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).

 

Lawson M3 Product Line Set to Receive Significant Investment with Infor Technology

Infor and Lawson Software said the direction of the M3 product line is strategic to the growth of Lawson, and that the development plan is to deliver complete industry suites built around the core M3 application. Lawson M3 solutions are designed for companies that make, move and maintain products or equipment.

The Infor and Lawson M3 product development teams have initially focused on three levels of adding value to M3 customers: 1) the user experience; 2) technology and 3) applications.

"We are truly looking to bring the best of both companies to provide immediate value to M3 customers," said Henrik Billgren, vice president, Lawson product management. "One example is the user experience with the Lawson Smart Office and Infor Workspace products. We see Lawson Smart Office as ideal for the power users within an organization, while Infor Workspace is great for the day-to-day workplace user. We are also looking to bring Lawson's mashup designer capabilities and Lawson Enterprise Search into Infor Workspace."

Among the planned benefits to the user experience include a unified look and feel, single sign-on, improved navigation, and in-context business intelligence.

At the technology level, the development teams have focused on using Infor ION, an innovative interoperability architecture, as a bridge to M3 Collaborator to create a unified and uniform middleware stack. This major advancement in M3 architecture will connect and deliver end-to-end processes across disparate applications, whether they are M3, Infor, home-grown, or third-party applications.

Lastly, at the application level, the initial work has focused on building out industry suites for the core M3 verticals: manufacturing, distribution, fashion, food and beverage, and equipment service management & rental. First examples are targeted at the process manufacturing and distribution verticals with Process Supply Chain Scheduling, Process Product Lifecycle Management, Corporate Performance Management (leveraging M3 Opportunity Analyzer), and Warehouse Management integrated with the core M3 application.

"Over the past five years, the Global Association of M3 User Groups (GAM3) has witnessed significant improvements in the functionality and technical advances, such as Smart Office and Enterprise Search, to the Java-based M3 ERP software," said Graham Maxfield, general manager of GAM3, which represents all M3 customers worldwide. "Following the acquisition of Lawson, GAM3 anticipates that these advances will continue and will accelerate to the benefit of M3 customers, both existing and new."

About Lawson Software

Lawson Software is an Infor affiliate with more than 4,500 customers worldwide, primarily in specific services, trade and manufacturing/distribution industries.

About Infor

Infor is a leading provider of business software and services, helping more than 70,000 customers in 164 countries improve operations and drive growth. To learn more about Infor, please visit www.infor.com.