Thousands of Tractor Dealers to Gain Unprecedented Benefits from New Software
SAN MATEO, Calif. and FENTON, Mo. — October 24, 2007 — NetSuite Inc., a vendor of on-demand, integrated business management application suites that provide Accounting/ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and Ecommerce functionality for small and medium-sized businesses and divisions of large companies, and IRON Solutions, the leading source of Equipment Market Intelligence for agricultural, industrial, and outdoor power equipment manufacturers, dealers, finance and agricultural media companies, today announced that both companies have entered into an alliance to develop and offer industry-specific software solutions targeting thousands of tractor dealers throughout the country. Unveiled today, NetSuite's SuiteBundler is the innovative technology enabling the deployment and management of the new offering from IRON Solutions, built on NetSuite using the SuiteFlex application development, customisation and integration platform (please see accompanying press release "New SuiteBundler From NetSuite Makes 'The Service as Software' Revolution A Reality").
The new solution combines the power of NetSuite's lead-to-quote-to-order management capability with IRON Solutions' gold standard data and family of products including, IRONSearch, IRONClassifieds, IRONQuote, IRONDealer and IRONMachinebuilder to deliver a more complete tailored offering to the thousands of equipment dealers and hundreds of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). IRON Solutions currently provides new equipment price book management, quoting, and configuration services as well as used equipment appraisal and valuation data for the majority of agricultural, industrial, and outdoor power equipment sold and serviced by dealers, including: AGCO Allis, AG-Chem, AGCO Gleaner, AGCO Hesston, AGCO New Idea, ASV, AGCO White, Bobcat, Bush Hog, Bourgault, Brandt, Buhler Allied, Buhler Farm King, Buhler Versatile, Case Construction, Challenger, Case IH, Claas, Caterpillar, Degelman, Exmark, Fendt, Flexi-Coil, Fecon, Gehl, Glencoe, Great Plains, Hardi, Highline, Honey Bee, JCB, John Deere, Krone, Krause, Kubota, Landini, MacDon, McCormick, Massey Ferguson, Morris, New Holland, Polaris, Spra-Coupe, Sunflower, Vermeer, and Willmar equipment.
"IRON Solutions is just the type of strategic partner we are looking for with the industry and technology expertise to take NetSuite into additional vertical markets," said Zach Nelson, NetSuite's CEO. "We are thrilled they chose NetSuite and the SuiteFlex platform to build their value-added solution on and are excited to see them leverage SuiteBundler to deploy a tailored solution to the thousands of dealers of agricultural equipment throughout the world."
"We are already seeing tremendous value creation in our alliance with NetSuite," said IRON Solutions CEO Darwin Melnyk. "NetSuite has a full suite of powerful CRM and order management products delivered in a highly reliable, easy to purchase and deploy SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) delivery model. It's an ideal platform for industry-specific rich data and vertical applications to grow and flourish."
"The equipment industry has benefited from broad adoption of IRON's core products which were developed by dealers, for dealers," said Tim Young, Chairman of the IRON Board of Directors and Dealer Principal of Young's Equipment, a five-store Case IH dealership, "the IRON board, including Blaine Bingham, Vice-Chairman and Dealer Principal of Bingham Equipment Company, an 11 location dealership in Arizona with Bobcat, Kubota, New Holland, Case Construction, Toro, MacDon, AGCO Hesston and AGCO Massey Ferguson products; Steve Barr, Past-Chairman, CEO of Osborn and Barr Communications and Dealer Principal of Tri-County Implement, an eastern Iowa John Deere dealership network; and national and regional trade association executives have worked diligently to support our alliance with NetSuite."
SuiteBundler Enables NetSuite and IRON Solutions to Mass Distribute Industry-Specific Solution Targeting Tractor Dealerships:
One of the challenges facing equipment dealerships is lead and opportunity collection and management. Legacy applications commonly used by dealerships have not been able to address these issues, and do not address the massive shift to online research by equipment buyers. Long sales processes and a lack of cooperation between OEMs and franchise dealers have meant lost opportunities and frustrated buyers. The powerful combination of NetSuite, IRON's equipment industry data and workflow, and leads generated with IRON manufacturing, dealer and publishing business partners addresses this challenge head on and creates immediate measurable returns for all participants in the equipment value chain.
The complete solution for tractor dealerships from IRON Solutions and NetSuite is designed to empower end users with access to rich equipment market data connected to a responsive network of dealers and OEMs. Farmers and contractors can research and configure new equipment and appraise their trades using IRON's gold standard data from dealer websites, OEM websites and independent agriculture portals with the confidence that their efforts are connected directly to a dealer sales team via IRON Solutions and NetSuite. Dealer sales organisations can quickly collaborate and respond, moving the inquiry through a quote, appraisal and integrated floor planning and financing process to maximise transaction speed, accuracy and profitability. This alliance continues IRON's history of integration with software and services companies who share a commitment to the equipment market and will increase the speed at which joint opportunities can be addressed, resulting in opportunities gained rather than lost and a smooth process for the buyers. "The joint IRON Solutions / NetSuite service will revolutionise the equipment industry by enabling collaboration between buyers, dealers and manufacturers," said Cleve Buttars, Dealer Principal of Agri-Service, the largest AGCO dealership in North America, with seven stores in Idaho, Oregon and Utah.
IRON Solutions will build on to the core capabilities of NetSuite using the embedded SuiteFlex platform for application development, process customisation and integration. SuiteBundler is the newest addition to NetSuite's SuiteFlex platform and delivers numerous/plentiful technology advances that serve to enable the "Service as Software" revolution. Vertical solutions, add-on applications, end-to-end business process customisations, and integrated solutions developed using the other components of SuiteFlex —such as SuiteBuilder, SuiteScript and SuiteTalk — can now be packaged together to create a SuiteBundle, which can in turn be repeatedly installed by customers at the click of a button. IRON Solutions will deploy its tailored vertical service to thousands of dealerships using these innovative capabilities of SuiteBundler. The planned large scale deployment to thousands of dealers really would not be feasible without SuiteBundler since the alternative approach would involve countless hours of painstakingly re-building the custom application extensions into each NetSuite instance at each dealership and would introduce potential errors and cost-prohibitive overhead.
"IRON Solutions is an outstanding business partner for NetSuite," said Scott Lumish, Vice President of Business Development for NetSuite. "The company has that rare combination of business vision, industry focus and technical skill. Together IRON and NetSuite have already begun to deliver great value to the agricultural equipment industry."
About NetSuite
NetSuite Inc. is a leading vendor of on-demand, integrated business management application suites for small and medium-sized businesses. NetSuite enables companies to manage core key business operations in a single system, which includes Accounting/Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and Ecommerce. NetSuite's patent-pending "real-time dashboard" technology provides an easy-to-use view into up-to-date, role-specific business information.
NOTE: NetSuite, the NetSuite logo, SuiteFlex, and SuiteBundler are registered service-marks or trademarks of NetSuite, Inc.
About IRON Solutions
IRON Solutions http://www.ironsolutions.comis the leading source of Equipment Market Intelligence for used agricultural, industrial, and outdoor power equipment. IRON provides an integrated portfolio of services to manufacturers, dealers, producers and finance companies who want to make business-critical decisions, informed by easily accessible and accurate market information. IRON Solutions, is the trusted source of the gold standard in equipment data, and is the technology partner of the North American Equipment Dealers Association (NAEDA) http://www.naeda.com, and its affiliated associations in the United States and Canada.
IRON Solutions, Equipment Market Intelligence, IRONSearch, http://www.ironsearch.com IRONClassifieds, IRONQuote, IRONDealer and IRONMachinebuilder are trademarks or registered trademarks of IRON Solutions LLC. All others are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.