How to Integrate Google Apps With NetSuite

Google Apps are increasingly becoming a bigger part of the way companies and individuals do business. Anyone who has worked in business knows that Microsoft has been the main platform, particularly Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Office. But we’re now seeing a shift away from these more expensive and difficult-to-manage business platforms into the more user friendly and economical Google Apps.

There are four main areas of Google Apps:

1. Google GMail
2. Google Contacts
3. Google Calendar
4. Google Docs

In essence, these are the 4 big productivity apps that all businesses work with to compete in the global economy.  Not every business is leveraging the power of an integrated CRM & ERP business management suite, like that offered by NetSuite.  Those organizations that are leveraging an integrated business suite, like NetSuite, have a much greater capacity for producing competitive advantages over those that do not.   Still, basic productivity applications are needed for the unstructured, irregular demand for collaboration, presentations, and electronic communications.  Fortunately, there are solutions available to integrate NetSuite to Google Apps to minimize the classic issue of import, export and the resulting inevitable data problems when you try to store information in your CRM & ERP system as well as your productivity suite.

While the NetSuite partner community has built an integration between Google Mail and NetSuite, Prolecto Resources has created Google Contacts to NetSuite Sync.   If you want to have a central repository of contacts in NetSuite because you’re going to use it to produce marketing, send email blasts, and leverage lead nurturing campaigns, but you are also using Gmail for your day-to-day email and calendaring, you’re going to want to connect these systems.  The goal here is to keep all of your contacts synchronized with NetSuite.  As you continue to add people to Google groups, you can synchronize those groups with the equivalent of “NetSuite Categories” for each of the contacts.  These category attributes can then be used as targeting mechanisms.  You can then have your employees use their Android phones connected to Google Apps while they capture information of the people they’re interacting with day-to-day — essentially creating new NetSuite target groups without having to lift a finger or import/export data.

Copyright © Marty Zigman 2011