NetSuite, a company providing on-demand, integrated business management software suites for mid-market enterprises and divisions of large companies, today announced a new vertical suite for North American retailers.

 

With the new NetSuite Multi-Channel Retail Management Suite, companies can use one on-demand retail software solution to easily manage multiple locations with a sophisticated point of sale (POS) system. Companies can also seamlessly integrate new or existing Ecommerce operations, deliver a quality customer experience across all channels, and gain real-time visibility and business intelligence across the company.

 

With these capabilities, companies can increase their operational efficiency, gain visibility across an organization's complete processes to manage inventory, orders, customers, accounting, marketing, POS, and customer support across all channels.

 

"The business environment is currently very challenging for retailers," said Janet Suleski, Research Director, Retail at AMR Research. "For many retailers, multi-channel is the technology Shangri-La they have been seeking. NetSuite (News - Alert) is throwing its hat into the solutions ring with the launch of its new Multi-Channel Retail Management Suite, putting small and mid-sized retailers one step closer to achieving the true multi-channel integration. NetSuite is a welcome addition to the field of technology providers exploring the best ways to unify channels and provide complete visibility to customer activity as the mechanism for providing the best possible service."

 

A recent report from AMR Research, entitled, “The State of Cross-Channel Operations: 2008,” found that retailers are increasingly adopting third-generation systems. Today, 46 percent of retailers claim they plan to upgrade to their third-generation platform by 2010. Only 7 percent of retailers have already completed this transition, while 34 percent plan to stay with their first- or second-generation systems.

 

Because of the numerous restrictions with traditional software, many companies have had to either build home-grown applications or use multiple silo software solutions to manage multi-channel sales.

 

In addition, applications from major vendors like Microsoft (News - Alert) and Sage were created over a decade ago, before the rise of the Internet. As a result, it can be challenging and expensive to extend them to support Ecommerce for a Web business.

 

Demandware and Volusion both provide new applications that are designed specifically to build Ecommerce Web sites, but result in isolated, bolt-on systems that are also difficult and costly when trying to integrate them into core business processes.

 

Retailers lack the tools needed to expand into Ecommerce and integrate it into the rest of the businesses. They do not have access to tools for real-time customer relationship management, real-time visibility and business intelligence.

 

The NetSuite Multi-Channel Retail Management Suite was designed to help merchants break down these barriers.

 

With the NetSuite Multi-Channel Retail Management Suite, enables retailers can gain to operational excellence. Some of the benefits of the new suite include:

 

--  Integrated Ecommerce -- NetSuite allows retailers to create a Web site that provides an "Amazon.com (News - Alert)-like" experience to their shoppers, or integrate NetSuite with an existing Web site.

 --  Customer Insight and Support -- Customers can purchase from one channel or location, pick-up from a different one, and return merchandise to another.  Retailers can get a complete view of each customer and better understand their needs and behavior.

--  Online and Offline Marketing -- NetSuite offers extensive marketing campaign and promotional capabilities to find new customers, encourage repeat business, and increase average sale size. You can create and execute highly targeted, personalized email campaigns within NetSuite, and manage online keyword and affiliate marketing.  NetSuite also provides multiple promotional capabilities including multiple discounting capabilities, VIP pricing, volume pricing, and customer-specific discounts.

--  Integrated Point of Sale (POS) Powered by OnSite -- NetSuite leverages the OnSite POS system built on NS-BOS.  OnSite leveraged the experience gained from serving multi-channel retail customers over several years to develop a Point-of-Sale integration specifically for NetSuite.

--  Real-Time Visibility and Business Intelligence - NetSuite provides you real-time visibility into inventory, sales, customers, finances, marketing and customer support across all channels and locations. NetSuite also includes automated procurement and cross-sell tools that can initiate purchase orders and can recommend cross-sells based on past sales history.

 

NetSuite's Ecommerce software is received rave reviews, winning the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) 2008 CODiE Award in the software category for "Best Ecommerce Solution." In July, Gartner (News - Alert) placed NetSuite in the visionaries quadrant of the "Magic Quadrant for E-Commerce" report.

 

"We believe that NetSuite Multi-Channel Retail Management Suite allows mid-sized retailers to achieve operational excellence and provide their customers with a much better customer experience - capabilities that weren't previously available to them because of their high cost and complexity are now available thanks to NetSuite Multi-Channel Retail Management Suite," said Baruch Goldwasser, etail/retail business manager at NetSuite.

 

"NetSuite's low cost and intuitive interface allows retailers to leverage the knowledge they gain by serving customers every day and transfer that knowledge into a much larger market. It wouldn't surprise me at all if a mid-sized retailer somewhere in Iowa became the next Wal-Mart using the tools we are making available to them - it's that powerful,” added Goldwasser.

 

Many companies are already taking advantage of NetSuite Multi-Channel Retail Management Suite and reaping the benefits.

Chris Corcoran, president of Market Share, said, "Our average sale had been taking five to six minutes but we are now down to a 90-second process. With the NetSuite Retail Management Suite, our customers are more satisfied, and our employees love it, because they can help the customer faster and move on to the next sale."

 

On Tuesday, NetSuite reported record growth as further evidence of the benefits of CRM solutions in a weak economy. The company’s total revenue for the year reached $152.5 million, a year-over-year increase of 40.5 percent. Total revenue for the fourth quarter was $41.4 million, a 30.5 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2007.

 

NetSuite also added close to 350 new customers in the fourth quarter and ended the year with over 6,600 active companies.

 

Zach Nelson (News - Alert), CEO of NetSuite, could not be happier with the company’s recent success despite a very difficult economic environment.