Evan Goldberg, Founder and EVP, Oracle Netsuite provided the keynote address at the SuiteConnect 2024 event in London. Delegates packed the St Paul’s venue in central London as Goldberg firmly tied the company’s mast to AI and data connectivity.
Goldberg re-emphasised Oracle Netsuite mantra of ‘doing more with less.’ “Every technological advance from the manufacturing assembly line to the internet was based on doing more with less. It is certainly the main goal of AI. That is not just a statement about intentions, it about growing – that’s the do more part. It is about finding your engine for growth.”
He invited Brian Chess, SVP Technology and AI at Oracle Netsuite to the stage and spoke about the newly embedded generative AI capabilities. Goldberg said that organisations will be able to reach their goals faster and more efficiently. Embedded across the suite is NetSuite Text Enhance. The solution aims to help organisations leverage company-specific and relevant data from across NetSuite. Business teams can create and refine content that is contextual and personalised.
With NetSuite Text Enhance, finance and accounting can leverage the latest advancements in generative AI. Goldberg expects the solution will contribute to increases in productivity, reduction of human error, and improvements in consistency. It is expected to accelerate business processes.
Embedding AI into Netsuite
“We have been building AI into NetSuite for several years to help our customers be more productive and successful. We are now embedding the latest generative AI capabilities at no additional cost, so customers can gain further value from the suite,” said Goldberg. “With our Text Enhance generative AI capabilities, organisations can leverage company-specific and relevant data. To create and refine contextual and personalised content that increases speed, accuracy, and efficiency when performing nearly any type of task in NetSuite.”
Built on OCI and leveraging its leading AI services, the embedded NetSuite Text Enhance generative AI capabilities are designed to respect customers’ enterprise data, privacy, and security. With OCI Generative AI Service, no customer data is shared with large language model providers or seen by other customers. An individual customer is the only entity allowed to use custom models trained on its data. To further protect sensitive information, role-based security is embedded directly into NetSuite workflows. The solution only recommends content that end users are entitled to view.
Goldberg also made several new product announcements, including new capabilities in Netsuite Field Services Management. The platform connects field service technicians in distributors and production houses to the home office, scheduling and dispatching technicians based on their skills and location. This is all managed using a mobile app that technicians use to help them complete their jobs quickly.
‘New’ connectors and support learning
Oracle NetSuite has also launched NetSuite Analytics Warehouse Multi-Instance Connector. The company says the new connector enables customers in the UK and Ireland to reduce costs and improve decision-making. This achieved by consolidating data from multiple NetSuite instances into a single NetSuite Analytics Warehouse environment. Netsuite says the new solution will improve the accuracy and speed of insights.
Goldberg said,“Holding and parent companies, private equity firms, and franchisors often struggle to consolidate data. They find it difficult to derive meaningful insights from the portfolio of businesses they oversee. In many cases, workarounds are time-consuming, error prone, and expensive.”
“With NetSuite Analytics Warehouse Multi-Instance Connector, customers with multiple NetSuite instances can efficiently centralise data. By leverage industry-leading AI and analytics enterprises can quickly spot patterns, and gain insights from across their portfolio of businesses. This will accelerate growth.”
Goldberg also spoke about Netsuite Advanced customer support and learning cloud support (LCS) offerings. Goldberg emphasized the importance of leveraging advanced customer support to gain insights and best practices.
“Our advanced customer support goes way beyond standard support. Our teams learn how to use NetSuite to guide businesses to optimise the system. They combine deep NetSuite knowledge with an understanding of businesses, so they can provide hands-on help with configuration performance optimisation. In addition to leveraging new capabilities and how businesses can efficiently adapt to change. To capitalise on opportunities and expand their offerings.”
Enterprise Times: What this means for businesses
It felt a bit like ‘more of the same’ at Oracle Netsuite’s SuiteConnect event in London. As expected, Goldberg made the flourishing world of AI and automation centre stage at the event, embedding the technologies into the suite of Netsuite products. An array of customers was on hand to deliver the platitudes of success achieved with the company’s impressive array of products and solutions.
However, the event left me wanting more. Wanting to look underneath the bonnet to find out the actual realities of embracing change within an organisation. In today’s tough and competitive environment, enterprises must drive efficiencies across their people, technology and processes.
The intent is to enable people, technology and processes to add value where the greatest growth opportunities are. Unfortunately, the event and subsequent press and analyst QA, did not really spell this out in more detail. It left some attendees, wanting more.