What is a NetSuite Consultant, and Why Might Your Company Need One?

A NetSuite implementation is too complicated to try alone. The right guide smooths the process and helps ensure success.

No one builds a house without a contractor or installs an HVAC without an expert. Significant investments and complicated projects require expertise the average person doesn’t possess.

That’s why your company needs guidance if it plans to spend thousands or even millions of dollars on an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. It needs a NetSuite consultant.

ERP systems are notoriously difficult to customize and implement. In fact, Technology Evaluation Centers reports that nearly 50% of implementations fail the first time when they’re conducted without third-party oversight or planning with an ERP partner. That’s a significant amount of wasted time and money.

SuiteDynamics is a  NetSuite Alliance Partner, meaning we work with the software provider to  customize and  implement NetSuite ERP systems. Our  certified specialists  know the software inside and out and can help your company identify which modules and features fit your unique processes. We can even step in mid-implementation to save a project gone awry.

Schedule a consultation with our team today and start experiencing NetSuite success.

Key Takeaways

1. A NetSuite consultant helps businesses smoothly implement NetSuite ERP systems, acting like a guide to prevent issues and customize solutions based on the company's needs.
2. Hiring a consultant can save businesses time and money by avoiding common implementation mistakes and solving functional problems like order processing and invoicing issues.
3. Consultants handle initial setup and stay involved to adjust the system as the business evolves, ensuring it keeps up with growth and new features.

What Is a NetSuite Consultant?

According to SuiteDynamics founder and CEO Jake Kleiner, a NetSuite consultant helps a business glide through NetSuite ERP implementations.

“Just like a tour guide takes a tourist on a trip … a NetSuite guide will take the same type of customer—a tourist—through a NetSuite experience without having to worry about … situations that could cause problems,” he says. “They smooth out the journey for that customer.”

With help from his SuiteDynamics team, Kleiner regularly guides these “tourists” on successful implementation journeys. He uses his background in business, finance, and computer programming to understand the client’s issues so his experts can customize ERP modules to solve them.

Kleiner holds three NetSuite consultant certifications, which means he has undergone training and paid licensing fees to receive expert credentials. Many other SuiteDynamics team members have also earned various designations, from NetSuite administrator to ERP consultant certifications and more.

Why Is a Consultant Necessary?

No company is required to work with a NetSuite consultant, but it's recommended. Many businesses try to implement ERP systems independently and experience disastrous results.

“Typically, businesses [that operate independent implementations] run into problems that they had no way of avoiding or knowing about,” Kleiner explains. “Those problems can span from straightforward configuration issues to very complex implementation issues. And they end up spending a lot more time just figuring out the basics, but they could have had someone just teach them or show them or configure for them right off the bat.”

That lost time, of course, translates to lost money.

Kleiner says that when clients finally call SuiteDynamics, most need assistance with how their sales and purchase orders impact accounting systems. They have “functional pains,” often involving simple complaints such as “I can’t process my order” or “I can’t complete my invoicing cycle.”

A consultant’s job is to help solve those problems and identify the company’s more significant needs.

“We need to be smart enough and wise enough to determine the real ‘tactical issue’ or ‘tactical pain,’” Kleiner says. “And the real tactical pain could be that they need to grow their sales by 500% this year. Or they need to trim down their expenses by $6,000, or something like that.”

SuiteDynamics experts can explain the consulting process in more depth during your free consultation. We'll discuss your business, its needs, and how NetSuite can help remove the obstacles holding it back.

How Does a NetSuite Consultant Guide an Implementation?

As the implementation progresses, consultants determine how an ERP can solve those pains. They use real-world experience to help the business decide what modules it needs and how to customize the system. They start with NetSuite’s out-of-the-box functionality and resort to customization only if those standard features don’t completely resolve the issues.

Kleiner says consultants stay in touch with the client after implementation to help them adjust the ERP as the business grows.

“NetSuite implementations, for the most part, don’t end,” he laughs. “They do go through different maturity cycles.”

He explains that many customers want an implementation end date. However, in reality, business needs evolve over time—and so does NetSuite.

For example, the company releases more than 300 features every six months. Therefore, business leaders can’t keep track of the latest features while also running their own enterprises.

SuiteDynamics tracks NetSuite’s latest and greatest releases for clients. We then communicate any new features that may benefit businesses and suggest how best to use them so clients never miss out on a system advantage.

In fact, Kleiner wants companies to consider SuiteDynamics as more of a partner than a consulting business. He trains our team to think about how an ERP solution will impact a business for years to come, so we have a stake in our clients’ successes.

To us, developing solutions only for current problems is not enough. We must also anticipate future issues.

Schedule a free consultation with the SuiteDynamics team if you’ve tried to implement your own ERP with little success—or haven’t even begun. Our team will listen to your issues, find your pain points, and implement the right ERP solutions.

Blow Away the Competition

Stop fighting a software system that's working against you. Instead, enjoy the benefits of an ERP that knits your operations together seamlessly and provides the data and analysis you need to trounce your competition. 

We know you can rise in your industry. 

So, team up with SuiteDynamics to develop the ERP system your business needs. As a NetSuite Alliance Partner, we customize and implement NetSuite ERP software for clients in any industry. 

And the partnership doesn't stop there. We can work with you long after go-live, maintaining the system, training staff, and adjusting the software to accommodate your expansion. Start by contacting us for a free consultation.

We pull information from NetSuite material, SuiteDynamics experts, and other reliable sources to compose our blog posts and educational pieces. We ensure they are as accurate as possible at the time of writing. However, software evolves quickly, and although we work to maintain these posts, some details may fall out of date. Contact SuiteDynamics experts for the latest information on NetSuite ERP systems.

Part of this text was generated using GPT-3, OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model. After generating the draft language, our team edited, revised, and fact-checked it to ensure readability and accuracy. SuiteDynamics is ultimately responsible for the content of this blog post.