NetSuite: SMBs taking a step-by-step approach towards AI

SMBs in Asia Pacific are showing more interest in AI as they look to embrace digitalization, says Amit Suxena, Head of Asia, Oracle NetSuite.

For NetSuite, automating and digitalizing small and medium businesses is pretty much their main focus in the Asia Pacific region. Known for enabling companies to manage business processes with a single, fully integrated cloud-based system, NetSuite is now focusing on helping businesses, especially SMBs embrace AI as part of their digital transformation plans.

CRN Asia caught up with Amit Suxena, Head of Asia, Oracle NetSuite, to understand more about their plans in the region, specifically on working with SMBs and growing their presence.

Can you tell us a bit about your plans for the Asia Pacific region, especially when it comes to working with SMBs?

Our mission is to basically automate and digitalize the small and medium businesses of Asia. We want to accelerate their digital transformation because we still notice that in this region, a lot of companies are still on Excel sheets and things like that. With AI coming in at breakneck speeds, we want to take them from Excel to AI.

Which industries in the SMBs are you looking mainly to focus on right now?

We have absolute market leaders in the services industry. The services industry ranges from hotels to hospitality, restaurants, professional services and such. That’s a sweet spot where NetSuite has really accelerated the digitalization of these companies.

As NetSuite is very much out of the box, we pride ourselves in going live really fast, because that's what SMBs are looking for. They don't want to spend too much time. That means we decided on something today, we can’t see the results nine months later, because that is too long for an SMB.

Are SMBs just looking at basic solutions or are they also looking at automation and AI as part of the conversation?

Initially, SMBs were only thinking of digitalization. Now, SMEs are looking atrI. As everybody's talking about AI, SMBs are thinking if they should make use of AI? Will they be left behind? So now suddenly SMBs are looking at solutions, but they are struggling with it.

What we are seeing in a couple of years, it would be very hard to digitalize without AI. If you're not getting the benefits of AI, then digitalization is not going to mean much. And this is where again, in NetSuite, our AI is built into the product.

Imagine that AI is in your ERP system. It's already there and it's looking at which segments for you are profitable, for example. It's already looking at, which credit, which suppliers, you have a payment problem or a delivery problem with? Or even at the customers that don’t pay you on time and such.

Now, when you prompt the AI a question like which new market should I go after? Because the AI is built inside, it is going to look at all that availability function within there and give an answer. So, you're solving a massive security risk issue by keeping your data within your control. Imagine taking your data and putting it on a public chat box, that's a huge risk.

NetSuite’s philosophy is to put it all in, and you decide what you want for your company.

How can SMBs manage the cost when it comes to using AI?

We do help our customers with an analysis to see what exactly they will be gaining. When a customer is looking at the end goals, we want to help the customer define their goals. If a customer has only one goal, then we'll give them something pretty simple, which only looks after that one goal. If the customer would like to transform its entire organization and want to look at these several things, then they have to spend X plus and do that.

For us in NetSuite as an organization, we are born for the SME. Our pricing is very much in tune with the market, which we are addressing right from our cost of software, as well as the cost of our implementation.

What are you looking to achieve most Southeast Asia, this year?

We feel there is a massive potential still for us in Southeast Asia from a totally addressable market perspective. We have been growing double digits in a lot of areas in Southeast Asia. We still feel there is a huge potential.

Beyond major capital cities in Southeast Asia, there is huge potential in other cities in Malaysia, Indonesia and such. For example, midmarket opportunities in Penang, Johor, Sarawak and outside Jakarta. There is so much potential.

So that's our primary growth driver. We are looking at a massive geo-expansion. We are also looking at getting our product more and more ready for specific markets. Specific markets have specific product needs.

We want to take the midmarket, we really want to change, we want to get them AI ready.

What we would really like to see is customers from Excel sheets get solutions which are AI driven so that their businesses are actually using that. So that's really our ambition for that.

I'm guessing this is where your partner ecosystem also comes into play into reaching out to those customers beyond the major cities, right?

Absolutely. We have a pretty strong partner ecosystem across the region, with presence in every country. Sometimes the local language things which are required and just being there. So yes, we have a very extensive partner system across this.

We've got partners who are partners with other companies, and they are just now on NetSuite, because it's again, a very simple product to implement. So, we don't really have red accounts or complaints in that sense.

What would you advise SMBs when it comes to picking a provider in this journey, what should they look for?

Before they look for a provider, I would always tell them, look first at your end goal. I would always say, look at what do you want to achieve? Do you want to automate a certain process? Or do you want to transform completely? Do you want to get after new markets?

And based on that, you should look at what is the out of box solution available for you. SMBs should not waste time on anything, which is looking for five or six months of implementation, because if you're looking at anything beyond that, then for an SMB, it becomes too long a cycle. Look for a solution which is fast to implement.

We would also say, take the step-by-step approach, do not take the big bang approach. Although for software companies, you should take a big bang approach, it's more revenue for us. But my advice to the SMBs is, take one step at a time, take one department at a time, learn from that, go to the next.

So don't try and do everything together. And literally, land your first step first, and then expand from there.

Is that what you're noticing right now with your current customers as well? Are they taking that one step at a time approach?

As a matter of fact, that's the one key change which I am seeing between last year and this year. Customers are now taking that one step at a time, initially a year, two years, just right after COVID. Because during COVID, what happened, they wanted it fast and took the big bang change approach. Some were successful, but some failed.

Of course, NetSuite can help you with a big bang approach also, which is suitable for customers. However, if you have more than one department, which you're automating, we are seeing customers come back to the step-by-step approach, which is a very positive step.