Every year, the speed of doing business gets faster. Technology is all about helping you do more things in less time. Integrating technology follows suit, designed to enhance productivity and streamline workflows by connecting disparate systems to achieve a goal with minimal to no manual intervention. 

NetSuite integration tools, for example, offer the opportunity to eliminate redundant labor, refresh obsolete business processes, consolidate business information into a single dashboard, and offer an industry-standard (or better) customer experience. One study found that as many as 68% of end users adopt NetSuite because of its ability to integrate both CRM and ERP into one cloud-based package. Once the organization is migrated to the cloud, NetSuite can be further customized by plugins and integrations to streamline across the entire organization.

But for NetSuite integrations to do miracles for your business, you need to have the right integrations in place. Let’s take a look at the ins and outs of integration: why you should do it, how you can do it, and how to find the best integration for your business needs.

Why You Should Add NetSuite Integrations

Your organization made a significant enough investment in your NetSuite ERP in the first place, so it makes sense to do whatever you can to make sure your ERP is used to its fullest capacity. And that means adding integration.

What does adding integration not mean? It does not mean that your NetSuite ERP isn’t capable. Quite the opposite, in fact: Integration is designed to more fully enhance your NetSuite ERP’s functionality, improve operational efficiency, and most of all, leverage the full potential of your ERP investment. 

But if you need some specifics, here are just a few reasons why you should look at adding integration to your to-do list: 

• Streamline Processes: Integration between systems like your CRM, e-commerce platform(s), and even inventory management and your NetSuite ERP automates data transfer and eliminates manual data entry, streamlining your processes and significantly reducing the margin of error.
• Comprehensive View: When systems are integrated, you get consolidated data from different departments and functions, which in turn provides a comprehensive view of your organization’s operations. With this integrated view, your decisions can be both prompted and supported by real-time insights into every facet of the business. 
• Improve Data Accuracy: Integrated systems ensure data consistency and accuracy across an organization. Synchronizing data in real-time via integration will reduce the risk of discrepancies between systems. 
• Save Time and Resources: With integration, organizations can reduce manual effort and operational inefficiencies, which in turn leads to cost savings. 
• Competitive Advantage: Fully integrating your NetSuite ERP builds a competitive advantage through agility, innovation, and faster time-to-market. Integrated systems enable the organization to respond quickly to changing market dynamics, launch new products and services, and stay ahead of the competition.

The Different Methods of NetSuite Integration

Now that you understand some of the “why” behind integration, let’s look at some of the “how.” There are a few different NetSuite integration methods to consider. 

First, we have NetSuite SuiteCloud Platform Integration. If that sounds complicated to our less technical readers, that’s because it is. This tool is designed for software developers, application administrators, and ISV. It uses open RESTful web services to integrate into any data source or external business system. For organizations with deep technical expertise, this is a good option that saves on subscription costs. 

Another NetSuite integration option is iPaaS, or integration platform as a service. iPaas is a cloud-based self-service solution for connecting business applications and data. iPaaS solutions offer advanced flexibility to create multiple integrations in NetSuite for various use cases with different levels of customization. 

Finally, there’s NetSuite SuiteApps. These applications are developed directly by Oracle NetSuite or by third-party SuiteCloud Developer Network members. Organizations can find the connectors they need on the SuiteApps marketplace and have integrations up and running quickly, typically with minimal technical expertise. These plug-and-play integrations help keep businesses nimble and running at the front edge of digital transformation, no matter their level of technical acumen. 

Learn more about agility in digital transformation by downloading this free ebook. 

Choosing the Right NetSuite Integration

NetSuite integrations are full of exciting possibilities, but not every integration will be the right fit for your business. Selecting the best integrations takes time and intention. 

First, identify all third-party and legacy applications your organization uses across every division. Then make sure you have a thorough understanding of how your company processes function. Having a defined methodology for each process will help you best understand how each activity should be integrated into NetSuite. Knowing the tools you use as well as your business processes will help determine which NetSuite integration option is best for your organization.

For example, at CloudExtend, we focus on SuiteApp NetSuite integrations that work to integrate Excel and email with NetSuite CRM and ERP to streamline processes, reduce manual work, build the single source of truth, and make reporting and decision-making easier than ever. 

Our email to NetSuite integration is focused on helping you make your CRM the most powerful tool your users can access. Integration with both Outlook and Gmail lets users work right in their inboxes to create and edit NetSuite CRM contact records, automatically attach email conversation threads and sync calendar events. 

For those who work in and love Excel—and that’s a lot, considering many professionals report spending as much as 38% of their day working in a spreadsheet—we offer integration that empowers users with the ability to pull the right data from analysis through saved searches, work with it directly in Excel, and refresh it automatically or on demand. Our NetSuite Excel integration even lets users upload data back into NetSuite via their Excel spreadsheet, bypassing the CSV upload process for even more efficiency. 

In short, we build NetSuite integrations that let you be even more efficient with your CRM data management and your ERP data analytics, which in turn help you be more successful in your business. Try any of our integrations with zero obligation for fourteen days. Get started here.