 4 different browsers and use the built in NetSuite performance reporting to figure out which were fastest and which were slowest. The results were surprising. In fact, I re-ran my scenario multiple times to see if there had been some mistake.
My test was very simple, mainly because I don’t know how to automate the testing and get page load times for multiple browsers using some kind of super plugin. I ran the test 3 or 4 times and used the times I got most frequently, as opposed to averaging. This to ensure that my connection wasn’t the issue. In all cases I got 3 results that were very close for each page. All tests were done on my Windows XP SP3 Desktop.
I admit that this is rather unscientific and I haven’t removed certain variables and I encourage others to try the same thing and report on the results here.
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We live in an age of self help. Anyone with a brain is supposed to be able to sit down, and with a good enough help file be able to turn on just about any technology going.
This has lead a few folks I know to implement NetSuite without much help at all. It’s not that it’s impossible, or even terribly difficult, but it’s harder the first time you do it. This got me thinking and this quick list came to life.
When you implement NetSuite, you’re putting in an application that has the potential to affect almost every part of your business. You don’t want to mess it up and fly into the ground. Or, perhaps worse, you don’t want to wreck anything or anyone while trying to get off the ground.
Solution? Talk with people who’ve implemented it before! You don’t learn to fly from the guy in the showroom who sells you the airplane. (If you can afford an airplane in a showroom) Talk to people who run the system day to day, and to people who’ve seen mistakes made. That would be me by the way!
With NetSuite you can get people to help you implement it remotely. They’re really smart. And having someone talk you through it over the web just might work in many cases. But there is also something to be said by having someone by your side, giving you the best practices and the finer points that will take you from good to great.
Consider what the benefits are of getting someone into your boardroom to help you out. Even if it’s just for a second opinion or for best practices and change management.
NetSuite has a lot of power in it’s Dashboards. It’ll consume a lot of time if you simply try to muddle through and figure out the best way to work. Talk to those who use Dashboards every day, what works, what doesn’t.
There’s a lot that belongs on dashboards but there’s a lot that doesn’t. Get stuff up there that really lets you manage the operations of your business. This isn’t Salesforce.com here.
It’s critical when flying to fly the plane and look up, and not keep your head stuck in the instrument panel. The same is true for a NetSuite implementation. You’ve got to manage the people involved, you’ve got to constantly be examining your situation and your business surroundings.
When implementing NetSuite it’s about getting your business to the next level. Keep the end goal in mind and you’ll have a safe arrival.
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I’ve had a few conversations in the past few days to people who are, or have, implemented NetSuite.
If it’s just NetSuite CRM, or NetSuite ERP and Accounting, E-commerce, or the whole ball of wax here are some things to consider if you’re just getting into it.
This is by no means a comprehensive list but just what has come to mind in the last couple of days. This list is also a bit more appropriate for smaller implementations of 10-100 users.
If you’re going to be successful you need to get a person dedicated to learning NetSuite who you trust to implement and make decisions about how you run your business.
There’s a lot of changes that can be made quickly and you shouldn’t let everything get managed by committee. You’ll go faster if you loosen the reigns.
There are going to be those who look to to the big cheese before they commit to a new system. Make sure that you’ve got a leader who is going to lend not only her full support but also big ideas on where the company is headed.
It’s not enough to attend the kick off meeting and ask for updates. NetSuite is THE system of record. Get the big cheese involved.
You can’t have everything you want on day one. It doesn’t matter if you’re a sales person, or the boss, get over it.
Pick your big wins and focus on those. A lot of little wins will come along for the ride and you won’t waste time boiling the ocean to get at all the tiny details
I’ve seen it happen over and over. One department gets going with NetSuite and makes a bunch of decisions without considering the implications for other groups.
NetSuite offers an amazing opportunity to get everyone working together. Use it.
If you don’t fully understand the implications, call someone who does. *cough
Sometimes it’s fun to cook up a complicated plan and see how far you can get but more often than not it means that you’ll just have a lot of late nights prior to going live.
The more simple you keep things, the more flexibility you have down the road, and there’s real value in having options.
Things to keep simple? The plan, the requirements, the customizations, the phases, the roles, well, everything.
I love NetSuite because it can be changed fairly quickly. Don’t worry if you don’t nail everything for day one. You’ll be able to change things as you go to make life easier on all the users.
Don’t go for months without getting people up and running on the system. You’ll have plenty of room to have multiple phases after go live.
People who defend old, silly processes never cease to amaze me. Don’t be afraid to use the implementation to change some things about the way you do business that annoy employees and customers.
Be easy to do business with.
There are two reasons you want to delay writing scripts to automate things in NetSuite whenever you can. First, you don’t really know what you want and what’s important. And secondly, it adds a level of complication to your plan that violates Keep it Simple.
I’ve seen too many people invest in scripts and then turn them off because they either complicate the users experience or they can’t accommodate every little scenario.
Automate once you’ve gotten everything working manually.
(There are exceptions to this rule but you’ll know them when you analyse your business requirements and prioritize them)
This tip goes with the above one. Every NetSuite implementation should have a Phase II where you put in a bunch of improvements that weren’t critical but are still helpful. Do this for two reasons.
First, it keeps the momentum going on the adoption of the system.
Second, you don’t want to delay Phase 1 with a bunch of “nice to haves”
If you’re purchasing NetSuite you can purchase, separately or together, the software and implementation from an implementation Partner. Many people don’t even consider this.
I’ll get into this in a later post but an Implementation Partner like Audaxium can offer a different kind of service than those offered directly from NetSuite. Partners have often used the software in production and can be more flexible in how they engage with you.
There are a lot of people who will be negative about change, about NetSuite, about your plan. Your challenge is to pick out their key concerns, address them as best you can and then move on. Move with confidence and people will follow.
General Comments Off
Right now the News is filled with bad press about the economy.
Last weeks Economist painted a particularly gloomy picture.
It’s all well and good to simply unsubscribe from the news feeds but that won’t make you successful in the long run, just maybe less stressed.
Right now a lot of businesses are waiting cautiously, not spending money, but waiting for signs of a turnaround. Cruising along. Perhaps your business is one of them.
So how will you know when a turn around is beginning for your business? Your business is unique, it won’t simply happen for everyone at once. For some it’s already starting, for others, they may have to reinvent themselves to simply stay afloat.
Will you wait until you’ve had two good sales quarters in a row? How long does it take to roll up a quarter? 1 Month? That might just be looking 7 months into the rear view mirror.
Will you wait until you’ve had 2 good months over targets? Can you be sure that it’s not a lucky blip?
Will you watch the forecast, and when it starts to grow, start investing in your business? How reliable is your forecast? What’s driving the uptick?
Will you look at inbound leads? When they start increasing, turn up the heat on the reps. How will you know where the leads are coming from and what their intent is?
Unfortunately there’s no one answer but I can say one thing for certain. Those companies that only look far in the past for recovery will do less well than a firm with a balanced view of it’s KPI’s
The questions to ask yourself are:
If you’ve got the systems, great. If not, give me a call. Now’s the time to invest to ensure that your business can really be excellent once everything is moving again. Don’t wait until you’re too busy to become more productive.
Here are some example Key Performance Indicators that NetSuite Provides out of the box. Perhaps some of these could help if you had them on your dashboard every day. Keep in mind that you can create your own KPI’s as well!
General, NetSuite News Comments Off
Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite has gotten some of his thoughts posted over at the venerable Financial Times.
You’ll find his thoughts on Business Intelligence From the Cloud there.
Essentially the article is a nice summary of why one should consider NetSuite. These benefits are simple, yet can have very positive impact on many organizations.
So there you have it! If you’re getting educated about the benefits of software as a service, articles like the one above will provide you a good starting point in developing your elevator pitch to your boss.
A new year is upon us and with it we eagerly await the rollout of the next version of NetSuite, always mindful that we’ll need to get everyone trained up on any new functionality.
With this in mind NetSuite allows customers previews of the new functionality at beta.netsuite.com. When you log in there you’ll see the “sneak peek” and the release notes for the new version.
If you’re a customer just log into beta.netsuite.com once your beta account has been provisioned and you’ll be able to try out the new functionality in your own account without messing with your live account. There you’ll see the release notes. Give them a good read and prepare a plan to test, and rollout, the new features. In particular, test your scripts.
You’ll also want to do a some training for some of your users on the new functionality and how you want them to use it.
Here’s a few things that caught my eye along with my comments.
This isn’t a feature but the word on the street is that the quality of this release is very good. If you can check out the posts on the usergroup forums on this. Of course there are always issues but those people who have done extensive testing of 2009 in their own instances have mainly good things to say. Your mileage may vary.
Nice! You could always make a price list of sorts, a custom estimate, but now you can create standard price lists for emailing to customers. You can even create an individual price list for a specific customer with their own pricing. Two thumbs up!
Spend some time figuring out exactly how this functionality works and how to use it as it’s not incredibly intuitive. It’s especially nice if you have different price levels for different types of customers and just quoting them isn’t really appropriate.
Now you’ll be able to include batch/lot numbers along with items that need multiple units of measure. Chemicals by the gallon, pint and quart? With batch number attached. This will be perfect for a potential customer I was just talking to!
If you love direct list editing, like I do, this will be nice. Now you won’t have to open and edit that estimate just to change expiry date or include it in your forecast when you’re viewing it in a list. This will be great for sales reps everywhere.
NetSuite has a very good budgeting tool. I like it at least. Very good for keeping things on track. Assuming you can get your team to agree on the numbers! Now OneWorld users in subsidiaries will be able to budget in their local currency and not in the currency of their parent company.
Project Tasks are different than regular tasks in NetSuite. Now you can more easily keep track of your project tasks in their own portlet on your dashboard. Cool. This will be very helpful for services groups using NetSuite.
I’m never turning this on! Who wants the sales team to send out their own mass emails to their customers! Spam City! Seriously though. You can restrict access so that reps can only send to their own customers. Especially nice if you require prospects to opt in to emails before receiving them. Now reps can stop bugging marketing to do it!
This feature, the latest sync client for Outlook and BlackBerry is only being rolled out in a limited “Beta” fashion. But it’s still cool. You can schedule syncs which you couldn’t before. And, wait for it… You can sync with Microsoft Exchange Server. I know someone who is going to jump for joy reading this! This has been a long time coming and apparently works fairly well. I still have yet to test this out in an Exchange Server environment.
How I have longed for this feature. This is fantastic. Now, you can filter the choices in a dropdown field based on the selections in one or more other fields. In the past you had to deal with some pretty long lists where most of the data wasn’t relevant based on other information on the form. It opens up lots of customization options.
Here’s a feature I didn’t know I missed. Now you can customize what fields are shown when you do a global search. Very Nice, and easy to configure as well it looks like.
In combination with the above this will make the global search even more awesome that it was. Previously you had to open a record from the global search to edit it. Now you can edit the data as you see it. (for fields where direct list editing is available) I predict global search will get even more use than it does now, which is a lot.
All the records that appear in the global search need to be the same type of record for this to work.
Another very nice enhancement. It’s easy to set up custom searches and portlets in NetSuite. But now you can set up a custom search and have it appear in your reminders portlet. Your list of everything that needs doing. I know users who basically only use the reminders portlet to show them what needs to be done. Now anything can show up there.
In 2009 you’ll be able to show a total of a column in a search. Now you won’t have to revert to a report to get the grand total, or add the search as a KPI to see the sum. I never missed this feature however. It’s just so easy to push the data over to OpenOffice or Excel if needed. Still, I’ll have to do that less now.
“With Google Checkout integration, you can offer Google Checkout to your Web store customers as an option for checkout, along with NetSuite checkout and PayPal Express checkout.” This is not rolling to all customers. Like the Outlook/Blackberry sync it will be limited to a few customers for a while and then released to everyone.
At around 64 Pages Long there’s a lot in the 2009.1 release notes. And keep in mind that there will likely be a 2009.2 release. I know that 2008.2 was one that had a lot of nice things I liked.
There’s a lot in there. Be sure to dive in and give it a solid read. Be sure to have your note book at your side while reading. If you’re a NetSuite admin there will be a few things you’ll want to add to your task list as you browse.
NetSuite 2009.1 will be rolling out from February through till April.
