More Pinoy firms turning to cloud technology to boost performance

SAN FRANCISCO – More and more companies in the Philippines are turning to cloud technology to run their operations.

In Manila, many of these corporations rely on NetSuite, a provider of cloud-based financials and enterprise resource planning (ERP), accounting, and customer relationship management (CRM) applications to manage their corporate data.

Jollibee, ABS-CBN Corp., the Yuchengco Group of Companies, Far Eastern University, Ramcor Group, and Island Rose are some of NetSuite’s clients that have been adopting its cloud-based system of sales, inventory management and software order.

Now, multinational firm Procter&Gamble is the latest enterprise to adopt NetSuite’s cloud business management solutions for its Philippine operations.

The big boss himself announced the new deal, NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson during the NetSuite conference dubbed NetSuite SuiteWorld 2012, held at the Marriot Marquis here.

“P & G is using NetSuite in their Philippine operations to manage their rapid growth in the country,” Nelson told the 3,200 people who attended the event.

In his keynote address, Nelson particularly cited the Philippines wherein big companies, not typical technology companies, have started to embrace cloud technology, believing that it’s the best way to deliver information to their employee, customers and suppliers.

Nelson commended Island Rose, a flower delivery business and Ramcor, sole producer of Kobe beef in Manila, and how these two companies utilize the cloud to gain advantage and improve the efficiency of their businesses.

“Every company in the world is now a cloud company, not just tech companies but big, profitable firms. For example, in the Philippines, we have clients like Island Rose and Ramcor, which use the cloud in their logistics. It is a fundamental transformation. Every company is realizing it has to become a cloud company. You are no way a cloud company if it takes you six weeks to process an order,” Nelson told the audience comprised of NetSuite partners, developers and system integrators.

In his keynote, Nelson also announced NetSuite’s latest offering, called “Commerce as a Service,” a new software product that aims to help clients build complex retail operations using little more than a Web design team.

Nelson said that through SuiteCommerce, “anyone can be Amazon.”

The SuiteCommerce will benefit and allow small and large businesses to have the kind of online customer data, product recommendation and order management utilized by Amazon.com.

“SuiteCommerce is a new commerce-aware platform that provides a central system to manage all transactions and associated customer interactions with consumers and other businesses regardless of touch point (website, smart phone, social media site, in-store, etc.),” Nelson explained.

He called it a “commerce back office that any Web designer can plug and use what he wants.”

“Over the past decade, NetSuite has transformed how our customers operate their businesses internally. Over the next decade, NetSuite will transform how businesses operate with other businesses and with their customers through NetSuite Commerce as a Service. Our new NetSuite SuiteCommerce offering is at the heart of this transformation,” added Nelson.

“By transforming the NetSuite business application into a commerce-aware platform, we enable our customers to extend the richest set of cloud operational capabilities available anywhere directly to their customers, regardless of the device those customers are using,” he said.

SuiteCommerce will empower companies to control everything.

Aware of the “operational friction in e-commerce,” Nelson said NetSuite would iron out this kink by collaborating with budding commerce companies to improve its new offering.

Nelson cited partnerships with Square, to provide customers online payments software and Stripe, a payments company that trains its sights on software developers.

Likewise, NetSuite has partnered with Bazaarvoice, a company that analyzes the content of social media for brands.

“These new solutions speak to the power of the SuiteCloud Developer Network,” said Nelson.

“Our partnerships with these leading innovators enrich and extend the SuiteCloud platform to enable merchants to seize opportunities to attract and retain customers while ridding themselves of the cost and complexity of legacy on-premise systems,” he said.

At the press conference, Nelson was asked how long it took NetSuite to develop the SuiteCommerce service, he said a year and a half but what counted most was how everyone in the company pooled their efforts to complete the service.

To improve its new software, NetSuite’s team also decoupled the cloud company’s own back end system from the way it interacted with customers.

Phl a strong cloud market

In a separate interview, James Dantow, Vice-President, Worldwide Support and GM Philippines echoed Nelson’s view that there have been a growing number of Filipino businesses that are relying on the cloud because they see that its solutions are working for them.

According to Dantow, Nelson’s acknowledgement of two Pinoy business companies Island Rose and Ramcor Group at his keynote address, is an affirmation that the Philippines, besides being an important market for NetSuite, is going the right direction in growing Filipino businesses by using cloud technology.

 Likewise, the addition of P&G to NetSuite’s roster of clients is heralding an era where cloud computing is becoming the norm rather than the trend than it was years ago in the Philippines.

“I think we are over the skepticism, it’s more of how can I use the cloud to benefit my company, to give me leverage over everybody else. What used to be a trend is now becoming a norm. We are gaining a lot of leverage in Asia,” Dantow said.

Dantow said business companies in Manila are now very open in using cloud-based business solutions.

“Cloud acceptance is not a problem in the Philippines. We find that we are very accepted in the Philippines. We are astonished at the number of companies in the Philippines that wants to benefit from cloud computing,” he said.

Dantow also projected a rosy economic projection for the Philippines.

“It is an exciting year for the Philippines, the economy is showing stability. The Philippines is a better place to invest. There are more jobs for the people. Creating jobs creates prosperity. There are lots of infrastructures and it only goes to show that the Philippines can be an economic force,” he said.

No less than Nelson himself gave a vote of confidence to the Philippine economy.

“We have a big presence in the Philippines,” said Nelson, hinting an expansion.

Dantow confirmed this and said they are planning to employ more people for their Manila office.

NetSuite opened its first office in the Philippines in 2007 in Makati and currently has 475 employees there.

NetSuite’s Philippine operations include software architecture and integration, finance and back office support, Professional Services, client management, and technical support.

Established in 1998, when dial up connections were still popular, NetSuite has established itself as a pioneer in providing business software online.

 NetSuite has been public since 2007 and last year, it had revenue of $236 million, a 22 percent increase from 2010.

NetSuite’s new partners

Aside from P&G, Nelson also inked deals with new clients such as Land O’Lakes, Girl Scouts of the USA, and  PT. Prisma Resources  which are all deploying NetSuite cloud solutions to manage their rapid growth and global expansion. 

In particular, Nelson cited that Land O’Lakes is implementing the NetSuite One World as a two-tier deployment for subsidiaries in multiple international locations while maintaining on-premise ERP systems at the corporate level, as NetSuite OneWorld  is designed to deliver real-time global business management and financial consolidation to companies with multi-national and multi-subsidiary operations coupled with a rapid speed of  implementation.

NetSuite has also added Deloitte to its large integrator roster, which previously included Accenture and WiPro.

Blytheco, a leading business management software and consulting services firm for the mid-market, has also joined the NetSuite Solution Provider Program to deliver cloud ERP to companies across a wide range of industries.

Founded in 1980 and serving more than 5,000 SMB and enterprise clients across the US, Blytheco is launching a new cloud computing practice in addition to its existing portfolio.

It  will focus on selling, implementing and supporting NetSuite cloud ERP / financials, CRM, Ecommerce and supply chain solutions to a growing new prospect base that is increasingly interested in moving to cloud-based business management solutions from on-premise software. 

“Our latest enterprise customers reflect the more innovative businesses that are running faster and smarter in the cloud while abandoning legacy on-premise systems,” Nelson said.