NetSuite's purchase of OpenAir solidifies their leadership for Professional Services on-demand solutions

NetSuite’s purchase of OpenAir solidifies NetSuite’s position as the Software as a Service (SaaS) provider for Professional Services firms. As a NetSuite implementation partner, we ran up against OpenAir on occasion and we have a terrific respect for the product. OpenAir is a leading provider of professional services automation solution delivered as SaaS and this acquisition clearly places Netsuite as the leading provider in on-demand services automation for professional services businesses.

While it will take probably six months to a year to fully integrate all of the OpenAir solutions into the Netsuite platform, the NetSuite platform already has a significant set of features designed for professional services firms. Lima Consulting Group has historically focused on serving professional services firms and we are excited about the merger for the following reasons:

• More resources and investment for the OpenAir product. By joining NetSuite, OpenAir gains significantly more resources to continue improving and extending the OpenAir product and continuing to execute the company's vision of revolutionizing how service companies can manage their businesses.

• Breakthrough solutions for automating and managing services businesses. OpenAir and NetSuite are both pioneering leaders in on-demand software. By bringing together OpenAir's deep domain expertise in on-demand Services Automation software and NetSuite's expertise in integrated business suites, we will jointly create exciting, revolutionary new end-to-end business management solutions for professional services companies.

• The integration of OpenAir products into the NetSuite platform. In the short term, the products may be sold separately and NetSuite has not made clear how professional services firms will migrate to NetSuite. We are looking for a release schedule to integrate the OpenAir product into the NetSuite platform but as is typical with mergers of this sort, even that announcement is probably going to take months. Lima Consulting Group believes that NetSuite will merge the the OpenAir technology in its 2009 major release. Announcements of this sort are usually made at the NetSuite partner conference in early October and we would expect that an announcement for a release date would be made at that time. They may surprise us and have an initial roll-out ahead of time for a very limited number of features, but don’t count on it.

• An integration of the OpenAir PSA and PPM Solutions might look like this:

• Integrating OpenAir Professional Services Automation into the Netsuite Platform. The OpenAir Professional Services Automation (PSA) Solution helps project-based organizations increase profits by helping professionals perform their jobs more effectively and by providing managers and executives with clearer, more immediate visibility into the key operational and financial metrics. Combining NetSuite’s general ledger application with OpenAir’s project management, resource management, and project accounting features will improve operations, allow executives to manage by metrics and optimize profits by providing precise, quantifiable, real-time insights.

• Integrating the OpenAir Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Solution with the NetSuite platform will allow executives increased visibility to the status of projects, portfolios and resources. This insight enables managers to align projects and resources to match business objectives. Executives can make smarter, more informed decisions, improve their return on human capital and IT investments, and maximize employee productivity while minimizing project risks. This solution will be particularly useful to organizations that have a significant professional services staff such as accounting firms, ad agencies, consulting firms, law firms, event planning and destination management companies, software development firms, IT services and computer maintenance and support companies. It also might be an interesting use of franchises that offer services in support of one another or non-profits that also bill out their staff for special projects as a source of revenue.

• Lima Consulting Group hopes that NetSuite maintains OpenAir’s Defense Contract Audit
  Agency (DCAA) Compliant designation. The OpenAir solution is DCAA Compliant meaning that the software is on a list of approved Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software that government contractors can use. It is likely that they will bring the platform into DCAA compliance now and in the short term, they might create this capability as a module in the future. We don’t think that will last forever though since many of the DCAA features would require very tight integration into the programming of the core NetSuite application.

• NetSuite recently announced that they opened their platform up to multi-national corporations through their introduction of global accounting, CRM, e-commerce, and business intelligence. They have versions for multi-national businesses with multiple subsidiaries and single-country businesses with multiple subsidiaries. Combined with the OpenAir product, the eventual integration of on-demand project management solutions for virtual teams offers a very compelling value proposition for geographically separated and virtual teams.

• Early adoption promotions. For companies who are already considering both OpenAir and Netsuite, NetSuite announced that they have special incentives to reward their early investment.

HBX to SiteCatalyst Migration: Common Considerations

In January of 2008 Omniture completed one of the largest web analytics acquisitions through the purchase of Visual Sciences giving HBX customers the opportunity to migrate to Omniture SiteCatalyst. Since then we have received a lot of inquiries from online marketers for an objective assessment as to whether they should move to SiteCatalyst.

1. HBX customers should begin planning for the move. The product road map for HBX looks very thin.

2. There is no such thing as an “Upgrade” from HBX to SiteCatalyst. The two architectures are fundamentally different and automating a conversion is impractical. Therefore, if you do choose to switch, expect to re-tag pages and undergo a SiteCatalyst implementation from square one.

3. No parallel periods. Once you cutover from HBX you’ll be in the new world of SiteCatalyst. You’ll still have your historical data, but you’ll need reference historical data by hopping between the two systems.

4. On a technical note, SiteCatalyst offers the ability to use standard naming conventions for page views while HBX does not. For sites that are content rich, this was a major drawback in the HBX solution.

5. Check out your Genesis partners ahead of time. The Genesis solutions are generally developed directly between the providing company and Omniture and you should generally have little need to customize the bridge. However, keep in mind that the solution purchased from the partner may need to undergo an implementation that is different than your current HBX install.

6. Using SAINT, or 3^rd party integration tools with Omniture may simplify the import of external data sources such as data with Call Centers, IVRs, Customer Relationship Management systems (CRM), In-Store Kiosks, and Point of Sale (POS) data. The biggest challenge here is ensuring that each definition of the field/column is consistent across all systems.