NetSuite Unveils New B2B Customer Center for SuiteCommerce

At SuiteWorld 2014, NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson, in the opening keynote, announced the latest release of B2B Customer Center, built on the SuiteCommerce platform. Given that business models are increasingly converging and lines blurring (retail vs. distribution vs. manufacturing, products vs. services, B2B vs. B2C vs. B2B2C, etc.), the idea is to enable business to business (B2B) merchants (distributors, manufacturers, and B2B buyers) to deliver a business to consumer (B2C)-like online shopping experience (see image below).

Business must be commerce ready, and integration of front-office customer relationship management (CRM) data with back-office enterprise resource planning (ERP) data is an imperative—with astute omnichannel order management capabilities at the core. To that end, NetSuite’s new B2B Customer Center allows B2B buyers to view order status, details, and history, track shipments, reorder goods, approve quotes, make payments, manage account information, request refunds and returns, and more, in a secure password-protected environment.


 


The major features of the B2B Customer Center include a self-service customer portal, new customization, billing and payments, account, and product management capabilities that promote business efficiency by offering tools such as lists for seasonal purchasing and frequent buyers (to create custom shopping lists, or wish lists, to expedite recurring purchases). NetSuite SuiteCommerce's extensible platform supports role-based permissions, allowing customers to extend the solution to business-specific use cases, such as branded design, streamlined ordering, and payments. Responsive web design capabilities optimize the site for multiple devices, meeting the growing need of both buyers and sellers to access information and complete transactions anywhere and anytime.

As demonstrated to the conference attendees (see photo below), B2B buyers now have flexible payment options, including paying single invoices or multiple invoices, or making partial payments. Buyers can take advantage of discounts for paying early, whereas overdue invoices are highlighted to ensure proper payment. Customizable dashboards give buyers a snapshot overview of outstanding and available balances, deposits, credit limits and memos, current terms, and more. NetSuite distribution and manufacturing customers such as VHA Corp, EndoChoice, CMP Corp., Liberty Bottleworks, Tacoma Screw Products, Cleaner's Supply, and PAG Leisurewear are using NetSuite SuiteCommerce to reach new markets, drive site traffic, and improve operational efficiency by eliminating manual steps in phone, e-mail, and fax orders.

NetSuite Unveils New User Experience

NetSuite chief executive officer (CEO) Zach Nelson unveiled the new NetSuite user interface (UI) with a more intuitive and visually engaging work experience during his keynote address at the company’s SuiteWorld 2014 conference yesterday. Founder and chief technology officer (CTO) Evan Goldberg discussed and demonstrated the new capabilities more deeply in his SuiteWorld 2014 keynote presentation today. NetSuite plans to roll out the new UI with NetSuite's 2014.2 release, scheduled for Q3 2014.

As the pioneer in cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP), NetSuite has been at the forefront of UI design trends. Its first release in 1999 abandoned the Microsoft Windows desktop standard look and feel of the era and adopted the web metaphor. The company’s UI introduced role-based business intelligence (BI) dashboards, while its 2006 UI featured in-line editing in web-based applications (instead of just viewing) and incorporated Ajax technologies to develop dashboards and portlets that live natively in core business applications (see image depicting the development of NetSuite UI over the years).



NetSuite's 2014 UI

To again reinvent its business application UI, NetSuite conducted 3 years of deep usability research with its customers. It reportedly completed extensive research, user observations, and usability testing with users across various roles—from front-line sales, marketing, finance, e-commerce, human resources (HR) and services employees through to C-level executives. Leveraging and supporting HTML5 and based on principles of modern ‘flat design,’ which emphasizes crispness and clarity, the NetSuite UI exhibits easy-to-read fonts, attractively redesigned icons and graphics, increased whitespace, and greater aesthetic simplicity (see figure).

 


Overall, 2014 UI highlights include easy access to navigation and tools such as Global Search, Recent Records, Help, and Shortcuts, as well as a new global Quick Add feature that enables users to rapidly add tasks, events, contacts, and more from anywhere in the product. In addition, the ‘progressive disclosure’ feature conceals action prompts until mouseover for a “cleaner” experience, and there is also an improved experience on tablets through a responsive dashboard, larger menus and controls, and improved scrolling (see image).