January 19th, 2009
NetSuite & Salesforce.com Integration
A PSA and CRM Link-up
Last week, NetSuite made a number of announcements regarding their OpenAir PSA (Professional Services Automation) solution and the integration this product line has with Salesforce.com’s CRM product line.
Before you say, “So what!” – let’s look at this a bit more. Here are two SaaS leaders in their respective markets (i.e., CRM and PSA) who are making it easier for their mutual customers to utilize their solutions. This is more interesting as NetSuite has a CRM solution of its own.
Why are these two firms doing this? In a recession, smart software firms do what they can to keep the customers they have. Making it easier for NetSuite Financial and OpenAir PSA users to integrate with Salesforce.com’s CRM makes best-of-breed SaaS products more attractive in the marketplace.
For all of the SOA (services oriented architecture) integration talk in the traditional (non-SaaS) application software marketplace, we haven’t really seen a lot co-operation between rivals. Do Oracle and SAP applications interoperate seamlessly today? Sorta, Kinda, Maybe, ,,,,
The NetSuite/Salesforce.com integration permits a single sign-on to both systems, two-way data integration, less re-keying of data and fewer integration/synchronization errors. The deal is a good one for Salesforce.com, too, as it reinforces their market leadership in the CRM space. In fact, the deal may indirectly benefit CODA as its Financial software is available as a tightly integrated solution with Salesforce.com’s CRM product.
Software users have always wanted a best of both worlds situation: the ability to buy the best applications regardless of vendor and have all of these best-of-breed solutions work well together. Not that this solution from Salesforce.com and NetSuite is perfect today, but, it’s moving in the right direction. Longer term, users may get an even better solution when NetSuite re-crafts its OpenAir product line under the NetSuite NS-BOS architecture. When that occurs, the OpenAir solution will be a seamless Finance, CRM and PSA product line. However, since there are no full front-to-back office solutions today for service firms, this announcement is a big step forward.
This blog explores the intersection set between services and technology. If it impacts either space, it will be covered here. Brian Sommer is a former Accenture partner. He did an 18-year tour of duty there and ran three small practice units (Finance Center of Excellence, HR Center of Excellence and Software Intelligence). He’s sold service projects in almost every continent and remains just as current on both services and technology today as ever before. Brian is currently CEO of TechVentive, a strategy consultancy servicing technology providers, and a research analyst with Vital Analysis. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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