Netsuite's Crusade to Rid Software Hairball Syndrome

SYDNEY and SAN MATEO, Calif. – 14 January 2011 – NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), the industry’s leading provider of cloud-based financials / ERP software suites, today announced the details of its latest efforts to rid the world of costly software hairballs (commonly known as Software Hairball Syndrome) that are choking corporate productivity, profitability and innovation.

This NetSuite initiative includes new software hairball diagnostic tools, a downloadable Hairball Elimination Kit and a series of detailed case studies highlighting the steps a number of companies have taken to successfully eradicate Software Hairball Syndrome from their organisations while reaping the benefits of reduced IT costs and complexity, enhanced reporting and analytics, and improved productivity and business performance.

Business software hairballs are the inefficient, ineffective tangle of disparate enterprise applications and middleware that hinder productivity and drives up cost due to brittle integration, incompatible processes, low productivity and high maintenance costs. Companies featured in the program include Advantage Sign Supply, The Chefs Toolbox, Clickstop, avVenta Worldwide and Learning.com, joining thousands of businesses to benefit from NetSuite’s suite of cloud business applications that cures hairballs with end-to-end, cloud-based integration of core enterprise data and processes.

Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly known as Great Plains) is commonly found at the heart of Software Hairball Syndrome, the inevitable result of acquiring and trying to maintain the integration of multiple, siloed business software applications. This mess of disconnected systems often creates an unstable, confusing and ineffective tangle of ad hoc integrations, processes and systems. As the business grows, the hairball acts like a parasite, sapping productivity and profits, calcifying data silos, cramping growth and devouring cash flow. By providing one complete suite of cloud business applications, including accounting/ERP, order management, CRM and Ecommerce, NetSuite can help fast-growing and midsized companies to permanently dislodge even the mightiest software hairball.

With the guidance provided by the Hairball Elimination Kit, businesses can quickly self-identify data silos, wasteful and error-prone data entry, redundant processes and other tell-tale hairball symptoms and take the first important steps towards purging these hairballs from their business software systems. Featured in the Kit are some of the thousands of customers who have already disentangled their hairballs with NetSuite’s complete seamless cloud business system to unlock their value from their enterprise. The kit is available for free download at www.netsuite.com/nohairballs.

"Companies should know that they need not suffer the slow growth, high costs and inefficiencies that software hairballs invariably create," said NetSuite Chief Marketing Officer David Downing. "NetSuite leads the fight to eliminate Microsoft Dynamics GP hairballs with the world's leading cloud-based business management software suite, and with the Hairball Elimination Kit, executives can join us in eradicating these enemies of profit and expansion."

These companies are among the many to overcome Software Hairball Syndrome by switching to NetSuite:

Advantage Sign Supply (www.advantagesignsupply.com), of Grand Rapids, MI has been serving the sign and graphics industry for 20 years from 10 facilities throughout the US. The company’s business software management revolved around a master inventory and AR system written in COBOL, the great-grandfather of enterprise hairballs dating back to the 1960s. Caught up in the tangle was Microsoft Dynamics GP for accounting and AP, and OnContact for CRM which struggled with stability and performance issues under the strain of Advantage's high-volume business. The hairball's inefficiencies were responsible for significant excess inventory, and systems could not even be configured to support standard trade credit for buyers. Switching to NetSuite gave Advantage an immediate boost. Real-time inventory and analytics have reduced costly surplus stock, fully integrated Ecommerce has opened new international markets, and the consolidated database and user-friendly interface has slashed the time necessary to process orders and maintain the product catalog by 66 percent and up. "Our hairball was dictating to us how to run our business," said David Jarrell, Director of IT at Advantage Sign Supply. "NetSuite was able to simplify our business by increasing visibility and unifying our transactions."

The Chefs Toolbox (www.chefstoolbox.com), based in Sydney, Australia, distributes and sells cookware in Australia, New Zealand, and the US. As the company's revenues and complexity grew, the start-up software powering the company showed its limitations, so The Chefs Toolbox undertook a migration to Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains. But after one year of intense investment and effort, the project was abandoned. With expansion to the US, and the adoption of new wholesale/distribution sales model looming, The Chefs Toolbox made the bold decision to cut ties with Dynamics GP and switch to NetSuite OneWorld. Replacing the hairball with NetSuite OneWorld saves The Chefs Toolbox hundreds of thousands of dollars, including reduced accounting hours and consulting fees, as well as eliminating the costs and IT overhead of maintaining expensive enterprise servers. "We quickly realized just how deep NetSuite's functionality is, and how much we would benefit from the cloud-based delivery," said David Mills, founder of The Chefs Toolbox. "NetSuite is powerful enough for us to enhance, refine, and grow with it."

Clickstop (www.clickstop.com), based in Urbana, IA, is a multi-brand Ecommerce merchant, selling everything from pet supplies to cargo equipment. The company's numerous merchant sites spawned several instances of entry-level bookkeeping systems and countless spreadsheets, uneasily paired with Sage Peachtree. This hairball required constant manual attention and endless re-keying, and provided virtually no business insights or reporting Business processes were error-prone and growth was threatened. Switching to NetSuite saves Clickstop $70,000 per year in IT costs, and NetSuite's integration and automation saves the company up to 20 hours per week in manual processing tasks. These improvements helped fuel 65 percent growth in year-over-year revenue, accompanied by the hiring of 17 new employees and an impending move to a larger facility. “We knew that we couldn’t continue manually typing and retyping information like our tangle of systems forced us to do,” said Shaun Linderbaum, Clickstop Vice President and CTO. “We always lacked important analysis and reporting. It was slowing our sales down and was much too error-prone for our multi-brand retail business. With NetSuite, our accounting, shipping, Ecommerce and CRM are all integrated, and because NetSuite is cloud-based, it gives us capacity to grow into a large company.”

avVenta Worldwide (www.avventa.com), based in Mount Pleasant, SC, is a digital production and interactive services agency, producing digital assets for top brands including Intel, Starwood, and Merck. To service its clients in Europe, North America, Asia and Latin America, avVenta previously relied on a cumbersome hairball incorporating entry-level bookkeeping systems, salesforce.com, numerous spreadsheets and various legacy systems. The lack of integration slowed the flow of data through the company, creating complications for the short sales cycle necessary to stay current and competitive in the media space. Accurately accounting for professional services activity was difficult because of the disconnected systems, and avVenta's hairball was forcing it to leave money on the table. NetSuite solutions have provided significantly streamlined operations and ongoing savings. "Before adopting NetSuite solutions, we had no way to track our utilization or bill clients correctly, so we were losing a lot of money simply because we did not know how our time was being used," said David Kelley, avVenta CFO. "We save thousands of dollars per month and close our books in one-quarter of the time."

Learning.com (www.learning.com), based in Portland, OR, provides 21st-century learning environments for teachers and students. A hairball made up of entry-level bookkeeping systems, salesforce.com and a myriad of spreadsheets was inhibiting the company's ability to grow into the broader US and Canadian markets. The poorly-integrated systems could not support the necessary sales channel expansion required to further Learning.com's business goals. Order processing was slow and the hairball limited the scope of the company's commission structure. Clearing out the hairball in favor of NetSuite saves Learning.com $150,000 in IT infrastructure costs and dramatically reduced the time necessary to process invoices and commissions, by anywhere from 60 to over 90 percent. Now, Learning.com's executives, employees, and partners enjoy an integrated, real-time view of all the company's opportunities and sales activities, and expansion is back on track. "Without NetSuite's integrated architecture, it would have been near impossible to expand as smoothly as we did, and to be able to do business remotely with a fairly complex hierarchy of sales channels," said Jerry Soto, Consultant at Learning.com. "That's one of the main reasons we've grown tremendously since 2007."

ENDS

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