NetSuite ERP, the cloud based ERP solution from Oracle has already provided the foundation to business operations across all niches. But the system being a highly customizable and extensible one always needs the support of an experienced NetSuite implementation partner to ensure optimum output.
As a business should you opt to go through the NetSuite partner program and get certification for your NetSuite implementation needs? Or, should you hire from any of the leading NetSuite partners? How to choose the best NetSuite partner company? What special benefits do reputed NetSuite partners provide? We are going to dig into all these queries for a comprehensive and satisfactory answer.
What is a NetSuite Partner?
NetSuite Partners are responsible primarily for providing NetSuite software solutions in a customised and business specific manner. When helping the organisation to implement NetSuite software they provide consultancy for business process transformation and custom implementation services as per the business needs. NetSuite partners are the implementation experts who will help you implement and configure NetSuite based on the particular business processes. The skills and expertise of the NetSuite partners will shape the final output of the business processes after NetSuite implementation.
Top NetSuite Partners should have standout expertise in implementing NetSuite’s flexible tools and solutions as per specific business needs. NetSuite partners also take care of NetSuite integration with legacy software systems, data migration from other systems and tailored configuration as per specific business needs.
What is NetSuite Partner Program?
NetSuite Partner program from Oracle NetSuite equips organisations with the skills and expertise to use NetSuite software for business process transformation. The program helps a business implement NetSuite ERP software in a way to derive maximum value from the software. NetSuite implementation services with a team of certified NetSuite professionals have in-depth understanding of all the NetSuite solutions and tools to configure the system as per specific requirements for streamlining the business operations and processes. The NetSuite partner program from the ground up nourishes the NetSuite implementation skills in different business contexts.
Types of NetSuite Partnerships
The NetSuite partnership program from Oracle NetSuite at present offers seven different types of partnership programs. Let’s have a brief look at them.
NetSuite Solution Provider Partner
NetSuite Solution Provider is the most comprehensive type of partner who provides complete support all through the NetSuite licensing and implementation responsibilities. When choosing the NetSuite Solution partner for your company you must remember the variance in their respective abilities, exposure and experience levels.
A NetSuite Solution Provider typically has years of experience in NetSuite consulting and implementation as a business consulting company. You need to look for a NetSuite solution partner with comprehensive ERP expertise and implementation skills for business organisations across multiple niches.
NetSuite Alliance Partner
A NetSuite Alliance Partner program refers to the partnership program covering a broader scope of bringing together expertise across a multitude of regional systems for the purpose of custom integration and implementation for business clients. NetSuite partners, instead of dealing with NetSuite licensing, only focus on providing customized implementation, integration, and migration services.
This partners provide NetSuite consulting services for business process transformation and help businesses create route maps for NetSuite implementation to streamline business operations and facilitate process automation. Often NetSuite implementation companies also appear as NetSuite integration services or migration services as per the specific client needs.
NetSuite SuiteCloud Developer Network (SDN) Partner
NetSuite SuiteCloud Developer Network (SDN) partners are the independent vendors for building software extensions for NetSuite platform. NetSuite through its SuiteCloud module allows building software that can extend the NetSuite functionalities as per specific business needs. SuiteCloud Developer partners are well versed with typical industry specific software requirements for custom NetSuite implementation and they can meet specific client needs with their development services.
NetSuite Commerce Partner
Oracle NetSuite offers a Web Commerce Agency Program (CAP) in partnership with many top-notch digital marketing agencies and digital marketing integration services. This NetSuite program equips companies to provide robust and interactive omnichannel experience based upon NetSuite SuiteCommerce software.
NetSuite Referral Partner
This is a promotional program and allows anyone to become a NetSuite referral partner by simply referring leads to NetSuite. The referral partners instead of providing any professional services like other partners just work as the lead-generation avenues for Oracle NetSuite.
NetSuite BPO Partners
NetSuite Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Partners is there to help businesses access BPO as well as Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) solutions. Thanks to this NetSuite partnership the businesses with BPO services can cater to their customers with a single, robust, flexible solution to deal with clients across all niches and of all sizes.
NetSuite BPO partners just offer over-the-phone support to customers interested in getting NetSuite licences and software products from Oracle NetSuite.
NetSuite Accounting Partners
NetSuite Accountant Partner facilitated a partnership between the accounting firms and their business clients by utilising the NetSuite platform. The accounting firms by joining this NetSuite program get new skills on carrying out accounting responsibilities by using the NetSuite software.
Quite like NetSuite BPO partners, you cannot expect any professional services from the accounting partners. They only work in the background for the NetSuite accounting module for NetSuite clients.
Benefits to Clients to Get Services From Partners
NetSuite partners in a wide number of ways benefit clients. Let’s have a quick look at some of the key ways NetSuite partners in varying capacities benefit their clients.
Saving Cost
NetSuite Pricing and Licensing cost can vary depending upon the chosen partners. In the long run a highly customisable and tailored NetSuite implementation can be cost saving for a business in spite of the initial cost of licensing.
NetSuite partners are often referred to as the Value Added Resellers (VARs) though technically they are not VARs. On the contrary, NetSuite Solution Providers are seen to jointly sell NetSuite licences with active help from the channel sales team of Oracle NetSuite.
This comes as a great model for all customers who prefer a straightforward relationship with the vendor company. While purchasing the licence the business client can also avail unbiased NetSuite consulting besides having access to the core employees of NetSuite. This ultimately creates a win-win situation and ensures value added services from the NetSuite solution provider.
Time-Tested Methodology
Apart from helping with NetSuite licensing, NetSuite Solution Providers and Partners take the responsibility of implementing NetSuite for clients. Since every implementation is unique as per the business, there is a strong emphasis on time tested and proven methodology.
This is where a seasoned NetSuite partner with its long experience and expertise offers great help in choosing the right methodology and approach. Based upon the typical business requirements and constraints the partner firm can guide you to choose waterfall or agile method, offshore or onshore development, standard connectors or custom integration.
Expertise with Integration
Many leading NetSuite solution providers are at the same time expert NetSuite integration partners and they have proven track record and expertise with NetSuite system integration expertise.
This ease and flexibility of NetSuite integration makes NetSuite a highly extensible platform. A well experienced NetSuite implementation and integration partner can help you get the best of this NetSuite extensibility.
NetSuite allows integration with leading CRM software such as Salesforce, Zendesk, HubSpot and several others. NetSuite allows easy integration with leading E-commerce platforms such as Shopify and Magento. NetSuite allows smooth integration with 3rd Party Logistics Providers. NetSuite also allows easy integration with leading online retailers such as Amazon, Walmart and eBay.
Typically NetSuite partners either has integration expertise with iPaaS tools such as
Celigo, Jitterbit or Dell Boomi or they can just provide custom integration services from scratch. To ensure smooth integration and seamless operational performance, it is always advisable to take help of expert NetSuite implementation partners.
Client Training
A crucial metric for making an evaluation of the success of the ERP implementation is to see how well the end-users have received the transition. The best metric to determine the success of an ERP implementation is to judge the way clients could make the changes effective within their organisation.
There is hardly any surprise when we come to know of employees ultimately going back to older methods even after implementing innovative technologies. This is not entirely peculiar to see end users in a company have returned to their old habits of using legacy systems after finding the new system difficult to use.
This happens because of the lack of knowledge, wrong perceptions and lack of training on the new technologies. This is one area where NetSuite partners can play a great role. Often such challenges can be mitigated by providing the end users with sufficient training on the new software. There are many leading NetSuite Partners who offer custom training engagements for the employees of client companies.
The NetSuite implementation partner company can easily equip and train the end-users to prepare in the right way for using the software effectively. NetSuite Partners can be committed to provide the employees of client companies personalised training. They can sell NetSuite training packages from Oracle NetSuite as well. From a NetSuite partner a company can opt for the training option based upon the specific requirements and budget.
Smooth Data Migration
Secure and smooth migration is a key aspect of any ERP implementation and should not be ignored when a partner is being taken onboard. There are NetSuite Partners who do not offer data migration support.
On the other hand a NetSuite partner with years of experience in data migration will make it smooth for collecting data from legacy software and migrating them to NetSuite. So when you search for a NetSuite partner, make sure the chosen partner is capable of helping you with the data migration.
Continuous Optimisation
The vast majority of leading NetSuite Solution Providers provide continuous optimization or support. This ongoing support helps clients optimise their NetSuite ERP performance even after the NetSuite implementation is complete.
If you want to be counted among the most successful customers of NetSuite ERP, you need give emphasis in establishing a long term partnership with the chosen NetSuite consulting firm to ensure continuous support and optimization.
How to Become a NetSuite Partner?
The NetSuite Alliance Partner Program offered by Oracle NetSuite provides the way to become certified and well trained NetSuite Partners. The program opens up outstanding opportunities for businesses to target global and regional clients across all niches and sizes. A NetSuite partner can easily work with companies needing software integration, financial companies, business advisory firms, and technology consultancy services.
Becoming a certified NetSuite partner has become further easier thanks to NetSuite SuiteLife module. NetSuite as the most popular cloud ERP platform has made the partner engagement and certification further easier with a module of resources called SuiteLife.
SuiteLife offers a robust and comprehensive package of resources, certification standards, and tools for NetSuite partners to deliver business functions across diverse industries with niche expertise. Thanks to SuiteLife, the certified NetSuite partners can gain domain expertise and develop business specific skills faster to ensure custom implementation for every organisation.
The 3 most distinct NetSuite partner programs that you can opt for include the following.
- SuiteCloud Development Network (SDN): NetSuite SDN partners are mainly independent software developer companies with expertise in developing a variety of NetSuite extensions and apps for the SuiteCloud module.
- NetSuite Alliance Partners: This program is the most popular, focusing on custom implementation of NetSuite ERP services for business clients. The partners only look after the implementation while the licensing and software purchases are looked after by the direct sales team of NetSuite.
- NetSuite Solution Providers: NetSuite Solution Provider program covers both the NetSuite implementation services as well as licensing. Although they come in various sizes and corresponding capacities, you need to choose the one that suits your business requirements the most.
By choosing the right NetSuite partner you can bring a transformational impact on the business process and organisational efficiency. This is why it is always important to select the right NetSuite partner. You need to choose the one that perfectly aligns with the business needs, company objectives and culture.
How to Find the Right NetSuite Partners?
When you have decided to implement the NetSuite ERP, you need to focus on getting the maximum out of this robust software system for your business. You need to increase the scalability and efficiency of your business through NetSuite implementation. This can only be achieved by getting onboard the right NetSuite implementation partner who can address your business concerns effectively.
After getting the licence of NetSuite ERP software you have just started a long journey that can only be completed and fulfilled with the help of a NetSuite implementation partner. You can only recognise your business goals to the optimum level when you get onboard an experienced NetSuite partner.
Here we explain some key factors for choosing the right NetSuite partner.
Domain Expertise
When you have taken the decision to hire a NetSuite partner for NetSuite ERP implementation needs, you need to focus on choosing a partner having sufficient domain expertise and experiences in providing services to similar organisations. Domain expertise and industry experience is of crucial significance as it can determine how the implementation can address business specific requirements.
NetSuite Certifications
A crucial way to evaluate the NetSuite partner credibility is to look for the adequate NetSuite certifications. Since NetSuite certifications for partners clearly recognise the skills, expertise and capabilities of the partners they can help clients judge a company’s credibility in the preliminary level.
References and Reviews
Another way to ensure hiring a top-notch NetSuite partner is to choose the one with a lot of quality references from their existing clientele. It is a great idea to evaluate the credentials of a NetSuite Partner by going through the personal reviews posted by their existing and previous clients.
How they rate their experience, expertise and skills will give you a clear idea of their credentials and capabilities. References and reviews are really helpful to find the deserving implementation partner companies for your ERP project.
How do they Respond to Flexibility, Customization, and Integration Needs?
A NetSuite implementation partner ideally should be flexible enough to bend to the business needs of any company when carrying out custom ERP implementation. Naturally, it is important to seek their responses in regard to flexibility, customisation and integration. How well they respond to your business specific implementation needs is a crucial consideration for hiring a NetSuite implementation partner.
What do They Offer for Training?
You should not go with the new software live unless you make sure your employees are skilled enough to operate the new software and tools. This is where a leading NetSuite partner with a training service package can come to rescue.
When you choose a NetSuite implementation partner that can facilitate smooth knowledge transfer to the employees of the client company, your implementation becomes simple. Inquire whether the NetSuite implementation partner offers training to the employees of your organization.
Post Implementation Support
When the implementation is finished and the software is running, you still need support from the NetSuite partners for several reasons. This is why it is advisable to get onboard a partner company with robust NetSuite post-implementation support. There are always chances of technical issues or glitches in ERP automation that need to be addressed by the experts from time to time. This is why we need dedicated support for addressing issues at any time whenever such issues are detected.
NetSuite ERP has already become the globally recognised business process automation solutions embraced by companies all over the globe. Since NetSuite is highly customisable as per specific business needs, the implementation success depends heavily upon a number of factors that we mentioned above.
