Empowered by parent company Oracle to deliver rapid innovation, NetSuite developers have continued to build and enhance the product for the tens of thousands of businesses who turn to this cloud solution every day. Updates, released twice-yearly, are spread across each of the segments in which the company works and help users get more out of the product.
Product-based businesses including those in retail and ecommerce, distribution, manufacturing, and food and beverage businesses are at the heart of NetSuite’s customer base and the company has taken special care to respond to user requests—as well as stay ahead of the competition.
So, what can users in each of these industries expect from the latest release? A recent series of blogs from the company explored that.
New Features in NetSuite Make It Easy to Run a Product-Based Business
Though each business is unique, some solutions span multiple industries. Whether it’s an easier way to adapt to hypothetical or real risks, improvements to the quality assurance solution, or a better way to see supply chain disruption, product-based businesses gain the following no matter the industry.
Avoid Delays and Address Supply Chain Challenges before They Happen
Extended capabilities of the Intelligent Predicted Risks functionality now takes transfer orders and compares them to historical data to determine when a delivery may be at risk.
Additionally, what-if simulations help users plan for the worst and recommendations allow organizations to adapt to challenges in the supply chain before they occur.
Connect Workflows with Third-Parties to Control Inventory and Processes
Many companies utilize third parties to manufacture their products, which can make communication challenging.
Now, with the ability to automatically create work orders when placing a purchase order on your contract manufacturer activities, it’s easier to track the progress of the manufacturing process and the consumption of inventory.
An Increasingly Robust and Mobile Quality Assurance Process.
Effective sampling is critical to maintain quality standards, lower inspection processing times and reducing overall costs. The Quality Management application can now handle much larger volumes of data. Better yet, inspectors can easily capture information in real-time through an easier to use tablet application.
Gain a Better Grasp of Supply Chain Imbalances
With the new Supply Chain SuiteAnalytics Workbook, manufacturers, distributors, and retail leaders can efficiently analyze supply-demand imbalances.
Improve Customer Satisfaction with Kill/Fill Backorder Management
Fill/kill backorder management capabilitieswillautomatically close any backordered items at the time of shipment if the customer does not want to wait for line item to go off of backorder, helping to manage regularly placed standing orders. Perfect for distribution firms and food manufacturers whose clients can’t wait, this helps clean up orders.
Address Shortages in Supply with Order Allocation Exceptions
When supply is short, the new order allocation exceptions feature will automatically analyze incoming inventory; as well as other orders that have already been allocated the requested item(s). Intelligent recommendations are generated to re-allocate from other orders.
When the user has made the final choice and accepted the recommendation, NetSuite automatically executes the re-allocations across the selected orders.
Retailers Gain Improved Item Management and Supply Chain Optimization
As demographics shift and the world continues to do more online, retailers need to be nimbler than ever. Between the Holiday season in 2019 and the pandemic of 2020, retail leaders have realized that business success is built on connection.
Staying in contact with suppliers, being able to deliver on the expectations of customers, and doing so when traditional lines of communication are strained requires the technology to make this happen.
To make this happen, NetSuite’s 2020 Release 1 offers a number of features that allow retailers to directly connect all parts of the business, including:
Find What You’re Looking for with an Improved Merchandising Hierarchy UI
Users will benefit from improved usability of the merchandise hierarchy, designed to make life easier.The new hierarchy provides enhanced visualization, using a symmetric layout of nodes and columns. Further, new expand, collapse and zoom capabilities simplify the process of drilling down to find the right product.
Speed up Fulfillment with Automated Fulfillment Requests
An enhanced automation feature, NetSuite provides the ability to automatically create fulfillment requests when the expected ship date is reached. With the new functionality, retailers can opt to only auto-create and send fulfillment requests to fulfillment locations once the expected ship date is reached.
These are just a few of the enhancements that NetSuite has delivered for retailers in their first release of 2020. Learn more by reading this blog, see how you could get an ecommerce plan up and running in 30 days or less with SuiteSuccess for SuiteCommerce, and learn more about how MIBAR helped JAM Paper facilitate their work with marketplaces here.
Manufacturers, Food and Beverage Get More Visibility and Control over Supply Chains
If there’s one thing that March and April 2020 have shown, it’s that you need supply chain visibility, but the ability to act on it as well. Given the increased complexity of manufacturing, a failure at any point in the process can generate massive losses. NetSuite’s 2020 Release 1 continues to improve both visibility and control over production activities. Here are just some of the ways they deliver:
A More Mobile Experience for Manufacturers Who Need It.
With NetSuite’s new mobile application for manufacturing, employees on the shop floor can easily enter data via mobile devices. Users can record completions, consume inventory and even add new fields with codeless customization.
Plan Production More Easily with Automatically Calculated Start and End Dates
Manufacturers can now automatically calculate start and end production dates on work orders, based on pre-configured manufacturing tasks. Users will be able to segment efficiency data by product, class, manufacturing location and subsidiary, and then develop accurate recommendations for operational improvements.
Distribution Adds Efficiency and Accuracy
With immense competition in the distribution space—not only from traditional competition but from the elephant in the room that is Amazon, distributors need to work faster and more accurately than ever. Luckily, NetSuite has delivered for these companies in their latest release:
Improved Warehouse Efficiency and Mobility with Barcode Support
NetSuite WMS continues to provide greater efficiency on the warehouse floor and additional convenience to end-users by improving printing and barcode scanning via the WMS mobile SuiteApp. You can quickly enter barcode data with GS1 barcode support. Large volumes of items inside inbound shipments are easily received with the new mobile receiving interface.
Provide customers More Information with Route Management Capabilities
New route management capabilities can automatically assign the route, stop, and delivery time of a given sales order based on the customer’s address, alleviating the challenges of assigning delivery routes. Users can override assigned ship dates if a change is required.
As a leading NetSuite partner, we’ve established a genuine methodology to help maximize every dollar of your ERP budget and ensure NetSuite is meeting your needs. Learn more about our NetSuite support and optimization services.
Not on NetSuite? Now’s the Perfect Time
At MIBAR, we’ve worked with NetSuite for the better part of the last decade, helping our clients make the most of their business with this powerful ERP solution. If you’re looking to set yourself up for success in 2020, our team is ready to help. Contact us for a free consultation to learn more.
Read more: What’s on the way in NetSuite 2020.1?
