Scale Your Multi-Latin Revenue – Oracle NetSuite Implementation in Latin America

Watch the full webinar HERE!

Baz: Hello and welcome! Good afternoon to you all! This is the LatamReady webinar. We have Glenn and Carlos, our usual suspects, thanks for being here in our secret new location. We are doing something different, we want to have a little more entertainment just by changing up the location

Glenn: So how do you like Miami, Baz?

Baz: I love Miami, it kind of reminds me of back home.

Carlos: Because of the weather?

Baz: Exactly all the humidity!

Glenn: Because you are from…

Baz: Where do you guys think I’m from? I’m from Brunei! That’s in Southeast Asia. Today’s webinar

Glenn: Excellent!

Baz: Today’s webinar is about the following topic, scaling your multi latin revenue. This is a NetSuite implementation webinar of course. We’ll be talking all about NetSuite, about how this cloud-based accounting software can help scale your multi latin revenue. Let’s start with that.

Glenn: Awesome!

Baz: I have my first question. What’s the connection between NetSuite and scaling your revenue?

Glenn: That’s a great question and there’s a lot we could talk about. A tendency that we’re seeing with NetSuite is that most of the NetSuite customers have something in common. They’re all growing businesses and facing challenges with what they have right now. It’s a highly competitive environment. There are more and more small businesses, small entrepreneurs, especially in the US. So businesses want to understand how to correctly pick an accounting software or how to pick an ERP that makes them quicker than the competition, that allows them to be in control of their revenue, and that allows them to scale as fast as possible.

Baz: Those are the first questions you ask yourself. What to do when implementing a new accounting software.

Glenn: Yes that’s a very important part!

Carlos: I remember one of our first customers. They decided on NetSuite CRM. The analysis of the owner of the company was asking himself, how many estimates did I issue last year without follow up? His conclusion was he was losing money. Only because of the lack of follow up. That was his reason for implementing NetSuite CRM.  

Glenn: That’s the greatest example that a CRM does not do the work for you. A CRM is only as good as the data you put inside of it.

Baz: You’re not going to utilize it fully as it should be.

Glenn: The CRM as part of an ERP is the most important tool for you to be in control of your revenue and in control of your sales. But a CRM only works if you put in the right work and commitment.

Baz: Taking control of it yourself and not just leaving it there.

Carlos: Exactly. Once it’s fully implemented, combined with a good implementation with a commitment from the sales team, the result is full control.

Glenn: That’s what it does very well. It will analyze whether you’re following up or not, it will not do the follow up for you but it will analyze how successful you’re being at sales.

Carlos: We use NetSuite, especially in our sales team. We control how many phone calls are we performing every single day, or how many new customers or leads are we registering in our CRM every single day.

Glenn: How many meetings are we scheduling every single day, what’s the forecast looking like for the months of January, February, March, etc. What’s the probability of closing that. Why is it at that certain percentage of probability, what’s going on there? That’s what a CRM can tell you, which has a direct connection to how an ERP can be a revenue-generating product and make you be in control of the revenue you’re generating.

Carlos: Using NetSuite we know how many phone calls we need to have the first meeting, how many meetings we need to have in order to call a company a “prospect,” how many prospects do we need in order to have a customer. So with all that business flow now we have control of our revenue. And we’re scaling. These months January and February have been amazing for us because now we have more control in place.

Baz: Do we have an example of customers scaling their revenue with NetSuite?

Carlos: Yes of course! A customer of ours from the software industry now using the subscription module from NetSuite. The subscription module is great because it gives you the ability to understand when you have to send a new estimate to your customers in order to have a new annual subscription in place. It will give you the ability as well of increasing prices because of inflation for example, it will let you see your cash flow once that estimate is signed. We have many customers doing that, especially here in Miami.

Baz: Glenn do you have any other examples?

Glenn: The last time I was here in Miami I sat down with a CFO and he said something to me that really stuck with me. He was working with different kinds of accounting software all throughout the region in Latin America. For our new viewers, most of the time we work with Miami based companies that have operations in Latin America. A classic situation is for them to have separate CRM and separate accounting software for each country because of tax regulations etc. It’s difficult to have one unified platform. So talking about revenue and being in control, for the CFO specifically it’s very difficult for him to look at real-time data. He generally has to wait until the end of the month to get a report from the local subsidiary, and by the time he has those numbers and makes business decisions based on those numbers, those are dead numbers from the month before. Maybe that does not directly relate to revenue generating, but that really defines how quickly you can make business decisions and in very dynamic industries like the media industry or the marketing industry, that’s critical

Carlos: Another example of what’s happening with a customer now is Weston, Miami. We are going to connect NetSuite with Stripe. Stripe as you know is a very famous payment gateway. If Stripe sends an invoice from Miami to a customer in the US, the customer will find a link in the invoice, they will click, register their credit card and pay. That payment will travel to to NetSuite and that invoice is going to be paid in NetSuite. Once Stripe transfers the money to the company’s account, that information will travel again to NetSuite bank reconciliation.

Glenn: Sounds interesting!

Carlos: The installation and setup of all that is done with a few clicks and that’s it! This is directly connected to we are talking about, scale revenue.

Glenn: That all starts to become very interesting as the company grows. Most of the startup companies are very small, have a few people and they manage everything in spreadsheets and writing it down, having everything in their own ERP on Google drive. But as soon as you start growing it’s very easy to lose control over what’s happening and that’s something that a lot of people don’t take seriously enough. As soon as you start losing control that means that you’re probably losing a lot of money. Losing money in a business is not really the goal. Having a decent software in place from the start that allows you to be in control, act quickly, have the right connections and integrations is very important. This will allow literally how quickly you will be able to scale your business.

Baz: We talked about our customers can increase their revenue using NetSuite and all the different factors that contribute to that. Is there a specific module we use or recommend to increase revenue?

Carlos: We have many NetSuite customers in the service industries. They are using the projects module from NetSuite. Why do they do this? To have control in the project, to control resources and milestones to send invoices. Everything is integrated. Once a company signs a contract with a customer, there is a sales order in place in NetSuite and it’s connected to a project. That sales order is going to have payment terms and milestones. Those milestones will be registered in NetSuite with an impact on cash flow which is called a billing forecast. In the billing forecast report, our customers will see what milestone will happen in what month.

Glenn: And also when the money is going to come in. For a business that is based on delivering projects is highly important. You need to know when you’re getting that cash flow in order for you to do secure investments and make the right moves at the right time

Carlos: What happens if the milestone is moved? If you move the milestone in your project module, that immediately will affect the billing forecast report in NetSuite. Everything is connected.

Baz: it’s like a domino effect.

Carlos: Exactly. If everything is correct, the project manager says ok this milestone is finished, then the sales order will produce the transaction in order to produce the invoice automatically.

Baz: All these connections make things faster. Imagine you have a company and you have separate solutions and software you’re not going to get all that done in one go.

Carlos: Exactly. Could you imagine a service company with a project supported by Microsoft projects?

Glenn: Or Oracle Primavera

Carlos: Or Oracle Primavera yes, our cousin! Imagine trying to manage the contracts with an Excel and then a billing software with Quickbooks. That’s the beauty of NetSuite everything is connected and this enables you to scale and increase your revenue.

Glenn: It also enables you to focus on business and not worry so much on whether or not the data that you have is correct

Baz: Having on single automated process allows you to focus.

Glenn: And you can trust the numbers, there’s a solid system in place that can provide the right numbers at the right time

Baz: Lastly, do we as LatamReady use any NetSuite modules to increase our own revenue?

Carlos: Yes the CRM, we use it daily

Glenn: Sales and marketing is the heart of the company. Without sales and marketing, there is no project to be delivered or product to be developed. So being in full control of that is important, I speak for myself because I’m the sales manager. The CRM is critical, without a CRM I’m not in control of what people are doing or what kind of activity is being sent out. In sales, it’s important to have that engine running at all times; making a certain amount of phone calls, emails, proposals, and meetings because in the end, it’s all calculation. With a CRM in place, it’s very easy to detect early on why something is going wrong, where it’s coming from and then take action.

Carlos: We use NetSuite all the time for example with estimates. We have a direct connection with DocuSign as well for electronic signatures. We send everything to our customers from inside of NetSuite. Once the document is signed by the customer we can issue a sales order. Next, our administration department produces the project where you will find times, resources, milestones. Finally, we can issue the first invoice. Everything parts from that estimate originally issued by the sales team.

Glenn: We use both the CRM and project management to be in control of our revenue. Both of them are perfect examples because we apply them in our own business

Carlos: We have been using Stripe for collections in credit cards, but now I want this implemented in our company in the next 24 hours.

Baz: Our revenue is scaling because of NetSuite!

Carlos: Exactly! We are a good example!

Baz: We don’t just sell it and implement it, we also use it. We are also clients of NetSuite.

Glenn: Happy clients!

Carlos: This year what we have to explore is the e-commerce module from NetSuite. It’s huge! NetSuite is investing a lot of money on that specific module with new features. This is a brand new module, it used to be e-commerce but now it’s called Suitecommerce Advanced, and it’s one of the biggest players here in the States.

Baz: There’s a lot we can say about increasing revenue. Any last messages or last words to say about increasing revenue for your multi latin subsidiaries?

Carlos: following the e-commerce example, we’re planning to connect NetSuite to a local payment gateway, working specifically in the Latin American region. For our customer to use the e-commerce module on NetSuite and receive payments from customers using local credit cards.

Glenn: That’s an important challenge. In Latin America, we still have an issue with people using international credit cards. So having that integration with a company that provides a single payment platform that allows local payment options, that’s a revenue-generating activity as well because it makes the sale in Latin America less complex.

Baz: Great! If you want to know more about LatamReady go to our official website latamready.com. Go to latamdojo.com if you want to see our localizations solutions, and most importantly our phone number is 786 600 2641 where you can talk to Glenn or talk to Carlos and we’ll give you all the information you need. I had a great time today in Miami. See you next time!