Groupon, the company behind the Huddlebuy group buying exchange, is planning to replace hundreds of financial spreadsheets with a single NetSuite accounting system.
Groupon claims to be one of the world's fastest growing companies and has added one new country to its operations every three weeks.
“At that pace of growth, we have multiple accounting systems out there. We wanted to get to one platform, one component, and get there very quickly,” Groupon international controller John Bosshart told the SuiteWorld conference in San Francisco this week.
Such rapid expansion meant that every time Groupon entered a new market,it increased the time and effort needed to close the books. The rag bag of different programs, processes and spreadsheets made it difficult for Groupon's finance team to understand the full scope of its international operation, and made standardisation of accounting and reporting practices impractical.
Groupon initially signed up with NetSuite in early February and deployed NetSuite OneWorld to five countries within six weeks. With 26 markets expected to go live over the next three months, Groupon is aiming to complete the roll out to all 46 of its countries by the end of 2011.
Groupon is the kind of enterprise customer that NetSuite is now targeting with its NetSuite Unlimited bundle. The package will set customers back around $1m, but can accommodate unlimited amounts of users, storage space, apps, modules and subsidiaries.
“We've done our best to give you the power of the big boys, and give the big boys agility,” commented NetSuite CEP Zach Nelson.
We know NetSuite Unlimited is not for everyone, but think about global companies, If you don’t ever have to outgrow your software, what is that worth to you?”
Another component of NetSuite Unlimited is a new partnership with services firm Accenture, which has created an ERP (enterprise resource planning) practice around NetSuite's software. Accenture is doing the installation for one new NetSuite customers, Qualcomm, which is consolidating its mid-tier ERP on NetSuite OneWorld.
And following the examples of Salesforce.com's Chatter push and RightNow's social media focus, NetSuite is working with the Yammer social network to bring internal communications into the online ERP system. The Yammer Activity API should be ready by the third quarter of 2011.
Nelson said it was an obvious move as customers want and need increasingly to collaborate on editing and sharing information on their NetSuite deployments and records. “You take a look at all of the action that is happening on this record, there is no other thing to call it but social,” he said.