This past week I had the opportunity to attend my first Oracle SuiteWorld conference, in Las Vegas. These events are often a combination of boondoggle, “atta boys” and as much host provided Kool Aid as you can stomach so I approached with some trepidation. But, I was pleasantly surprised with the structure, content and opportunities that were presented and curated by the Oracle | NetSuite teams and ecosystem. Our goal in attending the event was to learn more about the NetSuite ecosystem and develop more channels and deeper relationships with existing partners.
A Big Award
The first day was a highlight for Positive when we were named, BPO: Breakthrough Partner of the Year! Positive was described as “the company who has found another gear and delivered over and above for their clients”. This is an accurate description of what we are doing as individuals and collectively as a company. This award would not be possible without our incredible team at Positive lead by Scott Kitchen and Greg Hill. We are very lucky to have such an amazing group of people and are excited about the future. It’s great to see that our hard work over the last year is being recognized by global partners and industry leaders.
When We Grow Up
I had the pleasure of attending a panel discussion on driving technology value for clients in a global market. The panel consisted of:
- Rahul Puri: Global Head – M&A, Private Equity VC Practice at Oracle| NetSuite
- Mark Raals: Managing Director of Business Operations at Vista Equity Partners
- Eric Gibson: CFO at Granicus
The discussion focused on the methodology Vista Capital takes when acquiring new companies and their approach for providing best practices and systems in order to help these companies grow.
Although there are distinct differences between our companies, the discussion was both enlightening and self fulfilling. Vista is a 19-year-old global Private Equity firm focused on established software companies . The “playbook” that Vista prescribes when deploying people, systems and technology to a new portfolio client was of most interest.
A key focus area Vista has when onboarding a client is on the future of the business. The Vista team engages in deep discussion with the management team to fully understand the three, five and ten year plans and vision for the company. These conversations foster a greater understanding of the business and builds a true partnership, which empowers the infrastructure design to be architected to support the growth plans. The infrastructure is a predetermined tech stack, including NetSuite of course, that can now be configured and designed for all aspects of the business.
At Positive, we are also deploying best practices and a technology stack to all our clients in order to support their growth. Our mission is to help our clients and our people reach their full potential. When we grow up, Vista is the type of operation we want to be!
VIP Only
With help from our NetSuite channel champion, Michael Kulisch, I was able to expand our ecosystem by connecting with other award-winning global partners such as:
Appficiency
An Oracle |NetSuite Vertical Alliance Partner of the Year winner, the team at Appficiency builds products that help solve specific problems for customers without adding heavy modifications or limitations to the existing system. We are excited to help our clients increase the functionality of the NetSuite platform.
Tipalti
An Oracle |NetSuite SuiteApp of the Year winner, the team at Tipalti provides one holistic cloud-based solution to automate the entire global accounts payable workflow for NetSuite and NetSuite OneWorld users. Our team is excited to increase our automation and efficiency and help our clients increase the functionality of the NetSuite platform.
Meeting these teams specifically will help Positive deliver more effectively and efficiently for our employees and clients.
Canadians
We were not the only group from Canada that made the journey to the SuiteWorld conference. We enjoyed connecting with a truly global leader in all things NetSuite and a 5 Star Partner Award winner from Montreal, Martin McNicoll, President of Gurus.
As the Cannabis and Craft beer sectors continue to thrive and grow in Canada, we discussed the opportunities to support these clients. Since Canopy continues to be a market leader and we all love weekend getaways to Montreal this was an fun and easy discussion. NetSuite is focused on addressing these emerging industries and we are eager to continue to serve clients in these sectors.
Ottawa native and Cloud Technology Evangelist, Walter (Wally) Merkas was also in attendance with his team from Withum. It is always great to connect with Wally as he is driving new innovation and adoption of the NetSuite ecosystem. Plus he’s a hockey fan and we all enjoyed the Vegas Golden Nights vs. Edmonton Oilers game with a few beers!
That’s A Wrap
An incredibly successful trip and not just because we came home with some nice hardware! This next year will be bolstered by the lessons learned at this conference and will help us become a better company, both for our employees and our clients.
