What is the key ingredient that brings success for businesses in a hurry?

For companies who have their sights set on rapid growth, the goal should be to ensure tax and financials, operations, compliance and business visibility are as slick as possible, as soon as possible. Even with never-ending capital and the best minds within a team, the only reasonable answer to this is having the right technology and business software architecture. However, for start-ups that are often driven by a handful of people, with limited time on their hands, getting to grips with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions, what modules should be implemented and when, what efficient processes look like and what complex tasks can be automated is an uphill struggle.

By the time a company focused on growing gets to the point of really needing integrated software, it has already been missing countless opportunities to fulfil its core objective. This is why one key ingredient to ambitious expansion is appointing an experienced software partner early in the business’ growth lifecycle – we know from our customers that it’s one of the soundest investments a start-up in a hurry can make.

Whether the pressure is on from investors to get the back-office running smoothly or not, using early round funding to get solution experts to design, develop and implement an ERP system like Oracle NetSuite delivers more successful outcomes, more quickly. Here, we explore how NetSuite tackles business insights and time-consuming inefficiencies with ease and how the right implementation partner will take away the stress of architecture and process design.

360-degree visibility highlights opportunities

Consolidating data from various locations for reporting purposes is labour-intensive, it comes with a high risk of error and when report has been finalised, it’s likely to be days out of date and not much use for intelligent decision making. If financial and operation data silos become unmanageable, it means control has already been lost, and it’s likely the business will be leaking profits somewhere. But not only that, how can any business leader clearly see where issues lie and understand how to fix them?

NetSuite users report a huge 70 to 90 per cent increase in 360–degree business visibility and actionable insights and a 70 to 80 per cent reduction in the time and resources spent on reporting. Any data can be viewed at a broad or a granular level and the real-time intelligence provided through dashboards facilitates the straightforward identification of opportunities, trends and issues. Furthermore, elements of AI can suggest the next best actions to take and budgeting and forecasting models can help leaders to make informed assessments and choices.

Businesses that rely on specialist in-house systems or are wedded to big brand software, such as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution, don’t have to forsake having an overarching outlook either, as NetSuite provides the capability to use our partner Jitterbit’s API integration platform. Bringing data in from multiple systems can be hassle-free, allowing decision-makers to take timely, mindful actions. Especially for a business dealing in multiple currencies across multiple worldwide locations – like our customer OpenPayd who initially required one single company NetSuite user and now has 40 subsidiaries – having one unified system that offers a real-time view of data is crucial.

Real-time financials, tax and exchange rates

Having lean, intelligent financial processes helps companies to manage their growth, but more importantly, they facilitate evolution and expansion. A real-time payments eco-system forms a single version of truth by processing bank payments of vendor bills, employee expenses, partner and employee commissions, customer refunds, and more. Plus, the monitoring of rates of exchange can be automated through the setting of parameters and reason codes, and flags are raised should investigation be required into a variance or best market rate.

As ISO 20022 migration awaits financial institutions across the globe, NetSuite users in this sector can breathe easy; Electronic Bank Payment files are imported to a bank’s payment software or submitted electronically for processing, meaning compliance and the safe, seamless operation of payments is a concern ticked off. As one would expect, NetSuite facilitates the holding of crypto currency as well as the ability to trade with it within the platform, so no revenue lines are restricted.

Then there’s the issue of ensuring different taxes around the globe are dealt with properly to negate incorrect billing and the more serious challenge of being fully compliant. For example, we enabled our customer Essensys to have confidence its tax and levy calculations are to the dime, daily, and accurately invoiced. Each US state and city has its own percentage-based tax mechanisms, plus these are tiered, vary on holiday days and there are also federal taxes and levies within the telecommunications industry. Billing schedules and mechanisms can be customised in NetSuite for any business in any sector, encompassing quote and order processes and onboarding via automated workflows, alert-based approvals coding and scripts.

Letting the experts take the reigns

Fast growing companies know success is driven by its people as well as technology, so it’s crucial to have the right experts in place for efficient execution. And when an in-house team has not yet reached full maturity, external partners are a key ingredient to attaining core goals. The right partner will not only get things done and reduce the internal pressure, but they will also have the years of experience required to offer solutions to challenges the business didn’t even know could arise.

With one eye on the now and another on the future landscape, a solution partner like BrightBridge prioritises the business discovery and analysis period to be able to accurately scope the project, meet customer aims, present different phased implementation strategies if required and exceed expectations about what an ERP solution, automation and AI can achieve. With a structured project path comprising analysis, design, system build, enablement training, go-live support and a period of hyper-care, leaders and managers don’t need to feel overwhelmed by the idea of overhauling systems and experiencing any day-to-day disruption.

63 per cent of NetSuite users say they have seen an increase in operational efficiency after adoption and 31 per cent see an improvement in their annual revenue, but the headline is that Total Cost of Ownership of NetSuite is a significant 77 per cent less when compared to an on-premise ERP solution. Essentially, a cloud solution partner’s work negates numerous internal IT, hardware and maintenance costs. Early design and adoption also mean a faster design and implementation period due to the smaller scope and reduced complexity. And the transformation project is more cost-efficient end-to-end, then adding modules, users, or subsidiaries only as the business scales and requires them is straightforward. So, the question is, why wouldn’t a growth focused business want to benefit from having early partner involvement and reap the rewards of having a cloud ERP within its DNA?

If you’d like to have an informal chat to better understand our approach to helping businesses in a hurry to grow, request a call back and one of our expert team will be in touch.