NetSuite’s Euro Invasion In Full Swing With Benelux Expansion

NetSuite this week announced a new Benelux region headquarters in Amsterdam, an expansion that continues NetSuite’s investment in Europe.

The expansion of NetSuite’s business operations into Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg follows the opening of two European data centres late last year: one in Dublin and the other in Amsterdam.

The ERP provider will be supported in Benelux through a partnership with Deloitte in Belgium, and has already signed up customers such as startup airline Transavia, ESOMAR, and Qardio.

NetSuite further announced a version of its OneWorld product specifically designed for the Benelux region.

Growth

TechWeekEurope met with NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson on Wednesday, where he told journalists: “EMEA was the fastest growing region for us last year. This year it’s scheduled to grow more quickly than it did last year.

“We have about 850 companies using NetSuite in Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands, and those tend to be subsidiaries. Putting people on the ground – service, sales and support – will actually help us to reach a much larger segment of those markets. And those markets are a good match for what NetSuite does.”

Nelson also alluded to further European expansion, especially in Germany and the Nordics.

“[Germany] is really slow to adopt this cloud stuff. They like that SAP on-premise stuff,” joked Nelson. “The Nordics will probably happen later this year as well. Many of you have asked when we’ll be going to the rest of Europe. Well, today’s the day.”

Nelson’s visit to London, which came after a brief stop by Amsterdam’s new headquarters, came as the new ‘Privacy Shield’ data sharing agreement between the United States and European Union failed to gain the public backing of a key European data protection group.

The result was not unexpected after a leak last week suggested that the European Data Protection Authorities (the so called “Article 29 Working Party” or WP29) – composed of watchdogs from influential member states – was not happy with the new agreement as they considered it inadequate in a number of key areas.

NetSuite is just one of many cloud-based US companies having to deal with data regulatory issues in the EU.

“They have to decide something sometime,” said Nelson. “At the end of the day, just given our heritage, we’ve always been dealing with the most mission-critical, important data that companies have. So even before rules existed, we knew that we had to have an incredible security team, incredible security policies, and really protect the privacy of our customer data. So obviously we’ll comply with any standard that exists.”

For Nelson and NetSuite, however, any regulatory turbulence is actually beneficial considering OneWorld’s particular offerings. In the week that the European Commission proposed greater transparency into how multinational organisations report their taxes, Nelson welcomed any extra business this may bring to NetSuite’s ERP products.

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