NetSuite Achieves Top PSA Software Ranking - Again

SAN MATEO, Calif., April 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), the industry's leading provider of cloud-based financials / ERP software suites, today announced that for the third consecutive year NetSuite leads the Professional Services Automation market as companies using NetSuite's OpenAir professional services automation (PSA) and services resource planning (SRP) software are among the highest performing when evaluated side-by-side against peer organizations. According to the SPI Research 2011 Professional Services Maturity Benchmark Report, NetSuite owns 20 percent of the market share, while the closest competitor has only 12 percent. To receive a complimentary copy of the full report, visit http://www.openair.com/Whitepapers/268.

Additionally, four out of 12 "Best-of-the-Best" professional services organizations participating in the study are using NetSuite OpenAir software to manage key business processes across project management, resource management and project accounting. NetSuite OpenAir customers receiving top honors include Advent Software, Informatica and TOP Step Consulting. To learn more about how these companies are achieving greater results using NetSuite software, please view a recent webinar.

The report surveyed more than 214 professional services organizations (PSO) on a variety of operational best practices. "Best-of-the-Best" honors go to the top 12 firms who have significantly outperformed the benchmark average by scoring four out of five or better in all five service performance dimensions in the SPI report—Vision, Finance and Operations, Service Execution, Human Capital Alignment and Client Relationships. Since the first publication of the Professional Services Maturity Model Benchmark Report in 2008, thousands of service and project-oriented organizations worldwide have used it to diagnose and improve their PSO performance.

"SPI has researched more than 610 services organizations to establish this year's benchmarking survey, which has raised the bar quite high. It's no surprise that the leading organizations in the survey have a PSA or SRP solution in place to bolster revenue growth, increase resource utilization and support globally diverse workforces," said Jeanne Urich, Managing Director at SPI Research. "Competition is growing as this market continues to expand, and we congratulate NetSuite and its customers for their dynamic leadership in what we found to be an increasingly competitive and profitable industry."

NetSuite OpenAir's professional services automation (PSA) and services resource planning (SRP) software helps services organizations automate and manage key aspects of their business—from marketing to project management, service delivery, billing, revenue management and driving repeat business from existing clients. For global services organizations, these solutions help them meet the challenges of global services delivery, including comprehensive support for multiple languages, currencies, taxation rules and employee work guidelines as well as real-time global visibility across their entire business. Quickly realizing benefits by abandoning archaic software systems, ad hoc spreadsheets and email lists to manage critical client projects, for the first time services organizations can fully take advantage of the dramatic cost savings, service delivery improvement and productivity benefits of cloud computing.

"Advent is proud to be recognized as a 'Best of the Best' professional services organization," said Chad Williams, Vice President of Services, Support and Renewals for Advent's Investment Management Group. "In addition to investing in our employees and strong partnerships with our clients and partners, we credit the automation and reporting provided by NetSuite for helping to achieve the necessary visibility and control over our financial operations and metrics—critical factors in our business operations and growth as an organization."

Key Report Findings

Core to SPI's benchmark report is the emergence of PSA as the status quo for effective services organizations. PSA solutions improve efficiencies and boost profitability for services organizations through increased employee utilization rates, decreased manual data entry, reduced IT maintenance costs, and accelerated invoice and billing cycles. Other key findings in the SPI benchmark report include:

• NetSuite is the dominant PSA solution provider with 20 percent of survey participants leveraging one or more NetSuite solutions
• Four of the 12 SPI Research top performers are customers of the NetSuite family of products
• More than 88 percent of the "Best-of-the-Best" firms surveyed have PSA solutions in place, providing a competitive edge
• Fifty seven percent of PSA users run their application in the cloud, while 13 percent stated that they plan to move their PSA to the cloud within three years
• Embedded Software as a Service PS organizations have shifted from cost centers to profit centers
• The PS workforce is becoming more global – while 86 percent of this year's participating organizations are headquartered in North America, 58 percent of their employees are located outside of North America

NetSuite OpenAir's PSA and SRP Drives Efficiency and Profitability for Services Organizations

"Walking the talk is important to us as our business is focused on business efficiency and productivity of project based organizations," said Jodi Cicci, President and CEO of TOP Step Consulting, LLC. "Being a part of the top 12 Best of the Best validates for us that we are headed in the right direction.  Leveraging a PSA tool is a critical component of this success to provide the efficiencies that we need to reach our revenue, utilization and profit targets."

"The professional services business has begun to reap the benefits of change as highlighted in SPI's report; through increased annual revenue growth, improved billing rates and establishing Software as a Service PSOs as profit centers," said Edward Marshall, NetSuite's SVP of Product Strategy for Professional Services. "Business in the 21st century has changed, and NetSuite is committed to providing solutions that enable our customers to succeed in this new business climate, and the SPI report validates our efforts."

To join the NetSuite Professional Services conversation on Twitter, follow @NetSuitePSA.

About SPI Research

Service Performance Insight focuses on the global service economy. They provide a unique depth of operating experience combined with unsurpassed analytic capability. In their consulting engagements, they help service and project-oriented organizations ignite performance by objectively assessing strengths and weaknesses to develop a full-faceted improvement plan, with measurable time-bound objectives. SPI Research provides an informed and actionable third-party perspective for service executives and technology providers. Their market research and reporting forms the context in which both buyers and sellers of information technology-based solutions maximize the effectiveness of solution selection, deployment and use. For more information on SPI Research, please visit www.spiresearch.com.

About NetSuite

NetSuite Inc. is the industry's leading provider of financials/ERP software suites. NetSuite enables companies to manage core key business operations in a single system, which includes ERP, accounting, customer relationship management (CRM) and Ecommerce. NetSuite's "real-time dashboard" technology provides an easy-to-use view into up-to-date, role-specific business information.

For more information about NetSuite Inc., please visit www.netsuite.com.

NOTE: NetSuite and the NetSuite logo are registered service marks of NetSuite Inc.

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SOURCE NetSuite Inc.