Companies choosing cloud ERP are treated to a wide range of benefits. Increased security, more freedom and flexibility, and a lot of innovation. In fact, one of the biggest selling points of cloud ERP exists in robust updates that come to the software—leading ERP vendors like NetSuite and Acumatica deliver two major updates per year.
These robust, frequent, semiannual updates are tailored to the companies using them, with changes made from user requests and enhancements delivered for unique industry needs.
Following our last blog on the overall improvements made to the NetSuite Product in 2019.2, we would today like to explore the different enhancements made to satisfy the unique needs of product-based businesses including retailers, manufacturers, distributors. Led by the Supply Chain Control Tower, NetSuite has brought a variety of improvements for those who need control of product flow as they run their day to day operations.
Retail Enhancements: How NetSuite 2019 Release 2 Delivers
From supply chain visibility to control over eCommerce initiatives, retailers face a variety of challenges in getting products into store and into the hands of their consumers. Maintaining customer and supplier relationships is challenging enough, but as customers’ expectations rise, so do the needs of retailers. In their latest release, NetSuite brought a wide variety of improvements designed to help companies sell products in store and online.
End-to-End Supply Chain Visibility
Whether it’s a recall or a disruption to the supply chain, retailers need to see the big picture. Luckily, NetSuite’s Supply Chain Control Tower delivers the answers you need.
- Targeted alerts identifying supply chain issues that require attention.
- Pre-configured supply chain KPIs to track overall health.
- A Predicted Risks feature that identifies purchase orders where delivery may be in jeopardy.
- “What If” scenarios that enable retailers to simulate the business impact of inventory changes across their global supply chain.
- A Commitment and Allocation Engine that allows retailers the ability to match inventory to customer orders across varying customer types and timelines.
SuiteCommerce Extensions Improve Customer Experience Online
Improving the customer experience on your website can drive increased time on site, easier searching and filtering, and ultimately increase the average order size. NetSuite’s SuiteCommerce extension framework offers a way to easily add capabilities to your SuiteCommerce website that will give customers the experience they desire.
Features added include grid ordering, infinite scrolling on category pages, comparisons, inventory detail, and more—all designed to help you sell more and provide more visibility to your customers.
Merchandise Hierarchy Improvements
NetSuite 2019 Release 2 continues to improve the Merchandise Hierarchy capability. It’s easy for Merchandizers and Inventory Planners to set merchandise attributes such as color, size, pattern, fabric, model number, etc. on items quickly and easily from the hierarchy manager user interface.
Personalization, Promotions, and Powerful Reporting
Added to this, NetSuite has made it easier than ever to deliver quantity discounts or other promotions within the SuitePromotions module. Now, retailers using SuitePromotions have more flexibility, able to specify quantity of items, whether a discount can be repeated, or how a discount is applied.
Not only has NetSuite delivered for the bulk orders, they have made it easier for retailers to treat VIPs as well. With Personalized Catalog Views, merchants can segment customers and deliver personalized access to a determined set of products. This will benefit both B2B and B2C brands in need of ecommerce flexibility.
Finally, retailers have more flexibility than ever in their reporting, thanks to the continued SuiteAnalytics enhancements designed to provide business intelligence functionality for retailers. With new improvements to the SuiteAnalytics Workbook solution, queries are faster and more efficient than ever, and new pivot capabilities enable users to query, analyze and visualize key metrics with greater ease.
See more in the recent NetSuite Blog: Retailers: Deliver Great Customer Experiences With 2019 Release 2 Supply Chain Enhancements, Personalized Catalog Views and Improved Analytics.
Manufacturers Gain New Levels of Supply Chain Visibility
With the manufacturing world becoming increasingly complex and challenging for those who keep America moving and working, manufacturing firms face a mandate to improve and transform or become extinct. The current marketplace creates challenges in supply chain visibility, production control, and more, but luckily, NetSuite makes it easier. Among the improvements made to the product:
Supply Chain Control Tower and Snapshot Simulations Make the Complex Easier
The Supply Chain Control Tower brings a lot of visibility for all product-based businesses—no matter where on the supply chain they stand. For manufacturers, this solution is paired with the Snapshot Simulations feature to provide unparalleled visibility and minimized disruption. The enhancements give manufacturers a single view of the state of their supply chains and deliver predicted risks and recommended actions to avoid disruptions.
Supply Allocation Optimized Rules-Based Allocation and Commitments
Take control of current and future inventory assets. Optimized Supply Allocation, which delivers rules-driven allocation and commitment functionality. By enabling customers to optimize their use of current and future inventory assets, Supply Allocation maximizes profitability, service levels and inventory management.
Advanced Manufacturing Enhancements Improve Productivity
Manufacturing is more than supply chain—you still have to manufacture efficiently. NetSuite is there to help. With enhancements to Advanced Manufacturing, NetSuite users can streamline day-to-day processes and improve productivity:
- Enhanced Production Unit of Measure (UoM) features to enable shop floor personnel to record production quantities in any unit of measure
- Serialized Components that allow manufacturing operators to record assembly build data directly from the shop floor
- Inventory Status that enables warehouse staff to set aside inventory for specific work orders based on their status
Analytics, Quality Assurance, Allergen Statements and Order Guides
In addition to this, NetSuite brought a wide range of necessary enhancements to their analytics functionality, Quality Queue Customization, Sales Order Guides for order entry, Allergen Statements for Food and Beverage companies, and more. Learn more about the improvements here.
Wholesale Distribution Gets Warehouse and Supply Chain Control
As with those in the retail and manufacturing worlds, wholesale distribution is intimately familiar with the challenges that go into managing an efficient, controlled supply chain. Similarly, NetSuite has tailored a healthy portion of its release for these companies, bringing new levels of visibility and control into product flow and operations. Among the improvements made for wholesale distribution:
Warehouse Management Gets Even More Automated
Keeping track of your warehouses can often get derailed by manual, error prone, and time-consuming processes. With NetSuite 2019 Release 2, wholesale distributors can take advantage of a series of features that help to automate and more easily document warehouse management processes.
Through their Warehouse Management System Functionality, distributors now have control whether they are at their desks or in the warehouse, able to leverage a mobile solution that provides:
- Enhanced picking capabilities like single-order picking, multi-order picking and a pick recommendation engine.
- An Order Release feature to control the flow of orders to the warehouse.
- Faster processing, supporting up to 10,000 order lines per day per picking location.
- Customizable WMS screens with no coding required.
Supply Chain Control and Visibility
Just as the Supply Chain Control Tower Delivered for retailers and manufacturers, distributors gain control over their supply chain. The insights provided by the Supply Chain Control Tower will provide wholesale distributors with more control over supply chain processes, increasing on-time delivery and optimizing efficiency as a result.
These functions allow wholesale distributors to speed up existing, tedious processes, expand their view of the warehouse floor and reduce their margin of error at critical areas of the supply chain.
See more about the improvements here.
Get to Know NetSuite
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.
As a leading provider of NetSuite, the MIBAR team is pleased to share information about these enhancements with current and potential users of the software. We have worked with companies like yours to implement, customize, and train, deliver support, or even save a “failed” implementation. Get to know more about NetSuite, read some of our case studies, and contact us for a free consultation.
