Steve Borner
That shift is showing up in the briefs. Demand is still strong, but the profile clients need has changed. More of the work is sitting in operational areas such as supply chain, inventory, order management, warehousing, logistics and marketplace integrations, where general NetSuite experience isn’t always enough.
The biggest shift this year is the drive toward operational and industry expertise. A lot of the mandates we’re seeing from clients have been based around finding consultants who truly understand their particular business, whether that’s food and beverage, beauty products, apparel or retail.
The challenges those clients are facing in NetSuite aren’t necessarily on the accounting side anymore. They’re far more often in supply chain, inventory management, order management, warehousing, logistics and managing EDI with marketplaces. A lot of that comes down to truly optimizing their NetSuite instance with someone who understands their business model.
Why 40-Hour Engagements Are Becoming More Common
The drive toward 40 hours a week is because these projects are sorting out operational challenges rather than core system issues. The deadlines tend to be tight, and there’s a larger operational cost to the business if the work isn’t done quickly.
The old projects we used to pick up were more like admin-plus roles. It was often someone who could provide something close to an MSP-style service and troubleshoot issues. A lot of that work is getting automated in NetSuite now.
As the projects move further onto the operational side, the pressure is different. If a company is having real challenges managing inventory and reconciling orders through multiple marketplaces, this isn’t something it can necessarily take six or 12 months to fix. It needs a consultant to dedicate more hours and get it done as soon as possible.
Where Talent Is Tightest
On EPM, within the NetSuite EPM suite, you’ve got core products such as NetSuite Analytics Warehouse, NetSuite Planning and Budgeting and NetSuite Account Reconciliation. These have always been some of the harder parts of the market to resource.
Demand isn’t necessarily exceptionally high for those skill sets all the time, but when we do have demand for consultants with that experience, they’re very difficult to find and in very short supply. I do see this as an area that’s probably going to see an uptick in demand over the next 12 months.
With the evolution of NetSuite’s EPM suite, more new NetSuite customers are likely to need EPM support moving forward. That’s an area that could be massively underserved by consultants.
On the supply chain and inventory side, I think it’s a common friction point. Companies have typically got multiple systems running into NetSuite. They may be using external or third-party WMS, logistics or order management tools, and the integrations there can break or fail.
That’s where the rubber meets the road for a lot of product businesses. If you’re manufacturing or distributing a physical product, supply chain is where a lot of the stress and pressure sits on the NetSuite environment. It’ll continue to be an area of demand, and an area where customers are looking for greater efficiency.
Why General NetSuite Experience Isn’t Always Enough
This follows the trend of NetSuite demand moving into more operational skill sets.
If we go back eight or nine years, there used to be a need for what was called the techno-functional consultant. That meant a consultant who understood NetSuite functionally, but could also do some development work in SuiteScript and areas like that.
You don’t necessarily get a huge amount of demand on the development side now. With improvements around REST web services, RESTlets, Suitelets and workflows that can be built with a lesser skill set inside NetSuite, a lot of that demand has moved.
As companies look to optimize, industry experience becomes more important. If you’re looking at advanced manufacturing, WIP, BOMs, routings and areas like that, the basics may be similar, but what that means for a food and beverage manufacturer can be very different from what it means for a chemical manufacturer, a car components manufacturer or an apparel firm.
The business processes are often quite different in terms of what they actually look like in NetSuite. Having someone who can translate the business requirements from the operational team and then optimize that into NetSuite is key. Someone with strong industry expertise is uniquely positioned to do that.
Why The Strongest Consultants Are Moving Quickly
The very best consultants are in very high demand. Word of mouth is strong across the NetSuite ecosystem, and these consultants tend to find themselves referred into projects pretty quickly.
For clients, it can be challenging to get a truly independent consultant for a full 40 hours. There are other options available, including smaller consulting firms that can offer a team solution and provide the bandwidth of full 40-hour support.
Companies are also becoming more proactive in sourcing talent for projects. Rather than waiting two or three weeks before a project is due to kick off, clients are starting to align talent earlier. We’re seeing customers come to us now about projects that will kick off in December and January, making sure they have the opportunity to lock in the best consultant available.
Managing the project pipeline further out is proving to be pretty powerful.
What The Retailer Example Shows
We were engaged by an apparel retailer in the US that was growing very quickly and doing very well. During the initial implementation, things hadn’t been configured quite right for their business model.
That meant they had a complex integration structure with their third-party order management and ecommerce platforms, as well as some other pieces. It was causing significant issues inside the business.
It was very difficult for them to track live and accurate inventory. It was also difficult to predict fulfillment rates on orders, which was particularly challenging because they had wholesale customers as well. Order management and fulfillment through their direct-to-customer ecommerce model was clunky, and in some cases they weren’t able to fulfill orders that had been made weeks earlier by customers.
We had a retail and apparel specialist consultant who had been doing this for over 10 years. They were able to come in quickly and identify the key pain points and issues. They’re working well with the company now to get those things rectified.
There’s still a journey to go in terms of truly optimizing the NetSuite environment, but some of the core business challenges were identified very quickly. There has been an almost immediate improvement in a lot of those key areas, with quite a light lift so far.
What Clients Should Do Before Going To Market
Ahead of engaging with a contractor or contract talent for NetSuite projects in H2, companies need to first identify the key objectives.
Is it an initial pain point they’re trying to get out of the way quickly, or are they looking to sort the problem out at a more foundational level? Sometimes customers come to us without a clear view of how much investment they’re willing to put into fixing a problem.
It’s about identifying the actual cost to the business of the problem, how willing they are to get it sorted, and what commitment or effort is needed to get their NetSuite environment optimized.
The other thing is making sure there are clear timelines around when they’re looking to get work done. With the pressure on bandwidth for the very best consultants, clients need to manage expectations around hours-per-week commitments and project time frames.
Projects with flaky deliverables and time frames are much less attractive to consultants.
What SuiteWorld Conversations Will Be About
The Empiric team and I will be at SuiteWorld in October, and it comes at an interesting time for the market. I expect AI and automation to be top of mind for almost everyone, so I think that’s going to be a key part of the conversation.
NetSuite Next is now part of that conversation, and customers are starting to look at what it could mean for their NetSuite environments. I can imagine a lot of conversations being based around what NetSuite looks like for customers in 12 or 24 months, with AI and automation tools now much more readily available.
Cost will also be a major theme. As ever, there are a lot of customers who have NetSuite and have seen their costs balloon over the last couple of years as they’ve matured into new modules, greater usage, increased licenses and other areas they may not have accounted for.
There’s always a cost element to these conversations. How can companies find greater efficiency within the NetSuite contract? How can they make sure their investment in NetSuite is targeted to a clear ROI? And how can we help them bridge that gap?
What Clients May Be Underestimating
Going into Q4, I think there are a couple of things.
A lot of companies are looking at AI and automation tools, but there’s a lot of data readiness work that needs to be done before they can take that step. I don’t think companies are always prioritizing that as they move toward a more automated environment, and I think it’s going to be key.
The other area is EPM, with NetSuite Analytics Warehouse and NetSuite Planning and Budgeting. These are modules I expect more customers to invest in, but there’s a real shortage of talent in those areas.
For companies trying to identify talent that can actually deliver those projects, that may become a challenge going into Q4 and Q1 next year.
Planning A NetSuite Project?
For clients planning a NetSuite project, trying to fix a stalled process or preparing for what comes next after SuiteWorld, the first step is clarity. Know the problem you need to solve, understand the cost of delay and move early enough to secure the people who can actually deliver the work.
At Empiric, we support NetSuite customers across the US, UK and Europe with contract talent across ERP, EPM, supply chain, inventory, WMS, integrations and wider operational transformation.
You can learn more about our NetSuite capability here.
To speak with the team about an upcoming project, book a callback here.
If you’re attending SuiteWorld and would like to meet us there, book time with the team here.
