After working with a client over the last four years on their proprietary eCommerce website, we have reached a crucial phase in the ongoing investment. The question has become: “Can’t we get a much greater return going with a packaged eCommerce system versus the investment required to continue programming our proprietary site?”.
Our client has a few options. They are currently planning their migration to the fully integrated business management suite, NetSuite. NetSuite has a built-in eCommerce platform that is tightly integrated with its CRM / ERP database platform. Here are a two challenges we must overcome:
How can we have a single platform work for both Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and Business-to-Business (B2B) customers?
How can we have content management that integrates with the eStore; our client produces education for the industry they serve to ultimately drive traffic to their eCommerce site to produce sales.
Update, February 2013, with new thinking.
Challenge: B2C and B2B on one eCommerce Platform
The first challenge is conventional and one we hear ever so-often. We effectively need the following:
- a central product master
- a pricing table that distinguishes between the two customer types
- a way to distinguish these customer types on a single eCommerce platform; having two web sites is not an option we want
- a way to accept terms for B2B customers
Magento’s Marketplace Appeal
The client understands that the marketplace is enthusiastic about the Magento eCommerce platform for the following reasons:
- Price – it’s Open Source and very popular
- The developer community is adding features and functions to it all the time
The NetSuite and Magento Integration Challenge
At the same time, given NetSuite is going to be their business management platform, here are areas where there is integration challenges if we go with Magento:
- Product master
- Inventory stock management
- Customer master
- Pricing and discount logic
- Payment terms management
- Order capture
- Returns management
- Credit card authorization and capture
- Sales tax logic
- Customer order inquiry and look-up
While it is good that Celigo, a fellow partner in the NetSuite systems integration community, has developed a Magento eCommerce for NetSuite integration, it doesn’t go nearly far enough for what my client demands.
Here is where it is important to carefully think twice before considering using a third party eCommerce platform once you have decided to go with NetSuite. All the concerns in the list above is taken care of for you because the NetSuite back end does this very well. At the same time, it is understandable to want to go with Open Source and take advantage of the energy offered by the development community. Yet there is no free ride. To take advantage of future new Magento capacities will require a knowledge worker or consultant to implement it. And, there is a chance of getting into “Application Hell” as upgrades to one system breaks the integration often requiring emergency (read expensive) procedures to get back in business.
Content Management and eCommerce?
Let’s address the second consideration; how to have good content management integrated with the eCommerce engine. This is where most everyone is weak today. We are excited about one platform, Brilliant Retail, designed with the growing popularity of the Expression Engine Content Management Platform. I have had good conversations with the founders of Brilliant Retail and they understand the issues of getting these systems to talk to powerful business management platforms such as NetSuite. They also understand the challenges of getting Magento to perform content management — it’s pretty ugly. They agree though that we will experience the same concerns as addressed above with Magento connecting their platform to NetSuite.
How to choose the right B2B & B2C eCommerce Content Management Platform
My client has a good orientation around addressing this concern:
- Can we really get competitive advantages with a specific platform? If so, what marginal difference, in quantitative terms, can be produced?
- What will be the initial and ongoing investment in the differing approaches?
- What do we speculate will be the long-term implications of our choices?
- How quickly can we get to market?
The answer is not easy or obvious. While we lean toward the fully-integrated approach, NetSuite does not yet match the capacities in some of the platforms mentioned without a fair amount of investment; and this diminishes the value of their offering. Nonetheless, we believe that integration is expensive, troublesome, and error-prone and while we create them frequently, we like to ask our clients to pause before they make the investment.
At the end of the day, there is no easy answer. Each situation requires analysis, assessments, design and investment. Check back with us to see how it goes.
Update, Feburary 2013 for additional thinking.
Copyright © Marty Zigman 2011
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Marty Zigman
Holding all three official certifications, Marty is regarded as the top NetSuite expert and leads a team of senior professionals at Prolecto Resources, Inc. He is a former Deloitte & Touche CPA and has held CTO roles. For over 30 years, Marty has produced leadership in ERP, CRM and eCommerce business systems. Contact Marty to set up a conversation.
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Can you share the outcome of this? We are in a similar situation – interested in moving to NetSuite from MAS90, and torn between the functionality and dynamic growth of Magento and the seamless integration of NetSuite’s e-commerce. Thanks.
Hi Robert,
We have reports that some of the pre-integration work offered by Celigo helps but it doesn’t go all the way. Since MAS90 really is an accounting system, I am sure you have considered getting off MAS90 and on to NetSuite while you evaluate your eCommerce choices. Getting the back end ready is always powerful to driving a quality eCommerce site. No easy answer. I think it is best to ground yourself in your requirements. You will spend plenty getting NetSuite and Magento working just right and you will have to maintain that integration ensuring nothing gets out of wack. At the same time, you will get the benefits of the larger open source community bringing solutions to the table.
Are you currently on Magento wondering how to make it fit with your strategy? Perhaps we can speak about it?
Marty
Celiga certainly looks like a great product. Our company, PunchOut2Go offers the only Punchout Catalog Extension in the world and it’s ready to go for Magento for B2B. I love the concept of NetSuite > Magento and it does take the cake! Learn more about our Punchout Catalog Extension for Magento.
Marty,
We have a project underway to move data between Magento and NetSuite. It’s about to launch. It’s a bit simpler than what you need, but, in speaking with our developers, you should keep all of NetSuite’s functionality, then pick and choose what you need from Magento.
Let’s setup a time to speak.
Hi Jordan,
Let’s have a look. I will send you a request for conversation.
Marty
Great article, we are sharing on twitter @punchout2go. As discussed on LinkedIn, we have had several inquiries looking to make a switch to Magento accomplish B2B and B2C. Although I may be a bit biased or uneducated in NetSuite – I do know that magento continues to grow and evolve and is an incredible base for excellent commerce. Of Course, with our plug and play extension for B2B Procurement with Ariba, SciQuest, Coupa, SAP, etc. , Punchout Catalogs with Magento, Magento obviously wins 🙂 . Magento can be extended to no end and does so without the “get by” effort. We are aware of Celigo and have approached them to partner some initiatives for netsuite users for B2C and B2B. Companies should indeed explore and see if Magento is a fit for their initiatives. It’s open source and greatly supported. Grab a copy, install it and review.
Hi,
Very interesting article. I’m faced with the dilemma of selecting the technology platform for my next business.
I need to determine what is best for us, to use Magento as ecommerce platform and integrate the ERP and CRM Netsuite, or use the tool integrated Netsuite (ERP, CRM and Ecommerce), especially if our business plan contemplates multiple sites to meet several markets.
I would appreciate your opinion Mr. Zigman
Thanks!
Hello Otto,
Indeed, it is a struggle. What I see is the following:
If you are a startup company, Magento is quite attractive because of the Open Source nature and the large community off supporting offerings that make it a robust environment. Startups usually care less about integration and care more about getting to market fast and keeping cash outlay to a minimum.
However, once you graduate away from a startup and your business gets to Advanced Growth (characterized by market acceptance off your offer and significant and growing sales activity that need steady application of labor to capture), NetSuite’s overall solution starts to make a lot of sense. And here is where the challenge is important.
If you are behind the concept of a single data store for all of your business data, then a disconnected system only adds cost to the investment. Yes, there are some tools out there to help with the integration but these too come at a cost. Not just the integration tool license, but the implementation, the ongoing care, and the inevitable missing capacities that will require ongoing tweaking.
What’s powerful about NetSuite is that you are NOT doing integration. All the logic, data and business rules are centralized and under your control. Couple that now with NetSuite’s new SuiteCommerce SuiteScript Server Page technology, the noted NetSuite eCommerce platform challenges should become a thing of the past. The new environment is effectively a clean slate for you to build powerful REST-Full / AJAX based web/mobile commerce systems. The disadvantage is the environment is new and thus does not have the rich amount of add-ins and pre-built templates. In time, that will come.
We are in the process of building a new eCommerce system for a client that is some months off from public visibility. Our plan is to make assessments of the environment to better ground this question.
What stage of growth is your company in?
This is a response to your response to Otto.
Then as a startup, would you recommend starting with Magento and NetSuite via a third party connector, but then after achieving Advanced Growth, moving my site entirely over onto NetSuite’s servers, even if that takes paying a third party developer to do?
Best,
Jason
Hi Jason,
My thinking is evolving on the matter yet I still hold the same theme. One thing that may not be known is that NetSuite can offer their platform at deeply discounted (nearly no cost) to start-ups that are in the Startup America program. That may make a major difference for any young company that wants to get on to a platform and not worry about it.
I suspect that once you invest in Magento, and you get it working with NetSuite, you will likely be on it long term. However, I have seen clients after they go live with NetSuite say, “Hey, I want to spin up a new ecommerce web site” and they see that the fastest way to do so is to use the built-in NetSuite tools. Hence, that might be a hybrid. And I suspect that the only reason you would move off Magento is that you get into Version Lock, the system is hard to maintain, you are tired of baby-sitting the integration, and you want to get out of the care and feeding of hosting.
I wish there was an easy answer. It is going to require investment and all of this depends on your situation, skills, confidence and market readiness to buy your products and services. The “penny wise pound foolish” analogy comes to mind. Did I answer your question?
Marty
I think both are well solutions of B2B and B2C ecommerce. Mgento is good. It has some unique features of itself. Netsuite has some unique features of itself.
We– interested in moving to NetSuite from MAS200, and torn between the functionality and dynamic growth of Magento and the seamless integration of NetSuite’s e-commerce.
Celigio has been touted as Netsuite plug in answer. Yr comments would be appreciated
Hello John,
Celigo is the default that NetSuite sales professionals will offer. Celigo’s tools have evolved and they are now on a new version that takes advantage of a native SuiteScript capacity versus a third party middleware approach (their older offering). Two other providers are worth reviewing:
1. FarApp
2. TrueCloudSolutions
Be careful though. These solutions are not perfectly “seamless”. The Magento product structures are different from NetSuite product structures and can be a sticky point. For example, NetSuite Item Groups may not be supported. However, we are working on an implementation with FarApp that just added that capacity. Discounts, Promotions, Ta, and Customer Center can be other areas to have conversations.
Finally, we generally suggest that you break your MAS200 migration independent from your NetSuite / Magento integration as a NetSuite implementation, in itself, is an endeavor. However, naturally, your front end Magento concerns affect your backend. In general, we always suggest that NetSuite be the master for the item definition and the final say for all business rules.
Does this help?
Marty,
My company, DoubleRadius, was using Netsuite for everything up until 2 years ago before Netsuite release their new ecommerce suite. We love Netsuite for the backend stuff but really hated it for the ecommerce. We decided to drop a ton of money and go with Magento for the ecommerce piece. Well, 2 years later and the site still doesn’t work right. We used Levementum and Celigo to connect the 2 and for the consulting. We have been extremely frustrated and are about to throw in the towel with Magento. Have you heard of others having major issues with this? What would you say are the big differences now between the SuiteCommerce and Magento. Our biggest gripes earlier were lack of navigation and limited options for creativity.
Hello Jason,
Thanks for your post. i am sorry to hear this. I have found that these platforms can work together but many under estimate the leadership and effort to get them to work well together. When we are brought in to help diagnose these situations, it usually results in some breakdown in leadership and less about the stability of the tools.
Related to the differences between the two platforms? They are miles apart. SuiteCommerce is a full development platform that uses a modern framework and NetSuite APIs to produce the user experience. In contrast to Magento, which has a large community and following, SuiteCommerce is maturing with all the typical situations you encounter with newer software. The primary benefit is no integration headaches and the power of NetSuite’s backend. Yet there are few people, at this time, that know how the SuiteCommerce platform really works. We are getting up to speed on it.
One our clients just went live: https://www.polyperformance.com/ and we have done development work getting the Bitcoin Transaction Coordinator working with SuiteCommerce. I like the platform but we are not at the point that there are plug-in widgets to enhance it.