NetSuite, a company that provides cloud-based business management software suites, is furthering its mobile strategy by launching a free iPhone app to compliment its web-based products. The iPhone app gives NetSuite users on-the-go access to the company’s on-demand SaaS offerings, which include real-time dashboards with financial and customer data from CRMs and other applications.
A competitor to Salesforce.com, NetSuite offers four main types of cloud computing software: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), CRM, accounting, and ecommerce software. In any business, mobile access makes business processes speedier, so NetSuite has tried to make the crossover between the web and the iPhone (or iPod touch) seamless.
With the new app, users get real-time access to their NetSuite calendar and task lists, including the ability to accept or decline events and mark tasks complete. With respect to the CRM, sales reps can see leads, view client purchase history and contacts, and review past orders. Users can also access accounting information, browse financial trends and graphs, read performance indicator reports and receive and generate detailed financial scorecards.
NetSuite faces competition primarily from tech giants Salesforce.com and Microsoft, which both offer business application suites such as CRMs and ERPs. Salesforce has had an iPhone app (as well as apps for Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices) to compliment its products since early this year and has similar functionality to NetSuite’s app. Of course the larger picture for most companies is whether they trust all of their business data going in the cloud and then within an app, but as more and more companies become increasingly comfortable with the idea of the cloud, this concern is minimized.