NetSuite CMO Fred Studer
“It’s about the platform for disruption”, he said, adding, “If we take advantage of all the technology available we can adapt to all the changes coming.”
Studer notes that traditional supply chain-driven sales and marketing processes are too inflexible to properly serve an increasingly fragmented and diverse customer base.
“We want everything to be customized,” he said. “We want what we want, and we want it now. We have to think differently about how we engage with the customer. Not just customer behavior, but we need the system in place to drive customer engagement. It’s data-driven everything.”
“Data driven” is expected to extend beyond order taking and fulfillment, to full integration with manufacturing processes. The goal is to reduce the lead time between a customer buy decision and the product build on the assembly line – ideally to zero.
While data-driven systems are common in mass production markets like automaking, smaller firms have the short supply chains needed to customize the customer experience with a quick turnaround. The irony has been that small firms lack the data processing horsepower to achieve mass customization with speed.
Cloud-based systems like NetSuite’s promise to give Fortune 500 CRM capability to local businesses and small manufacturers. As systems such as Netsuite’s roll out, there may be significant impacts to traditional distribution models. Small manufacturers may be more profitable selling directly to the end user without distribution – especially where each transaction feeds back more useful information than conventional market research.
SuiteWorld 2015 wraps up today at the San Jose Convention Center.