What is NetSuite Services Resource Planning?

NetSuite Services Resource Planning (SRP) is a cloud platform that aims to marry a company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) and professional services automation for ease of use and efficiency. By combining the two into a single product, professional services companies can have greater visibility into how aligning the right people for the right job can have meaningful impacts on their bottom line.

How can SRP help professional services companies get a better handle on their operations?

Manage projects smarter

Project management is at the core of any successful professional services company—project managers need to be able to quickly see and understand an accurate view of the project status at all times. If managers can see a real-time, complete picture of the situation, they can deliver their projects faster, and with less billable hours.

With Netsuite Services Resource Planning, project managers can begin their projects by duplicating one of the many pre-configured templates to get them up and running faster. From there, they can track issues and risks, and assign tasks to key players within their organization. An easy-to-understand Gantt chart helps project managers understand exactly where things stand.

A look into how Netsuite’s Services Resource Planning interface looks, including the Gantt chart.

All of this is intended to help organizations stay organized and work smarter to get tasks completed and push the final product out the door—under budget and ahead of schedule. If things don’t go perfectly, Netsuite SRP will help project managers understand the situation with key analytics on productivity and profitability.

Take control of your resources (your people)

The top-tier professional services companies are the ones that are always confident they’ve assigned the right people to the right job based on an accurate, real-time understanding of their entire business. That’s not necessarily an easy task, but NetSuite’s Services Resource Planning features make that a reality for any professional services company.

The Netsuite Services Resource Planning interface, with real-time project timelines.

As seen in the screenshot above, SRP makes it easy to track and allocate resources by applying them to specific timelines as needed. Available resources can be discovered using smart search that relies on skills tracking—if you need someone with high-level programming skills and have an employee who meets the requirements and isn’t being fully utilized, you’ll know. Even better, much of this can be automated.

The key benefit here comes from the inherit benefit in having complete visibility into utilizing resources, but the automation also saves time. NetSuite SRP helps companies create reports that don’t rely on time-intensive spreadsheets, and let project managers automate allocations with customizable workflows.

Know everything, and automate what doesn’t pay

That just might be the “golden ticket” to having a successful professional services company, but it’s no easy task to accomplish. Because we specialize in helping professional services companies take control of their finances and their resource utilization, it’s a situation we’ve seen again and again. These companies can employ the best people, pay them well, and have sharp project managers running the show, but just can’t get ahead.

That’s where NetSuite Services Resource Planning comes in, by helping these companies gain the visibility they didn’t know they needed, and then giving them more free time to do work that actually adds to the bottom line. Want to give it a try?

Our Business in a Box platform gives you the financial, SRP, and collaborative tools you’ll need to make some serious headway. Or, get started with a 14-day NetSuite trial to see how it can transform your business. And if you have questions, we’re here to get you on your way to a better business in the cloud.