NetSuite announces SuiteCommerce at annual conference

Zach Nelson, CEO, NetSuite

NetSuite announced the SuiteCommerce platform at its SuiteWorld 2012 conference in San Francisco. The platform, which connects a company's CRM system to its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, is the first of its kind, said CEO Zach Nelson during his May 15 keynote address.

The change is intended to evolve NetSuite into a more commerce-focused company, Nelson said. The platform is intended to allow b-to-b and b-to-c companies to connect their ERP (orders, invoices and shipping) and CRM (promotions, customers) systems with their global concerns (multi-tax, multi-currency structures) in one place.

“We're transforming the NetSuite operational system into a commerce platform that allows you to support any touchpoint,” including those in social and mobile channels, he said.

SuiteCommerce is defined by “commerce-as-a-service,” Nelson said. The platform will aggregate all of a company's commerce-related transactions and deliver those a service, he explained. Companies that use the platform include GoPro, a high-end camera retailer, and Serena and Lily, a company that sells bedding, lighting and other home goods. Serena and Lilly uses the SuiteCommerce to save a customer's shopping cart even if he or she didn't buys. The customer is also then offered products based on that information.

SuiteCommerce took more than 18 months to build, Nelson said.

Andy Lloyd, GM of e-commerce at NetSuite, said the platform allows for sign in through Facebook on retail sites, making it easier to trace a user's activities. However, security concerns are top-of-mind, said Lloyd. None of that user's data is stored on Facebook, but rather in the back end of SuiteCommerce for use in CRM, he said.

Essentially, SuiteCommerce is a fully integrated CRM platform, with e-commerce websites as the "head" of the body of data that can be collected, Lloyd explained.

Suite Commerce currently has 10 users. Although Nelson said he believes demand for the platform will be very high, NetSuite only plans to roll the technology out to 100 companies by the end of the year. Before NetSuite fully rolls out the technology to all of its clients, it want to make sure its developers and partners can keep up with demand. "It's a new technology," Nelson said.