Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a new buzzword in the world of business. But is AI just a hype, or can it really transform your business’ day-to-day tasks and optimise long-term growth? AI has gone from strength to strength in the oncoming years, with greater promises to deliver change to businesses by automating and accelerate tasks. If your company is relying on several systems, it can become a nightmare to organise and streamline operations – not to mention, the tedious job of compartmentalising all your data. It can become difficult to incorporate AI into your business unless you have a good grasp of all your numbers, which can become a pain if they are spread out across the board.
One alternative is Oracle NetSuite, a cloud-based software suite targeted at small to medium-sized businesses, which aims to create a unified suite of applications under one roof. They held their biggest event of the year, SuiteWorld 2023, in Las Vegas, announcing the launch of several new AI-powered products to optimise how you run your business. Founder and EVP of Oracle NetSuite, Evan Goldberg, took to the stage for his keynote speech, speaking to thousands of audience members seated at Caeser’s Forum: “Whether you’re a start-up, enterprise, family-owned business or founder business, there’s more pressure to tighten your balance,” Goldberg explained. “There are high-interest rates, there is tighter access to capital. Everyone feels that pressure to run more efficiently. Everyone wants to accomplish more yet spend less; less money, less time, with fewer mistakes and less restriction.”
Businesses across the globe are utilising AI in a variety of ways to improve efficiency, save time and decrease costs. And it’s no surprise that AI appears to be the “quantum leap to doing more with less”, Goldberg said. NetSuite has taken advantage of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) generative AI service to embed generative AI services across its suite. Announcing NetSuite’s new AI-powered features, Goldberg explained: “These features will allow you to achieve more while spending less in both your core financial foundations and are also fundamental to powering your growth, to selling and delivering more products and services faster to your customers while managing your cash. Ultimately, making your business more productive especially if you use these features together.” One of NetSuite’s new exciting features is their Text Enhance, which can be applied across finance, accounting, HR, supply chain and operations, sales and marketing and customer support functions to help users generate text content using a few starter words.
This can shorten time-consuming writing tasks, generate product descriptions, write job descriptions and even draft up goals and performance evaluations. Another new feature is NetSuite’s Planning and Budgeting, which can help organisations continually monitor and analyse plans and forecasts to uncover and highlight trends, anomalies and correlations. NetSuite Bill Capture will help organisations capture and categorize expenses based on historical data, while NetSuite Analytics Warehouse includes visualisations that will help customers track key metrics and drill into charts without the need to toggle between applications.
With looming economic uncertainty looming ahead, it is important to develop agile forecasts for your business so your enterprise can respond faster and effectively to change. AI will play a role across enterprises in the oncoming years, and NetSuite is introducing several features to enhance financial management capabilities and help customers streamline financial planning and reporting. Using Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM, the NetSuite team has created the NetSuite Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), a new integrated set of finance solutions that connects financial and operational planning, automates account reconciliation, streamlines close processes, and enhances tax and narrative reporting for small and medium-sized businesses. This means the planning and budgeting process, which is traditionally labour-intensive, is now automated.
NetSuite is determined to help businesses simplify their tasks with more automation, so customers can do more in less time. Also included in the mix is NetSuite Capital which will help customers accelerate payments on outstanding invoices by unlocking working capital. Another new feature is NetSuite Pay, a new digital payments solution that helps customers accelerate and simplify the application and onboarding process for new merchant accounts. NetSuite Electronic Invoicing is a new e-invoicing solution powered by Avalara, that helps customers connect directly to national and international networks from within NetSuite to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and improve compliance with global e-invoicing mandates. In addition, NetSuite Transaction Line Distribution provides a simple, fast, and flexible way for organizations to split a singular transaction across subsidiaries, departments, or other segments. NetSuite Benchmark 360 is a brand-new tool that helps organizations compare their performance with their peers in the same industry and get AI-driven recommendations on where to improve through analysing key operational and financial metrics.
AI can improve field service management in various ways, including better customer service. Applying AI to field service management can help streamline company operations and improve customer satisfaction. The new technology can also give company leaders better insights into their customer service. NetSuite is doing just that, introducing a new field service management solution as well as new commerce and subscription management capabilities to better manage field-based workers and projects. Field Service Management by NetSuite can help customers improve field-to-office communications by simplifying scheduling and dispatch, automating inventory and customer asset management, and increasing visibility into real-time data.
SuiteCommerce MyAccount is a new product offering that is now available for customers in the UK, in addition to the U.S., that helps organizations improve self-service and online account management for customers. With this product, customers can quickly and easily pay invoices, convert online quotes to sales orders, manage subscriptions, and make repeat purchases. Another new product, NetSuite CPQ helps organisations provide customers with subscription options. With support for subscriptions from SuiteBilling in NetSuite CPQ, customers can increase revenue opportunities by offering more configurable solutions to their customers.
Since NetSuite was acquired by Oracle in 2016, the cloud-based software suite has been on a roll. AI has dominated this year’s announcements, and frankly, we’re not surprised by NetSuite’s swiftness to drive automation and acceleration as key components in their products. The overall theme of SuiteWorld 2023 is “suite up”, echoing NetSuite’s mantra of continuing to automate, bringing additional functions for better efficiency within a unified suite of applications that customers can rely on as they grow. As businesses continue to leverage the power of AI, they will not only stay competitive but also drive innovation and create more value for their customers. AI is not just a trend; it’s a transformative force that is shaping the future of business.
