Leading Industry Analysts Review Functionality and Business Process Management Capabilities of Next Generation Business Application Suites

NetSuite Wins in All Categories

BOSTON, Dec. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Strategy Partners International, a leading IT analyst firm, today announced that an independent panel of judges at Sapience 2009, held here on December 9, declared NetSuite OneWorld the winner of an enterprise software "shoot-out" against SAP Business ByDesign. The three judges -- Helmuth Gumbel, Senior Research Director and Managing Partner of Strategy Partners International; Vinnie Mirchandani, Founder of Deal Architect; and Ray Wang, Partner with Altimeter Group and former Forrester analyst -- unanimously concurred that NetSuite OneWorld was the superior choice in a real-world test of three fundamental enterprise processes: customer relationship management (CRM), goods production and order fulfillment, and financial management. The results demonstrate the strength of NetSuite's ( NYSE: N) dedicated and pioneering commitment to cloud computing, its large diverse customer base, and the 10-plus years of development invested in building a robust enterprise business suite able to handle the most complex business processes.

The three judges were asked to rate both solutions across 23 different criteria in five general categories: Design, Usability, Functional Aspects, Technical Aspects, and Other. In addition, three business processes that were rated covered the following scenarios:

• CRM Process - from lead to opportunity to order
• Production & Fulfillment Process - from work order to purchasing to goods assembly to shipping
• Global Financial Management Process - from invoicing to payment to financial reporting, including multi-subsidiary/multi-company consolidation

Finally, each judge was permitted to weigh the relative importance of each category in a band between five and 80 percent of the total score, according to his opinion of the significance of each category to overall enterprise merit. The ruling was unanimous -- the judges granted NetSuite OneWorld a higher composite score than SAP Business ByDesign. Notably, the SAP solution required significantly more user input than NetSuite OneWorld to obtain the same results; was unable to demonstrate the Production & Fulfillment process in real-time; and could not demonstrate multi-subsidiary/multi-company consolidation at all.

"We saw in NetSuite a solution designed for the 21st century, with impressive breadth and depth of functionality for managing the complex global operations of a business," said Helmuth Gumbel, Managing Partner of Strategy Partners International. "The extensibility and customizability of NetSuite OneWorld make it an appropriate fit for a growing number of companies who would be making a mistake to limit their discussions to legacy on-premise ERP vendors."

Sapience 2009, held December 8-9, in Cambridge, Mass., gathered SAP users, analysts, and vendors in an independent environment to discuss the changing ERP landscape and the choices facing business leaders and enterprise IT architects. Sapience 2009 is a joint venture between Strategy Partners International, Sapientia GmbH and OnTrack Communications. The event is dedicated to providing objective analysis and advice from ERP experts coupled with information and insight into cost effective alternatives for SAP users and exposure to new ERP solution providers.

About Strategy Partners International

Strategy Partners is an innovative analysis company which researches and consults on specific IT market segments. We provide business-driven, pragmatic and actionable advice to help organizations acquire and effectively exploit systems operationally. Our research and advisory services also extend to organizations participating in IT-related mergers/acquisitions and strategic alliances.

About Helmuth Gumbel

Helmuth Gumbel - Managing Partner, Germany. Based in Switzerland, Helmuth Gumbel oversees and directs Strategy partners' German-speaking market activities. Widely acknowledged as a leading expert in IT business applications in general, Helmuth has also come to be considered as a "SAP GURU", one of the world's foremost authorities on the organizational and implementation issues of SAP products and services. Computerwoche rated Helmuth as one of the 100 most important IT-influencers. He has extensive board-level experience in assisting users in their adoption and use of leading-edge IT products. He is consulted to determine the most cost-effective ways of exploiting information technologies in line with business objectives. Helmuth has also helped many vendors in Europe and North America in formulating and improving their business, market and product strategies.

SOURCE Strategy Partners International

Back to top