NetSuite takes wraps off of Brainyard knowledge portal

Oracle NetSuite has launched a new benchmarking and insight resource centre designed to make it easier for organisations to make better-informed business decisions and grow using its platform.

The ERP giant unveiled the knowledge centre, dubbed Brainyard, at its annual user conference in Las Vegas this week, effectively touting it as a game changer in terms of how the industry shares expertise and insight.

Many companies make use of professional consultancies to garner the data their need around technology implementations, but NetSuite felt this knowledge should actually be free, according to Jason Maynard, the company’s senior vice president of global field operations.

“We’re giving away the source code for business growth by providing unparalleled insights into every single critical business process. Companies tell us they want to benchmark their businesses, and we’re going to help them do that with Brainyard,” he said.

“Research firms and other vendors charge for this kind of resource, but we consider it part of our commitment to customer and partner success. We’re not just delivering bits with NetSuite: It’s not just about software; it’s about helping businesses grow.”

Specifically, Brainyard will be powered by insight derived from the company’s SuiteSuccess service and complemented by knowledge garnered from elsewhere in the company, such as value management, product management and solution consultancy.

Those visiting the Brainyard knowledge portal, will be able to access:

• A wealth of business information, such as industry status reports, and qualitative and quantitative research spanning 20 industry principles.
• Benchmarking insight and industry specific KPIs derived from 16,000 NetSuite customers as well we business performance data from FinListics.
• Performance-related advice and analysis designed to help organisations optimise their implementation in a range of formats from how to guides, best practice briefings and more.

Brainyard should help companies focus on the areas that will have the greatest impact on their future success and growth, Harish Mohan, NetSuite’s vice president of global strategy and international operations, told Cloud Pro.

“Part of [a focus on] growth is asking ‘Where should I grow?’ But if you ask any company that question, you’re going to get a list of 50 things. So, we can say that this is, generally speaking, where companies of your size find themselves, you’re in the growth curve and hear are the opportunities and challenges,” he said.

“It was driven by feedback and demand from people evaluating ERP. Companies used to come to us and say they are looking to change A, B, C, D… How is NetSuite going to make us better? Those were great questions and we wanted to figure out how to map that journey for people evaluating ERP.”

Mohan said at first NetSuite considered simply buying in the insight that would help answers some of these key questions, but that approach was dismissed due to the data being locked, too big, too abstract, not scalable or not in the right business language.

“So we decided that we were just going to do this ourselves. We’re going to provide the first business benchmark that is valid for companies and is actually consumable and delivers the insights they want,” Mohan added.

“For companies evaluating NetSuite, we’re providing a service that also gives you a blueprint of how to get from your ‘from’ state to your ‘to’ state.”