For a business to grow it requires a combination of leadership, strategy and capabilities, but even with those elements in place, there’s often a missing link that can limit business potential. A unified technology platform is vital for a business to grow beyond its limits.

Shubhra Gupta, senior practice manager – NetSuite at IT service management company Fusion5, says growth is often restricted by disparate systems. For example, a company’s accounting software may not speak to its CRM, and it may have separate systems for payroll, HR and onboarding.

“This limits growth,” she says. “So much time is spent synchronising data across systems and aligning the metrics across different platforms. A business may have the best of breed systems from different places, but they’re not integrated, and this prevents access to real-time data and limits analytical abilities, which is so important when your business is growing.

“Many of the disparate platforms are not cloud-based, which also brings in the extra element of maintaining infrastructure on premises,” adds Gupta. “This presents another limitation, and it can weigh down the ability to grow.”

Supporting your growth

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) software system like NetSuite helps to accelerate business growth. A complete business management solution, it provides real-time visibility, reliable data and up-to-date information across every facet of your operations.

“It’s a unified platform for managing core business functions and, because NetSuite is a cloud solution, it offers diverse business functions that are fully integrated,” says Gupta. “This means functions like finance, inventory, CRM, even ecommerce, are all together in one single platform.”

Gupta explains that as NetSuite delivers two new releases every year, it continues to upgrade and enhance its features and functionality.

“This means that scalability is built into NetSuite,” she says. “You might start out as a small business, but as you grow and acquire new companies or expand into different regions or start operating in different currencies, NetSuite grows with you.”

A partner for success

As the largest NetSuite partner in Australia and New Zealand, Fusion5 helps businesses to accelerate their growth through its technology solution.

“One of our customers in the retail sector was looking to expand its product line and its operations outside of Australia, but their accounting software and other tech systems were limiting their growth,” says Gupta. “Their people had to work through the night to process orders during peak times and so many of the systems were manual. They had brilliant people and brilliant ideas, but their disparate systems were weighing them down.”

The company engaged Fusion5, which took time to understand the bespoke processes within their business.

“They saw how NetSuite could deliver process efficiencies within business and they were confident that Fusion5 understood their needs,” says Gupta. “We have many consultants with more than 10 years of NetSuite experience, and we worked closely with them to translate their disparate processes and data into NetSuite. This transformed their business from an operational standpoint, because of the efficiencies they gained from their day-to-day order processing, warehouse management, invoicing, finance and more.

“The business was able to introduce new product lines and expanded to other countries with much more confidence because they had a scalable, integrated system. And that’s exactly what businesses need to support their growth.” 

Learn more

Find out how Fusion5 can support business growth through its technology solution, NetSuite.

For NZ, click here and for Australia, click here.