Sightings in SaaS

A fellow Enterprise Irregular recently asked me what I thought about the announcement that companies who use NetSuite’s E-commerce solution grew at twice the national average. You can read the press release here.

Well, it’s an interesting question. There may be several possible explanations. First, the correlation between strong growth and NetSuite could be purely spurious. That is to say, there might be a third factor that many of NetSuite’s e-commerce companies share that results in really strong growth. For example, they might all share a strategic vision of how they want to run their companies, and in their quest for efficiency, growth and profitability they have found NetSuite’s completely integrated solution.  Let’s face it not every small business is equal. Some want to survive and others want to succeed.

Another explanation is the the software itself actually makes it easier to sell in NetSuite web sites. Honestly, I can’t really buy this one. There are a lot of very good e-commerce engines out there. They provide excellent functionality for managing a web site. The one thing that they do not have is an integrated inventory and financial modules. This is perhaps the most compelling explanation for why NetSuite e-commerce companies do much better than others: They don’t have to spend a lot of time manipulating data or managing spreadsheets, or rectifying inventory or the books. Without all of those business distractions, a NetSuite e-commerce user can spend more time on the stuff that really matters, like search marketing and product updates.