SuiteWorld 2023 Recap

By Neal Bellamy, IT Director at Kenton Brothers

Some of you might remember when we switched to NetSuite as our backend ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) back in January 2022.

NetSuite essentially handles all of our sales orders, purchasing, inventory, and accounting needs. We use a phrase around here that is, “You don’t know what you don’t know” and it seems pretty obvious. However, this truth reared its ugly head when we went live with NetSuite.

Even though our team spent almost a year getting prepared, we instantly found dozens of decisions made that didn’t have the outcome we expected. After 18 months of bending, twisting, and shaping NetSuite, we are in a much better place, where most people know what to do and what the effect will be.

SuiteWorld 2023

SuiteWorld is NetSuite’s annual conference to showcase new features and talk about their product development roadmap. Since we were finally becoming comfortable with NetSuite as-is, it is now time to stretch its capability. Three of us went to SuiteWorld to spread out, make connections, and learn new things.

The Future of NetSuite is Powered by AI

The impression I got from the keynote is that the future of NetSuite will be powered by AI.

I get it… Every vendor is shouting AI capabilities from the rooftops. But very few that I have seen are actually implementing AI. Some of those touted AI capabilities are just a set of rules that can trigger alerts. Some are a little more advanced and can change the threshold of the alerts dynamically.

NetSuite’s vision of AI is as close to a ChatGPT moment as I’ve seen so far.

One of the examples shown at SuiteWorld was a scenario where NetSuite would watch KPIs, determine what “Normal” looks like, and then alert you when that known normal is not what is being seen. Then, according to the vision, NetSuite can even make suggestions about how to correct the discrepancy. Of course, this is all flashy media right now, but it seems more doable than other examples I’ve seen trotted out as AI.

Several New Features Are Now a Part of NetSuite

One of the new features is a new license. Several new integrations between existing modules were shown. While they seem very powerful, the solutions of CPQ (Configure Price Quote), and SuiteCommerce (Online shopping) are more suited to Manufacturing or Retail companies versus the commercial security related solutions we provide at Kenton Brothers.

NetSuite did announce the purchase of NextService which is a service-based module meant to help service companies like KB schedule and dispatch technicians. We will certainly keep an eye on how NextService (renamed to Field Service) evolves.

The Expo floor had over 100 vendors that tie into or support NetSuite. It was a great place to explore other options and meet vendors who can help solve pain points. I certainly spent a lot of time on the conference floor making as many connections as I could.

Overall, the SuiteWorld experience was a good one. Several of the classes helped expand my knowledge of the capabilities and expansion options that are available to us. It was a good time to learn and make new connections!