Compare Deltek CostPoint vs Oracle NetSuite ERP

Hi @Antonio Lira, @Gene Hammons ​and @RobertWolf .  Maybe you can share any insights or pointers with @Dominic-Gopal?

So, as a software selection consulting firm, we work with our clients to evaluate any ERP system deemed applicable to a client's industry or business model. We work hard to maintain a software agnostic approach and never forget that every ERP 'works somewhere' and while our preferences are relevant in any system we might use internally, we don't presume to know what's best for any of our clients.  Given that... About 2014 we began to see a strong client preference to NetSuite - after years of distrust of 'cloud'-based software, it seemed that Salesforce finally showed the market that cloud software was 'safe'.  At first, we heard resellers of traditional ERP dismiss NetSuite saying 'It shows great'. Which implied there was not much under the hood, but the demos were somehow misleading.  By 2018, NetSuite was gaining significant market share in new licenses and every traditional ERP package was coming out with a cloud version so they too could 'show great.'  Remember, many of these traditional ERP offerings had made the jump from DOS to Windows, ported from client-server to thin-client, then fully browser-based - what was one more porting?  Fast forward to 2021 and NetSuite is in a truly dominant position - having pioneered the first significant cloud SaaS ERP and having 20+ years in the cloud space, versus latecomers year 3 anniversary in the cloud.  Without going into too much more detail - the significance of NetSuite is not that it's cloud-based, but that it was created for an internet world and uses modern approaches to business support not conceivable to the original developers of traditional ERP in the pre-internet late 1980s.  What this means for potential partners is NetSuite will win between 60% - 80% of all ERP evaluations that actually result in a licensing purchase (As a software selection consulting group, our clients, by definition are already spending significant consulting dollars and rarely go to the no-decision situation which traditionally plagues the market).  Naturally, NetSuite's high win rate is an attractive situation for potential partners. One of NetSuite's strengths is maintaining a strong partner channel. We tell the story of meeting a dentist around 2008. Upon learning we were in the software business, he announced he too was a Microsoft Reseller - he'd not actually sold a license yet and was mostly involved in his dental practice - but he hoped to one day have a sideline VAR business.  The point being, if you don't maintain certain standards for reseller partners, you end up with a wildly varying level of experience - which we imagined could result in an ERP implementation as painful as pulling teeth - but enough of the dentist jokes.  We do know Microsoft Dynamics partners who've balked at NetSuite's stringent requirements and became Acumatica resellers - Acumatica and Sage Intacct are both solid SaaS options and we have many clients happily using both.  However, NetSuite is growing 30% year after year and already has over 20,000 businesses using the platform. The recent Oracle re-acquisition has put incredible development behind the platform - we're seeing new verticals adopting NetSuite rapidly. A recent Oracle sales training class we attended had people from the EU, Ireland, Southeast Asia, Japan - Oracle has created country localizations worldwide and NetSuite is going global. Hyperion, formerly for Oracle Fusion now has a NetSuite version. Suite People, the HR option is now in a third-generation release for NetSuite - the list goes on and on.  Anyway - NetSuite is super strong in the market and the greater costs associated with becoming a partner are an indicator of how much stronger the product is than other ERP/Accounting software options.  My firm is not a full reseller - but we are a referral partner (of many different ERP platforms) and we staff project managers and system administrators for NetSuite who directly help clients in the implementation and later support process. We were planning to add both Acumatica and Intacct support resources - but the last year we're so busy with NetSuite work our expansion to other platforms has been back burnered. 

The stability of the solution is fine.

So when I first encountered the NetSuite Suite Success  - I thought - here we go again - prepackaged, cookie-cutter, do-everything-one-way implementations - saw this over the years by everyone from Microsoft to SAP in an effort to cut implementations from 18 months to a year or so - and I thought - "Not for MY clients you don't"! What I found is that incremental learning on the part of new NetSuite users allows them a base knowledge to better participate in the more complex modules.  NetSuite implementations, being a multi-tenant cloud setup are 90-120 days anyway. Also, by pushing the implementation team to the Learning Center, they can get exposed to how NetSuite works and actually work on certification classes prior to the implementation start. Not finish the classes - but start. It makes a big difference. The stairstep method of Suite Success not only works to implement the software but to sort of implementing an internal team - a team of on-staff NetSuite super-users who realize continual learning and new ways to roll out NetSuite to other areas of the company have big payoffs.  It's a really effective methodology and after getting over my initial stubborn reticence we now measure progress on a NetSuite implementation both by the deliverables in software configuration and the development of users beginning to question things and take actual ownership of their own system. 

Thanks for validating my thoughts @Gene Hammons! Once again a fantastic reply.