ERP Advisors Group's Review of SuiteWorld 2024

NetSuite Founder & Executive Vice President, Evan Goldberg, set the stage for growth with NetSuite through four major areas of advancement, including reimagining user experiences, providing a complete “bird's eye view” of the business, automating more processes, and building out a robust ecosystem. Announcements focused on three major enhancements: Redwood UI, Artificial Intelligence, and NetSuite Enterprise Performance Management (EPM). Other related product releases and updates to the platform were announced as well throughout the conference.

Redwood User Interface

Oracle’s existing Redwood User Interface (UI) was rolled out to portions of NetSuite including NetSuite SuiteProjects Pro and Customer 360. Developers can leverage Redwood to enhance the user experience and make it easier to understand.

Redwood is now being embedded in NetSuite Enterprise Performance Management and NetSuite Analytics Warehouse (NSAW). Senior Strategic Alliances Director at NetSuite, George Trudell echoed customer excitement, stating, “The Redwood design update is huge because NetSuite customers are going to get the look and feel of Oracle products, like Fusion.” The UI will propagate to other parts of the Suite over time. As described at the conference, Redwood acts as the “roots” for growth and will influence all new solutions and enhancements coming from NetSuite.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence took centerstage, to no one’s surprise, with NetSuite introducing several AI enhancements across the suite. Last year, NetSuite embedded “Text Enhance” to incorporate AI functionality into the platform. This year’s releases aimed at empowering customers to get more out of their data by extending the AI financial capabilities within their ERP. Goldberg went on to say, “By ensuring AI is built into existing business processes and not bolted on, we are helping our customers achieve immediate value from the latest AI innovations at no additional cost.” With NetSuite’s foundation in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), users benefit from Oracle’s AI services while also receiving top-notch security and privacy protection.

Chief Operating Officer Bobby Coffin at SCS Cloud stated, “The continued release and leaning into AI features are going to be the most exciting for clients. It will increase the rate at which companies can take advantage of applications within the NetSuite space.” There were several specific AI updates announced, including NetSuite Financial Exception Management, NetSuite SuiteAnalytics Assistant, NetSuite Prompt Studio, the Oracle Code Assist SuiteScript optimization, and more. 

• NetSuite Financial Exception Management leverages AI to quickly identify financial anomalies and allow financial executives to quickly resolve issues.
• NetSuite SuiteAnalytics Assistant gives users better insight into their data through a natural language interface and supplies data retrieval and summaries for deeper, actionable insights.
• NetSuite Prompt Studio empowers developers to refine the answers users will receive when using AI.
• Oracle Code Assist SuiteScript’s optimization adds an AI code companion to speed up the code development process, test the code, generate documentation, and more.

Enterprise Performance Management (EPM)

At SuiteWorld 2023, NetSuite announced a new tool to streamline the entire financial reporting process -- NetSuite Enterprise Performance Management (EPM). NetSuite EPM is built on Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management, further entwining the companies and enabling NetSuite users to leverage the power of Oracle. NetSuite EPM was further enhanced at SuiteWorld 2024, offering a clear AI focus with generative AI for Native Reporting, AI-powered narratives, predictive forecast explanations, and an AI-driven digital assistant. By relying on the power of generative AI to develop reports, forecasts, visuals, narratives, and other insights in plain English, customers are empowered to do more with the data they already have.

Additional Headlines

In addition to these major enhancements, Oracle NetSuite also delivered the release of NetSuite SuiteProcurement, a NetSuite connector for Salesforce, and NetSuite SuiteProjects Pro. Director of NetSuite Partnerships at Fortis, Bill Leonard, emphasized the excitement around NetSuite's innovations, remarking, "‘All Systems Grow’ is a big push for NetSuite. They are asking how they can help businesses grow and manage the landmines along the way, especially with the release of various modules and add-ons.”

SuiteProcurement is designed to “help organizations streamline indirect procurement processes, control costs, and gain access to preferred pricing and benefits from suppliers, including Amazon Business and Staples Business Advantage” (netsuite.com).

With direct procurement capabilities, customers can simplify the process of buying and selling to improve the bottom line.

NetSuite’s connector for Salesforce is a major enhancement for customers who use both solutions. With data at the center of modern business concerns, this connector will help customers eliminate data silos to obtain higher quality, more in-depth business insights.

Finally, NetSuite announced its plans to, “deliver a new AI-powered extension to its project management solution, NetSuite SuiteProjects: NetSuite SuiteProjects Pro” (netsuite.com). With NetSuite SuiteProjects Pro, customers will be able to leverage AI-powered risk analysis, AI-powered staffing recommendations, and Oracle Redwood user enhancements. This will build on the professional services automation (PSA) capabilities offered within NetSuite SuiteProjects. 

Conclusion

SuiteWorld was even bigger and better than previous years, with attendance at an all-time high and the addition of Oracle’s CloudWorld user conference occurring just down the street. Partners, customers, NetSuite employees, and everyone in between are excited about the innovations coming from Oracle NetSuite in 2024 and beyond. Is NetSuite on your shortlist of vendors? Download our vendor guide.