NetSuite reports local growth spurt

NetSuite has boosted its local channel with two new partners as it prepares to close the books on a year in which it added 350 new customers in A/NZ alone.

With Perth-based Precise Business Solutions and Melbourne-based Cloud ERP, NetSuite now has around 20 local partners and is looking to add another five, NetSuite Australia managing director Mark Troselj told CRN.

He admitted the number wasn’t huge but explained NetSuite was more interested in engaging with resellers with specific skills and verticals experience. 

“This degree of specialisation is being driven by significant growth and customer demand across the board in all our key industries, including wholesale distribution, services, manufacturing, retail and mining,” Troselj said.

Precise Business Solutions is a provider of business software and services to mining and associated industries, while Cloud ERP has form delivering ecommerce solutions to companies in the wholesale and distribution industries. 

Now inducted into the NetSuite solution provider program, the companies will benefit from what the vendor says is a unique set of practical resources for improving margins on selling SaaS ERP, including education and training, sales and marketing.

It also brings together a global community of partners to share their experiences and wisdom.

NetSuite’s local customer base is now around 1100, a third of which were added in the past 12 months, Troselj said. 

SAP’s rival cloud ERP offering Business ByDesign has only a fraction of those customers as it battles to reverse the perception it is an enterprise ERP vendor out of tune with the needs of smaller companies.

Troselj said NetSuite was cheaper to operate than many of its rivals' cloud-based ERP solutions, a fact which was helping the company make inroads into the enterprise, challenging perceptions that it is a product more suited to smaller companies.

“[NetSuite’s] average deal size has more than doubled in the last few years.”

Notable enterprise customers now on the books include Unilever, Proctor and Gamble, Pitney Bowes, Groupon and Singapore Airlines subsidiary Scoot.