NetSuite plans make
content management a major priority for its developers and e-commerce
customers, said Andy Lloyd, the company’s GM of e-commerce products during a
small meeting with reporters at its SuiteWorld 2012 conference in San Franciso on May 16. Although NetSuite doesn’t currently have a fully
integrated CMS system for retailers and e-commerce customers, Lloyd said that
in 2013, this capability will be brought into the NetSuite SuiteCommerce
System.
During his keynote address at the conference on May 15, NetSuite
CEO Zach Nelson announced SuiteCommerce, a platform that connects CRM and
ERP to e-commerce. Nelson said NetSuite is
repositioning itself to focus more on its e-commerce strategies.
Lloyd said that it was unclear whether this capability would
come through an acquisition of a content management company, or if it would be
developed by the NetSuite team. Either way, he said, it would have to fit in seamlessly
with the SuiteCommerce platform, and, as such, would connect the e-commerce
platform and product descriptions to CRM.
Content management for e-commerce sites is important because
it allows customers to learn more about products before buying, he said. “It
highlights that selling online is different from selling in person,” he said.
Customers can’t, for example, pick up and item in their hands and examine it
before they buy — they have to learn about it from the website. “We will invest
very deeply in that,” he said.
The reason the current SuiteCommerce system doesn’t have a
CMS built in is because “we felt like getting the architecture right first,” he
said. “Content is right on the heels of that.”
Once a CMS is built in, Lloyd claims SuiteCommerce
will be even more powerful because “isn’t it easier if you know which products you’re
actually selling?” The idea of the CMS, he said, will be to optimize not only
the product assortment on the e-commerce sites, but the text around them as
well.
NetSuite currently conducts two software updates each year — one
at the beginning and another mid-year.
