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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer at how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works and I love all things tech. And this is

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Speaker 1: another bonus episode that I'm recording in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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Speaker 1: As I attend Sweet World eighteen, you can probably hear

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Speaker 1: from my voice that the dry desert air and the

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Speaker 1: long hours on the show floor are starting to take

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Speaker 1: its toll. Also, it's five in the morning here, but

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Speaker 1: that's no excuse. Let's get on with the show. So

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Speaker 1: Sweet World eighteen is a big conference that's hosted by

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Speaker 1: net Sweet, which in turn is now a division of Oracle.

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Speaker 1: But net Sweet did not start out that way, and

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Speaker 1: so I want to give you the story of net Sweet.

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Speaker 1: Also letting you know this bonus episodes a little shorter

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Speaker 1: than my normal episodes, largely because well, there are limitations

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Speaker 1: to what I can do with hotel WiFi and getting

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Speaker 1: these sound files out to my super producer, Tari. So

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Speaker 1: that's the reason for that. But let's talk all about

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Speaker 1: net Suite. What is this company? Was it due? Where

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Speaker 1: did it come from? Well, it's a company that makes

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Speaker 1: products for other companies products and services, so it's a

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Speaker 1: business to business enterprise. Most of us would likely have

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Speaker 1: no real experience with net suite unless we work in

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Speaker 1: some company that is relying on net sweets products. Otherwise

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Speaker 1: we don't really have contact with it. It's one of

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Speaker 1: those companies that works behind the scenes, and these business

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Speaker 1: to business companies often when you start digging into it

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Speaker 1: on the service level, they seem really complicated and sometimes

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Speaker 1: it seems like there's nothing there in relation to what

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Speaker 1: we do in our normal lives. But then when you

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Speaker 1: really look in you realize, wait a minute, these are

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Speaker 1: the companies that do work that allow the other companies

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Speaker 1: that I am familiar with, the ones that I do

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Speaker 1: interface with directly to do their work. So you can

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Speaker 1: think of net sweet as one of the companies that

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Speaker 1: creates those products that allow other companies like retail companies,

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Speaker 1: service companies to do what they do, and that's why

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Speaker 1: you have the experience you do working with those companies,

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Speaker 1: at least on a on a grand level before you

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Speaker 1: get really granular. So net sweets story begins with its founder,

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Speaker 1: Evan Goldberg. Goldberg was adopted at birth. He grew up

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Speaker 1: in Lexington, Massachusetts. As a young boy, he became interested

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Speaker 1: in math and uh. By fifth grade he was already

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Speaker 1: into programming and he really took to it so much

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Speaker 1: so that that became his main focus. He attended Phillips

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Speaker 1: Academy and over, and later he attended Harvard. He had

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Speaker 1: scholarships with both. He graduated from Harvard with a degree

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Speaker 1: and applied mathematics. Very smart guy, and a lot of

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Speaker 1: people describe him as being extremely talented when it comes

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Speaker 1: to applied mathematics and coding. In fact, there are stories

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Speaker 1: about his days at net Suite, even as an executive,

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Speaker 1: where he was right there in the trenches with other

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Speaker 1: developers working on the code, and many people, many of

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Speaker 1: the developers said, well, he codes faster than anyone else here. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And he served as chief technology officer for net Suite

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Speaker 1: through much of its history. So right out of college

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Speaker 1: he got the nod to come and work for the

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Speaker 1: Oracle Corporation. And I'll talk about Oracle in a subsequent

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Speaker 1: podcast kind of give you the Oracle story because it's

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Speaker 1: also very interesting. But in general, Oracle is a computer

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Speaker 1: technology corporation that started back in nineteen seventy seven and

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Speaker 1: it's one of the largest software makers in the industry.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of like right behind Microsoft. One of the

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Speaker 1: founders of Oracle, Larry Ellison, played a very important role

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Speaker 1: when that suite, becoming its largest investor. Goldberg worked for

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Speaker 1: UH Oracle for UM in various capacities for several years

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Speaker 1: until he decided then to strike out on his own

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Speaker 1: and he founded a web development firm called imbed Software

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Speaker 1: and that's m b E D no no uh E.

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Speaker 1: At the beginning of that, Goldberg's operation was relatively small.

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Speaker 1: He didn't have a whole lot of people working for him,

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Speaker 1: maybe like fifteen or so. But even so, he found

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Speaker 1: it challenging to operate the business successfully. And one of

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Speaker 1: the things that frustrated him was that unlike big companies,

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Speaker 1: which had access to very complex software kits that allowed

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Speaker 1: them to do things like track customers and do pay

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Speaker 1: roll and all this kind of stuff, he found that

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Speaker 1: small business owners didn't really have those options there. There

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Speaker 1: weren't a whole lot of assets out there that they

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Speaker 1: could use, especially ones that would be affordable to a

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Speaker 1: small business. Most of the solutions out there were meant

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Speaker 1: for big, big companies, and therefore they cost a lot

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Speaker 1: of money. So your typical small business couldn't really afford

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Speaker 1: to invest in those software kits. And so he thought, well,

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Speaker 1: wait a minute, there's actually an opportunity here. You could

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Speaker 1: create a solution for these small to mid sized companies

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Speaker 1: that is more cost effective for them. So he called

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Speaker 1: up his buddy Larry Ellison in and he pitched the

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Speaker 1: idea of creating a customer relationship management or CRM product

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Speaker 1: for small businesses. Now, Ellison reportedly told Goldberg that it

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Speaker 1: might be easier to start out with a financial based

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Speaker 1: solution for small businesses, so essentially accounting software, start with

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Speaker 1: that and then grow from there. And further, he made

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Speaker 1: the suggestion of making the product web accessible, meaning it

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Speaker 1: would become a software as a service offering. And I

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Speaker 1: talked about that in the cloud computing episodes. But software

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Speaker 1: as a service is this idea that you don't go

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Speaker 1: out and buy a software package to live on your computer. Instead,

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Speaker 1: you pay a subscription to allow you access to software

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Speaker 1: that lives on another computer, the provider's computer, and you

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Speaker 1: can take advantage of the software. You can use it

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Speaker 1: all you like, but you don't have it living on

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Speaker 1: your computer. Now, this can bring the cost of the

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Speaker 1: software down on a per month basis. Like, if you

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Speaker 1: look at how much the software costs up front, it

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Speaker 1: might be thousands of dollars for these enterprise solutions. But

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Speaker 1: if you can bring that down to a smaller amount

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Speaker 1: per month, while over the lifetime of your use of

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Speaker 1: the software, you're likely to spend more money than if

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Speaker 1: you were just to buy it outright. Uh, the monthly

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Speaker 1: cost is much lower than the upfront one time cost

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Speaker 1: of buying the software. Plus you don't have to worry

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Speaker 1: about the software going out of date and then having

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Speaker 1: to buy an upgrade because is the software is being

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Speaker 1: operated by the provider and they're making all the updates

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Speaker 1: on the back end. You get to enjoy that without

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Speaker 1: having to do it yourself. So Ellison was really forward

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Speaker 1: thinking here. This is when software is a service really

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Speaker 1: hadn't become a thing yet. So Goldberg followed Ellison's advice

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Speaker 1: and he launched a company out of San Mateo, California,

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Speaker 1: towards the end of nine and he called it net Ledger,

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Speaker 1: And he also took some of Ellison's money, actually a

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Speaker 1: lot of it, ultimately more than a hundred million dollars

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Speaker 1: of it. So Larry Ellison was a major stakeholder in

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Speaker 1: this private company. After making that large startup investment and

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Speaker 1: a couple of subsequent investments, Goldberg gathered a team and

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Speaker 1: built an accounting software solution that had a web based interface,

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Speaker 1: and it was ready to go in early nine. The

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Speaker 1: starting price for using it when it first launched was

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Speaker 1: four dollars and ninety five cents per month, So and

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Speaker 1: you figure that out, that's you know, around sixty dollars

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Speaker 1: a year. For sixty dollars a year, you can have

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Speaker 1: access to this accounting software. When the actual if you

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Speaker 1: want to go out and buy like an enterprise level

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Speaker 1: accounting software kit, it might cost hundreds of dollars. So

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Speaker 1: for some companies this would make a whole lot of sense. Now,

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Speaker 1: the early net Ledger application started to leverage Oracles database technology.

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Speaker 1: That was one of the parts of the deal that

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Speaker 1: was made early on. Another sign that the two companies

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Speaker 1: were rather tightly coupled. At that point. The company announced

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Speaker 1: it was working on additional features right out of the gate.

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Speaker 1: So even when they were launching this accounting software, they said, hey,

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Speaker 1: this is not the only thing that we're ever going

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Speaker 1: to offer. We're going to include other features, and they're

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Speaker 1: all going to be integrated together. So it's not just

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Speaker 1: that we're going to have a software kit for one

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Speaker 1: aspect of your business or another. We're gonna have an

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Speaker 1: integrated approach of solutions so they all work with each other.

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Speaker 1: This was looking at another problem that companies were having,

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Speaker 1: which is that you would typically get one type of

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Speaker 1: software to handle one part of your businesses operations like accounting,

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Speaker 1: and you might have a different software package to handle

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Speaker 1: something like payroll, and you might have a different one

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Speaker 1: to track sales, and a different one for customer relationship management.

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Speaker 1: And many of these software packages they might be from

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Speaker 1: different providers, which means they're not necessarily uh compatible with

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Speaker 1: one another, that it's not easy to share information across them,

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Speaker 1: which means you have to generate reports out of all

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Speaker 1: of them and then compare them and then figure out

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Speaker 1: what your best approaches and do a lot of data

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Speaker 1: analysis of your own. And so the promise net Ledger

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Speaker 1: was trying to make was saying, what we're gonna do

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Speaker 1: has come out with a suite of programs, a suite

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Speaker 1: of features that all are designed from the beginning to

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Speaker 1: be interoperable so that you can easily share information across

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Speaker 1: different functions of your business and make it easier for

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Speaker 1: you to be able to do what you need to do,

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Speaker 1: especially as you get bigger. And again they're kind of

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Speaker 1: marketing this too small to midsize company, saying, why should

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Speaker 1: you have to struggle when large companies have been solving

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Speaker 1: these problems for years with very expensive software packages. Let's

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Speaker 1: set this up. So the company announced it was working

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Speaker 1: on UH features like linking e store transactions directly with

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Speaker 1: accounting software, so, in other words, there'll be no need

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Speaker 1: to have two tracking systems, one for the sales that

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Speaker 1: you're making an e stores and then a separate one

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Speaker 1: for accounting where you'd have to port over the results

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Speaker 1: from one to the other. The whole approach would be integrated,

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Speaker 1: which sounds pretty standard today, but again at the time,

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Speaker 1: that was pretty revolutionary for these sized companies. Meanwhile, Mark Bennioff,

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Speaker 1: who was another former Oracle executive, got a similar idea

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Speaker 1: to Goldberg right around the same time. In fact, and

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Speaker 1: about a month after net Ledger launched, he launched salesforce

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Speaker 1: dot com, and salesforce dot com did have customer relationship

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Speaker 1: management as its primary focus. The thing that Goldberg had

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Speaker 1: suggested when he called up Ellison, and you could argue

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Speaker 1: that net sweet was the first real cloud computing company,

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Speaker 1: the first real commercial cloud commuting company out there was

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Speaker 1: pretty much net suite, but salesforce dot Com ended up

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Speaker 1: making the bigger impact. It grew faster, it got a

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Speaker 1: lot more attention. If you look online for stories about

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Speaker 1: the history of cloud computing like I did, Salesforce dot

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Speaker 1: Com pops up way more frequently than net Suite does

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Speaker 1: for those stories. Oh and uh, Ellison also invested money

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Speaker 1: in salesforce dot Com too, so spreading your bets back

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Speaker 1: to net Ledger. Gradually, Goldberg and his team began to

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Speaker 1: add in other features in addition to accounting, and again

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Speaker 1: they were all meant to help those smaller businesses managed

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Speaker 1: various operations through a more centralized approach, and it follows

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Speaker 1: into a category of products eventually, at least one of

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Speaker 1: the offerings called Enterprise resource Planning or e r P,

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Speaker 1: in which a system allows business operators the chance to

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Speaker 1: get kind of a holistic view of what's going on

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Speaker 1: behind the scenes of their companies. I'll talk more about

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Speaker 1: the ARP a bit later and go into greater detail

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Speaker 1: about what that entails, but it's really big stuff. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's stuff that's when you try to wrap your mind

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Speaker 1: around it, When you just start to consider how complex

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Speaker 1: it is, you realize that a tool that automates this

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Speaker 1: could be really, really useful if it's implemented properly. Now,

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Speaker 1: Oracle would end up licensing that Ledger's product under the

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Speaker 1: name Oracle Small Business Suite for a short while, but

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Speaker 1: that experiment didn't last terribly long, and eventually they kind

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Speaker 1: of dropped that branding. In two thousand one, s Net

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Speaker 1: ran a review for Oracle Small Business Suite seven point oh,

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Speaker 1: and at that time, net Ledger wasn't just accounting, it

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Speaker 1: was also handling, sales tracking, customer inquiry, us saying, and more.

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Speaker 1: But the review concluded that the then price of nine

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Speaker 1: per month was pretty steep for the small businesses that

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Speaker 1: the company was targeting, and that unless a business needed

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Speaker 1: all the features that were offered in the suite, it

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Speaker 1: would make more sense to stick with smaller software packages

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Speaker 1: like quick books. So essentially, what sen was saying was, sure,

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Speaker 1: Don't bother with going with a sweet approach. The review

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Speaker 1: also criticized the speed of the application, saying that desktop

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Speaker 1: based software was generally faster. Not a big surprise that

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Speaker 1: especially when you start considering things like internet speed and

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Speaker 1: bandwidth and things of that nature. So seen Ne gave

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Speaker 1: the product seven out of ten, so it wasn't exactly

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Speaker 1: a disastrous review, but it didn't really do net Ledger

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Speaker 1: any favors in those early days. But the team kept

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Speaker 1: working on improving features and later reviews were a little

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Speaker 1: more positive. They had a lot going against them at

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Speaker 1: that time. The cloud computing business strategy was largely unproven,

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Speaker 1: and to make matters worse, they launched right at the

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Speaker 1: very beginning of the period we call the dot com crash,

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Speaker 1: in which multiple web based startups had launched and then

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Speaker 1: fizzled away, mostly after failing to prove they could operate

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Speaker 1: as a revenue generating business, in other words, that they

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Speaker 1: could actually make up profit. There were so many startups

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Speaker 1: that people were excited about in those early days that

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Speaker 1: had not a come up with an effective business plan.

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Speaker 1: They had big ideas of what they wanted to do,

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Speaker 1: but they didn't really have a way of managing it,

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Speaker 1: and certainly not growing and scaling the business in a

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Speaker 1: way that was managed that that was sustainable. And so

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Speaker 1: as a result, you had a lot of these companies

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Speaker 1: flash on the get a huge amount of investment money

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Speaker 1: poured into them, burn through that investment money in ridiculous

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Speaker 1: amounts of time, and then collapse in on themselves. So

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Speaker 1: a lot of companies failed. Two of them that didn't

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Speaker 1: wear net Ledger and its rivals Salesforce dot Com. They

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Speaker 1: were both able to survive that era, but lots of

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Speaker 1: other companies weren't so fortunate. Now you can listen to

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Speaker 1: some of my older episodes about the dot com crash

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Speaker 1: and the companies that did not make it if you like.

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Speaker 1: There are tons of them in the Tech Stuff archives,

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Speaker 1: and they are interesting stories, filled with useful warnings about

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Speaker 1: startup behavior in general. In fact, a lot of analysts

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Speaker 1: like the point to the dot com crash and say,

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Speaker 1: do you remember when this happened? Maybe we should be

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Speaker 1: a little more cautious with these unicorns they're popping up

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Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley. Now I've got a little bit more

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Speaker 1: to say about net Suite, actually a lot more, but

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Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor.

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Speaker 1: In July two thousand two, Zack Nelson joined the net

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Speaker 1: Ledger team as the CEO of the company. Nelson had

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Speaker 1: also worked with Oracle in the past, so continuing the

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Speaker 1: Oracle association with net sweet but he had worked at

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Speaker 1: other places too, including McAfee, Sun Microsystems, and Motorola. Interestingly,

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Speaker 1: Nelson's degrees aren't in business. He attended Stanford and earned

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Speaker 1: degrees in biological sciences and anthropology, and then became a

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Speaker 1: CEO of a cloud based tech company. Wow, I'm just

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Speaker 1: saying I've got an English let degree if you want

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Speaker 1: to make me CEO of a multibillion dollar company, although

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Speaker 1: I doubt I could do nearly as good a job

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Speaker 1: as Zach Nelson did. In September two thousand three, net

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Speaker 1: Ledger officially would change its name to net Suite and

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Speaker 1: would become the company that we now know, although now,

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Speaker 1: of course it's a division within Oracle. The company had

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Speaker 1: been offering a product called net Suite already. Uh that

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Speaker 1: was essentially the same sort of offering that was the

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Speaker 1: Oracle small busy in a suite, and this indicated that

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Speaker 1: they were really going with software as a service beyond

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Speaker 1: just accounting. That they didn't want to have net Ledger

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Speaker 1: indicate that they only were interested in accounting, that they

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Speaker 1: were doing other things. So at this point the company

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Speaker 1: services could also handle marketing department needs in addition to

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Speaker 1: the other ones that already talked about, and gradually net

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Speaker 1: Suite was adding in all the standard processes and departments

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Speaker 1: you would find in mid sized businesses. Now that sweets

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Speaker 1: value proposition was that it could offer up all the

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Speaker 1: services that a company might need, eliminating the necessity of

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Speaker 1: investing in those different products for various functions. So again

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Speaker 1: they were saying, here's a holistic, integrated approach that you

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Speaker 1: can use that will make everything much more streamline. That

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Speaker 1: was what they were trying to sell to customers, and

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Speaker 1: that you could easily share stuff across departments. You could

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Speaker 1: increase the interdepartmental communication within your business so that you

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Speaker 1: have someone in one department saying, well where are the

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Speaker 1: numbers of UH sales, so that we can plan our

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Speaker 1: our our strategies, like if it's marketing and sales. All

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Speaker 1: of this would be integrated so that if you were

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Speaker 1: using the net suite tools, you could call up the

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Speaker 1: reports you needed and make your decisions there. You didn't

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Speaker 1: have to worry about waiting on somebody else to send

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Speaker 1: you the information you needed. At least that was the

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Speaker 1: again sales pitch. As the suite of features grew, so

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Speaker 1: did the fee to access them, which led some other

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Speaker 1: analysts to echo what c net had said in two

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Speaker 1: thousand one, and namely that the company was pricing themselves

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Speaker 1: out of their target customer base of those small to

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Speaker 1: mid sized companies. By the mid two thousand's, cloud computing

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Speaker 1: was starting to come into its own in the business world.

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Speaker 1: Net Suite continued to grow, though not as quickly as

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Speaker 1: its rivals salesforce dot com. The company eventually began to

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Speaker 1: add more services and features. Uh, they fall into some

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Speaker 1: really big categories. So I'm gonna talk about those categories now,

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Speaker 1: and I'm gonna give a little more detail about some

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Speaker 1: stuff I've already mentioned. So first, let's start with customer

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Speaker 1: relationship management, because that was the one Evan Goldberg had

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Speaker 1: in mind originally when he pitched his idea to Larry

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Speaker 1: Ellison back in It was the idea that Salesforce dot

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Speaker 1: Com went with in and we frequently initialize this category

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Speaker 1: to c r M. It's all about how a company

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Speaker 1: interacts with its customers, so the name is pretty self

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Speaker 1: explanatory Customer relationship management. So those customers might be other businesses,

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Speaker 1: or you know, they might be real life human being

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Speaker 1: type people like me and you or you and me,

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Speaker 1: or you and I or or all of us Google

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Speaker 1: che we are the Walrus CRM is about learning what

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Speaker 1: your customers like and don't like about your products and services.

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Speaker 1: It's about improving customer satisfaction and therefore customer retention, and

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Speaker 1: ultimately it's about driving more sales to customers. Not keep

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Speaker 1: in mind we are talking about businesses here, so at

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Speaker 1: the end of the day, the purpose of a business

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Speaker 1: is to make money doing whatever it is that the

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Speaker 1: business does. So while customer satisfaction is very important, it's

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Speaker 1: typically done with the view of how can I sell

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Speaker 1: more to this person? Just so that you don't get

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Speaker 1: too any warm, fuzzy feelings about customer service. Uh, but

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Speaker 1: it is important and obviously companies that have great customer

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Speaker 1: service are more likely to retain a customer and to

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Speaker 1: encourage that customer to purchase more and more than a

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Speaker 1: company that has really crappy customer service. I'm sure you've

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Speaker 1: all had good and bad experiences with customer service with

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Speaker 1: various companies, and I'm sure in many cases that has

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Speaker 1: led to changes in your behavior, whether it meant stepping

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Speaker 1: away from a company because you didn't like the way

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Speaker 1: you were treated, or sticking with a company becoming a

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Speaker 1: loyal customer because the way that they did treat you.

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Speaker 1: That sweets product has lots of features to track customer

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Speaker 1: behaviors to give analyst the chance to figure out what's

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Speaker 1: going on nearly in real time. So ideally this would

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Speaker 1: give a company the chance to address any problems quickly

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Speaker 1: or capitalize on working strategies to maximize their impact. Now,

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Speaker 1: this is more complicated than it sounds because there's so

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Speaker 1: many potential points of contact between a company and its customers.

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Speaker 1: So they're the obvious points, like a company's website. So

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Speaker 1: if there are feedback forms on the website, that's a

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Speaker 1: clear case where you're getting communications from your customers. But

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Speaker 1: there could also be phone lines, which means you have

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Speaker 1: representatives and you have to incorporate their reports into your information.

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Speaker 1: There could be an email contact, there could be social

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Speaker 1: media accounts, so it all starts to add up with

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Speaker 1: a really good CRM solution. Ideally, you would be able

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Speaker 1: to get a pretty big, high level view of what

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Speaker 1: the overall customer perception is of your company's business, like

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Speaker 1: what does the average person think about what you do?

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Speaker 1: And if it's great, then you know you're doing well

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Speaker 1: and that you should really concentrate on those strategies. And

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Speaker 1: if it's not, so, you know that you have an

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Speaker 1: image problem and you need to fix it. And that

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Speaker 1: image problem might be on the surface or it might

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Speaker 1: be indicative of a very serious brutial problem at the

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Speaker 1: core of your business. Either way, this is one of

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Speaker 1: those methods where you can actually get that indication and

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Speaker 1: then respond to it so you can blame your strategies

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Speaker 1: accordingly based upon what your customers think about you. Then

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Speaker 1: there's the e commerce side of net suite. These are

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Speaker 1: tools that are meant to help integrate online sales with

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Speaker 1: traditional point of sale tools to help a business keep

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Speaker 1: an accurate tally of all sales across all platforms. So

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Speaker 1: let's say that you own a business that sells I

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Speaker 1: don't know, fidget spinners that that trend is almost over,

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Speaker 1: so let's go ahead and talk about that. You've got

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Speaker 1: in on the tail end of the fidget spinner craze,

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Speaker 1: but you're you're really hoping that it comes back, kind

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Speaker 1: of like Yo Yo's do every few years. So you

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Speaker 1: have a big storefront in um Times Square, New York,

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Speaker 1: and you also have your online store, and you want

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Speaker 1: to be able to see how sales are doing both

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Speaker 1: at the physical retail spot and online. So if you

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Speaker 1: have a software kit that can integrate all that information,

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Speaker 1: you can actually see the total sales both online and

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Speaker 1: in your physical storefront. You could break it out by

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Speaker 1: looking at online only storefront only. You could possibly even

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Speaker 1: break it out further like online only by region. So

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Speaker 1: depending upon the software that you're using for e commerce,

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Speaker 1: you could be able to get really granular and you

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Speaker 1: might see, oh, well, there's this one particular place that's

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Speaker 1: doing really really well, and there's this other place where

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Speaker 1: sales are are dragging behind. I should look into seeing

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Speaker 1: why that is. And there could be lots of different

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Speaker 1: reasons for that, right. It could just be that there's

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Speaker 1: no market for fidget spinners in that other region, or

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Speaker 1: it could be that you don't have enough sales people

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Speaker 1: in that region, and that's why your sales figures are low.

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Speaker 1: It could be that there was some sort of back

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Speaker 1: end error where maybe there was a manufacturing problem or

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Speaker 1: a shipping problem. So there's lots of different things that

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Speaker 1: could indicate why those sales are low. This is also

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Speaker 1: another reason why that integrated approach is one of the

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Speaker 1: big selling points that net suite hits over and over

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Speaker 1: again when they're marketing to customers. They say, you know,

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Speaker 1: any piece of information is valuable, but it's way more

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Speaker 1: valuable when you pair it with all the other information

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Speaker 1: and when you can actually see what is the cause

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Speaker 1: of that, because if you only have these individually, if

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Speaker 1: you have these, you know, separated out and there's no context,

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Speaker 1: you can't necessarily be sure why the information has turned

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Speaker 1: out the way it is. So that's one of their

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Speaker 1: big selling points that they have for their customers. There's

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Speaker 1: also human capital management or HCM. I personally find the

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Speaker 1: phrase human capital to be really icky. I don't think

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Speaker 1: I don't. I don't like thinking of people in terms

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Speaker 1: of being assets to a company because it seems dehumanizing

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Speaker 1: to me. But hey, that's me being all hippie dippy.

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Speaker 1: The important thing about these features is that they centralize

435
00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:12,399
Speaker 1: human resource operations and payroll, so as companies grow, it

436
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:15,600
Speaker 1: becomes more difficult to track all of that stuff. And

437
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: the promised net Suite makes to its customers is that

438
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:20,879
Speaker 1: their product will keep things simple even as the company

439
00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:24,159
Speaker 1: gets more complicated, and the software generates reports on demand

440
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:27,040
Speaker 1: and gives managers a chance to look for outliers that

441
00:25:27,119 --> 00:25:29,400
Speaker 1: might be the result of a mistake, or they might

442
00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:33,359
Speaker 1: indicate an under or overperforming employee and thus allow you

443
00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:38,800
Speaker 1: to address that further. Um then there's professional services automation

444
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:41,439
Speaker 1: or p s A that's all about project management and

445
00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:44,400
Speaker 1: resource allocation. There are a lot of businesses out there

446
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:47,320
Speaker 1: that operate on the principle of billable hours. I used

447
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:50,960
Speaker 1: to work in consulting, and in those days, you were

448
00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:53,879
Speaker 1: supposed to build all of your hours to whichever projects

449
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:56,480
Speaker 1: you were working on. So if you were working on

450
00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 1: project day for four hours in the day, he would

451
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 1: write that down, and then maybe you spent two hours

452
00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 1: on project B, so you would write that down. You're

453
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:06,600
Speaker 1: supposed to keep track of all of that information because

454
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:08,840
Speaker 1: all of that would be build to the client, or

455
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:13,000
Speaker 1: sometimes it's all internal billing where it it doesn't ever

456
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:16,200
Speaker 1: go necessarily to an outward client, but it's a way

457
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:18,760
Speaker 1: for a company to keep track of what employees are doing,

458
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:21,679
Speaker 1: what projects are working on, which projects are taking up

459
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:25,160
Speaker 1: the most in assets. Again, there's that word to refer

460
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:27,920
Speaker 1: to human beings as assets um and it's a way

461
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:32,119
Speaker 1: of just tracking what's going on. So uh, that was

462
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:35,679
Speaker 1: part of what p s A covers. And finally there's

463
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:39,199
Speaker 1: the enterprise resource planning or e r P section. I

464
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 1: talked about this just briefly earlier. These are all the

465
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 1: back end operations of business needs to handle, like inventory, shipping, billing,

466
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 1: and more. And obviously that that applies mainly to businesses

467
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:57,199
Speaker 1: that are dealing with actual physical products, but services based

468
00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:01,879
Speaker 1: businesses they also have to work with inner enterprise resource planning.

469
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 1: So as business businesses grow, this gets way more complicated.

470
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:12,719
Speaker 1: You could be dealing with multiple warehouses, manufacturing plants, retail locations,

471
00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 1: so you have to figure out how to manage all

472
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 1: those moving pieces to make the stuff you make and

473
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 1: get it to the people who want it. And it

474
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 1: can also include functions like quality control. So if it

475
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 1: turns out your brand new fidget spinner has a tendency

476
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:29,640
Speaker 1: to burst into flames. When you spin it counterclockwise, you'll

477
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:31,560
Speaker 1: know and then you can address it before it becomes

478
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:33,920
Speaker 1: a huge problem. You can put a hold on them

479
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 1: and find out what the underlying issue is and fix it.

480
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:40,000
Speaker 1: Features might include things like sending reports to various managers

481
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 1: to clear out bottlenecks or put a hold on shipments

482
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:45,200
Speaker 1: while you work to resolve problems and think it's even

483
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:48,679
Speaker 1: more complicated when you start operating in other countries. And

484
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:51,200
Speaker 1: one of the other things the company has worked to

485
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: keep up with is the changing nature of business. Now,

486
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 1: I mentioned going international just a second ago, but a

487
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:59,920
Speaker 1: few years ago that was something only really big companies

488
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:03,119
Speaker 1: could do. Is when you reached a certain level of growth,

489
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 1: then you could start looking into expanding operations into other countries.

490
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:11,119
Speaker 1: But with the Internet, it's way easier to extend to

491
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 1: presence into new markets in different countries. At least it's

492
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 1: easier in that the Internet gives people a potential point

493
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:21,399
Speaker 1: of contact. Actually doing business in other countries gets a

494
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:24,919
Speaker 1: lot more complicated because of multiple factors that you have

495
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: to consider. So again, let's talk about you and your

496
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 1: fidget spinners. Like your fidget spinners are doing really well

497
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:33,879
Speaker 1: for some reason, the trend has come back into vogue,

498
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 1: and you start having to ask yourself a lot of questions, like,

499
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 1: you wanna explore the possibility of of opening up operations

500
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 1: in other countries. So does it make sense to continue

501
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: making your fidget spinners in your main manufacturing facility. So

502
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:53,560
Speaker 1: in our hypothetical example, let's say that you've got your

503
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 1: manufacturing facility and um, Hey Hira, Georgia, Ray Stevens call

504
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 1: out fidget spinner capital of the hypothetical situation, Hey Hira, Georgia.

505
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: If you do keep your manufacturing centralized in Hey Hira, Georgia,

506
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: it means that you'll be shipping all those fidget spinners

507
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 1: overseas to your international markets. Now, that obviously is going

508
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: to increase the cost per spinner that you are incurring

509
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 1: and that will eat into your profits. Or does it

510
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 1: make more sense for you to either build or partner

511
00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:28,480
Speaker 1: with a manufacturing facility in the country or countries you

512
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 1: want to do business with. And if so, that requires

513
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 1: more management, but it might cut down on other costs,

514
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:38,000
Speaker 1: including shipping costs, because if you're closer to your destination,

515
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:40,680
Speaker 1: you don't have to ship things as far, so there

516
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:43,840
Speaker 1: are lots of other matters to consider, like foreign currencies,

517
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:46,680
Speaker 1: what's the exchange rate? How are you how is that

518
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:50,360
Speaker 1: going to affect your business? Also, taxes, different countries and

519
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:53,960
Speaker 1: even different regions within some countries have different tax laws,

520
00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 1: so you have to know all of these in order

521
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 1: to price your fidget spinners properly and make sure you're

522
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:02,640
Speaker 1: still making a profit. And then there are localization issues

523
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 1: to consider. So let's say the country you've got your

524
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 1: sights on is um Germany. They seem like they'd be

525
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 1: really big into fidget spinners. That's a fun loving country.

526
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:13,560
Speaker 1: So to make things go more smoothly, it would be

527
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:17,400
Speaker 1: good to have your business localized so that German customers

528
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 1: can operate easily with your storefront, which means having a

529
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: German language website, and it means having some Germans speaking

530
00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 1: people to communicate uh, so that you're when people talk

531
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 1: to your company, you can talk back with them, so

532
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:34,880
Speaker 1: you want to have some sort of localized support there.

533
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 1: It may also mean developing tailored customer relationship strategies for

534
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 1: German customers because you may find out that people in

535
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 1: different parts of the world behave differently that you can't

536
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: just use the exact same customer relationship approach across the world.

537
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 1: It might work in one part and not in another. Now,

538
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 1: take this imaginary scenario and then expand it to an

539
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:59,120
Speaker 1: operation that's trying to go worldwide. So how do you

540
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 1: make sure you're serving everyone? Well, that's why companies like

541
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 1: net sweet try to come up with strategies that that

542
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:10,720
Speaker 1: incorporate these ideas and are supposed to help you be

543
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: able to implement them. Uh. And of course net suite

544
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 1: is not the only one that does this, but I mean,

545
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 1: this is the story of net sweet, which is why

546
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: I'm talking about it. But it does show you how

547
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: complicated things can get very quickly as businesses grow, particularly

548
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 1: in the Internet age, where we have an unprecedented access

549
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 1: to the whole world, so things happen really fast now.

550
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:39,000
Speaker 1: And that again is why companies like net suite can

551
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 1: offer up services that can look really attractive if you're

552
00:31:42,520 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: a business owner who doesn't have experience in these realms.

553
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 1: I've got a little bit more to say about that Suite,

554
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 1: but first let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor.

555
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 1: In two thousand seven, that's Sweet held its initial public offering,

556
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 1: meaning it transformed from a private company to a publicly

557
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:08,360
Speaker 1: traded one, and when preparing to set the opening price

558
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:11,560
Speaker 1: for shares, net Suite actually doubled its initial estimate of

559
00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 1: thirteen dollars. The new price of twenty six dollars per

560
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:17,120
Speaker 1: share would put the value of the company and more

561
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:20,720
Speaker 1: than one and a half billion dollars a Princely some

562
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 1: net Suite did not do this increase randomly. The company

563
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 1: actually held what is known as a Dutch auction for

564
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: the I p O. And actually there are two different

565
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 1: types of Dutch auctions, and they contradict each other, So

566
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 1: I'll explain what the other one is at the end

567
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:38,080
Speaker 1: of this. But when we talk about I p O s,

568
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,800
Speaker 1: the Dutch auction is a process that a company essentially

569
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:44,480
Speaker 1: puts out a question to investors, which is how much

570
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 1: stock are you willing to buy? And at what price

571
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 1: are you willing to buy it. Then the company takes

572
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 1: all that response and they look at it and they

573
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:54,000
Speaker 1: figure out what the best opening price of its I

574
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 1: p O stock is based off those results. And this

575
00:32:57,320 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: is in an attempt to get the most money on

576
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 1: that opening So if say, oh, well, here's the highest

577
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:05,720
Speaker 1: amount that someone said they were willing to pay for

578
00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:09,400
Speaker 1: our stock. So that's that's our upper limit. Here's the

579
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 1: lowest one. That sets our low limit. Where do most

580
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 1: of them fall in? All right, So it turns out

581
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: that people are value are stock more than thirteen dollars

582
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:21,640
Speaker 1: per share, so let's go ahead and increase it. And

583
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 1: that's how they got to the figure of twenty six

584
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:26,920
Speaker 1: dollars per share UH and its first day of trading,

585
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 1: the shares ended up trading at twenty seven dollars and

586
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 1: cents at the end of the day. That bummed out

587
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 1: some shareholders who are really hoping for a first day

588
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 1: surge and value. That frequently happens with I p o s.

589
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 1: But then you could argue that that happens with I

590
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 1: p o s that undervalued their stock going into trading,

591
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 1: and in this case, you could argue that net Sweet

592
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 1: pretty much nailed the value of its stock. But for

593
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:54,760
Speaker 1: investors that doesn't necessarily come back as a happy news

594
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 1: because you may want to have that feeling of a

595
00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 1: day one pay day where you buy a thousand shares

596
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:03,240
Speaker 1: of stock at thirteen dollars and it closes at twenty

597
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:07,280
Speaker 1: six and you've just doubled your money. Uh, that didn't happen. Oh,

598
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 1: and I mentioned that Dutch auctions have two meanings, So

599
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 1: here's the other one. The other is an auction where

600
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:15,879
Speaker 1: you start off with a high price and you gradually

601
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:19,480
Speaker 1: bring the price down for an item until someone bids

602
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:22,840
Speaker 1: on the item at the that current price. So you

603
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:27,360
Speaker 1: might say, let's auction this painting, starting off at two dollars,

604
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 1: and then you might go down by five per a

605
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:33,120
Speaker 1: bid and as soon as someone bids on it, once

606
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 1: it starts hitting a certain price um, then the auction

607
00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:39,319
Speaker 1: for that item is over and that person buys it.

608
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 1: So instead of starting from a low point and bidding higher,

609
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 1: you started a high point and wait until some bidder

610
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 1: decides that that's the price they're willing to pay for

611
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 1: whatever the item is. And typically you keep going down

612
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 1: until you hit the reserve price of the auction item,

613
00:34:56,040 --> 00:34:57,799
Speaker 1: and at that point you stop because you wouldn't want

614
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:00,920
Speaker 1: to sell for less than what the is actually worth

615
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 1: or has been set as a reserve price anyway. Worth

616
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 1: is a difficult concept when it comes to auctions. So

617
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:10,759
Speaker 1: one thing else I wanted to talk about is that

618
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:14,120
Speaker 1: net sweet has acquired a few companies since it launched.

619
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 1: UH since it's IPO in two thousand seven. In two

620
00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, they bought a company called open Air

621
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:23,759
Speaker 1: that specialized in web based expense reports and timesheets. In

622
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, net Suite acquired quick Arrow, which created

623
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:33,360
Speaker 1: professional services automation products. And other acquisitions include e company

624
00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:37,840
Speaker 1: Retail Anywhere UH in two thousands thirteen and email service

625
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 1: provider Bronte Software in two thousand fifteen, and there were

626
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 1: a lot of others as well. But now net Suite

627
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 1: itself is an acquisition or it has been acquired. Back

628
00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:52,080
Speaker 1: in two thousand sixteen, Oracle announced its intention to purchase

629
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:56,640
Speaker 1: net Suite for a cool nine point three billion dollars. Technically,

630
00:35:57,040 --> 00:36:01,600
Speaker 1: this involved talking with investors and making an agreement to

631
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:04,719
Speaker 1: buy back fifty percent of the stocks that were out

632
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:07,879
Speaker 1: in circulation, so that Ellison larray Elson would essentially get

633
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 1: more control over it because he and his family had

634
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:16,359
Speaker 1: nearly fifty percent of the company. Not quite around and UH,

635
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:21,000
Speaker 1: the the deal meant that the UH selling price for

636
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 1: that other stock that other people were holding was actually

637
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:26,799
Speaker 1: higher than what the trading price was. This is how

638
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 1: they were able to buy out the some of the

639
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:32,680
Speaker 1: other investors and so it was a deal that was

640
00:36:32,760 --> 00:36:36,400
Speaker 1: valued at about nine point three billion dollars. Now, Oracle

641
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:40,239
Speaker 1: also deals in cloud based solutions for customers, and like

642
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 1: I've mentioned, it's had a pretty tight relationship with net

643
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:46,120
Speaker 1: Suite throughout its history. Some analysts pointed out that the

644
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:49,279
Speaker 1: acquisition solved a problem that Oracle was running into. Net

645
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:52,040
Speaker 1: Sweet had more of a presence with midsized companies, a

646
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 1: market that Oracle wanted to really get into, and Oracle

647
00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 1: and net Suite had been competing a bit in that market,

648
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:00,920
Speaker 1: which was weird because Oracle also had the close relationship

649
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:03,759
Speaker 1: with net Suite, and according to net Suite executives, the

650
00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:07,200
Speaker 1: former company continues to operate as it did before. It's

651
00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:09,839
Speaker 1: just now a department in the larger Oracle corporation and

652
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:14,319
Speaker 1: can take advantage of Oracles technologies and database and huge

653
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:18,880
Speaker 1: amounts of information. The acquisition was approved and completed in

654
00:37:18,960 --> 00:37:21,879
Speaker 1: late twenties sixteen, so net Suite now operates as part

655
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 1: of Oracle and has integrated several of its approaches with

656
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:28,399
Speaker 1: Oracle products. And At Sweet World eighteen where I am now,

657
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:31,440
Speaker 1: executives talked about new features being added in the one

658
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:34,279
Speaker 1: I thought was the most interesting was artificial intelligence meant

659
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 1: to help alert managers to extraordinary cases, things that could

660
00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:40,319
Speaker 1: indicate either someone has committed an error that needs to

661
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 1: be addressed or potential strategic moves that could save a

662
00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:45,719
Speaker 1: company money. So, for example, you could set up a

663
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:49,800
Speaker 1: project that involves manufacturing your fidget spinners in Hamburg, Germany

664
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 1: and shipping them to Berlin. But then you see that

665
00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 1: the net swite product is telling you that this plan

666
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 1: has a low probability of being profitable, and getting that

667
00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 1: information before you actually commit your sources could help you

668
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:03,719
Speaker 1: save tons of money and make you more nimble in

669
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 1: the process to actually figure out a working strategy that

670
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 1: will make you money, as assuming that the product works

671
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:12,160
Speaker 1: as advertised. Of course, I can't speak to that last

672
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:14,960
Speaker 1: bit because I've never used net suite. Now, I can

673
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 1: say that they throw a really wild event. The presentations

674
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:20,960
Speaker 1: had a DJ mixing up music tracks live before the

675
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:24,320
Speaker 1: events even started. There were enormous screens with projections of

676
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:27,839
Speaker 1: presentations and live video of presenters. There were lights and

677
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:30,640
Speaker 1: smoke effects and acrobats. It's all pretty over the top

678
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:32,880
Speaker 1: for an event that was designed to market new features

679
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 1: to net sweet customers. Um, I'm not really sure how

680
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:40,120
Speaker 1: I feel about these trade shows guys, because it's so weird.

681
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not the target audience. I'm not a

682
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:46,360
Speaker 1: net sweet customer, So I'm looking at this from a

683
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:50,279
Speaker 1: very objective point of view, and it is it's a

684
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:55,480
Speaker 1: weird spectacle. It's it's not necessarily bad, it's just weird. Uh.

685
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:57,799
Speaker 1: There was a lot of humor in the presentations, which

686
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:02,920
Speaker 1: I appreciated, including a video about how Evan Goldberg talking, uh,

687
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 1: you know, speaking with people over at Oracle and saying, Hey,

688
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 1: I've got this great idea. We're going to announce all

689
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:10,880
Speaker 1: of our our new ideas with a viral video, and

690
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 1: then the guy at Oracles like, no, please don't do that,

691
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:15,960
Speaker 1: and having over it's like, you're right, we should do it.

692
00:39:16,040 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 1: And then it goes out and does this crazy mash

693
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:22,080
Speaker 1: up viral video approach, which was extremely dorky, and I

694
00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 1: appreciated that because I'm also extremely dorky. So it was

695
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:29,680
Speaker 1: an interesting experience attending this conference um and learning more

696
00:39:29,719 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 1: about net Suite, a company I had heard about multiple

697
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 1: times but never really looked into. So our next episodes

698
00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:39,960
Speaker 1: will be about Oracle. We'll talk more about how that

699
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:43,359
Speaker 1: company came into being and what it has done over

700
00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:47,200
Speaker 1: its years. More about Larry Ellison and some of the

701
00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:50,520
Speaker 1: trials and tribulations that Oracle has been through. But if

702
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:52,880
Speaker 1: you guys have suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,

703
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:55,320
Speaker 1: I highly recommend you get in touch with me. Send

704
00:39:55,320 --> 00:39:58,439
Speaker 1: me an email. The address for the podcast is tech

705
00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 1: stuff at how stuff works dot com, or drop me

706
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 1: a line on Facebook or Twitter. The handle it both

707
00:40:03,239 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 1: of those is text Stuff hs W. Don't forget to

708
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:10,360
Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram. And remember, on normal weeks I

709
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 1: broadcast live on twitch dot tv slash tech Stuff. You

710
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:17,359
Speaker 1: can actually watch me record the podcasts in real time.

711
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 1: You get a chance to see the podcast being recorded,

712
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 1: you get to hear them usually a couple of weeks

713
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:25,440
Speaker 1: before they come out, and you get to see me

714
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:27,720
Speaker 1: make mistakes. Plus, there's a chat room you can jump

715
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 1: into and chat with other people who are fans of

716
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. I hope to see you guys there and

717
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:40,440
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. For more on

718
00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:42,960
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff

719
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:53,480
Speaker 1: works dot com