How to Train Your Team for NetSuite Success

A successful NetSuite implementation requires more than just the right technical configurations. Achieving business goals with any enterprise software depends greatly on user adoption across your organization. But inadequate training often hinders adoption.

Research shows companies achieve on average only 50-60% user adoption of new systems. Lack of buy-in and knowledge gaps result in spotty usage, productivity declines, and failure to see ROI from significant software investments.

The key is taking a structured approach to enable your employees not just to use NetSuite, but to fully embrace it. Below we provide a blueprint for NetSuite training covering best practices on driving engagement, designing materials, conducting sessions, and sustaining proficiency.

Step 1: Gain Executive Buy-In

Getting stakeholder alignment starts at the top. Make sure leadership communicates consistent, emphatic messaging around the importance of adoption. Employees take cues from executives regarding urgency and priority.

Share high-level goals for the NetSuite implementation, how capabilities will benefit different departments, and expectations around usage. Have executives reference training milestones in regular communications.

Equally critical is ensuring managers fully understand NetSuite functionality relevant to their group. They can relay key learnings to their direct reports while setting expectations around training.

Step 2: Assign Department Champions

Identify power users across business units enthusiastic about NetSuite’s potential to transform operations. Gather input from champions on existing pain points and process improvements enabled through new workflows.

Leverage champions to help promote formal training sessions, provide continual support on everyday usage questions from colleagues, highlight adoption metrics to leaders, and be references sharing team success stories using the system.

Step 3: Develop Training Objectives and Content

Any training program should tie back to core goals of the NetSuite implementation:

• What key pain points will NetSuite solve?
• Where can the greatest workflow efficiencies be achieved?
• What new visibility and reporting capabilities will empower employees?

With objectives defined, map specific system functionality, workflows, key reports and metrics for each user persona and their typical tasks. Accountants need to know different modules than warehouse managers.

Create customized training docs catered to different departments covering both foundational knowledge and role-based applications.

Step 4: Choose Instructor-Led, Online, and Support Options

Utilize multiple learning formats to drive NetSuite competency including:

Instructor-Led Sessions – Good for teaching basics and complex workflows with hands-on examples. Allow trainee Q&A and feedback. Send pre-reading materials.

Online Courses / Videos – Scalable way to deliver information. Enable self-paced learning. Useful as pre- and post-reinforcement around live training.

Job Aids/Quick Reference Guides – Create simple help docs, cheat sheets with screenshots mapping common actions to steps performed in the system.

Searchable Knowledge Base – An online repository of helpful articles allows users to self-serve answers to everyday questions. Reduces burden on support staff.

Gamification – Friendly contests, quizzes, rewards programs adds fun to adoption. Promotes knowledge retention.

Step 5: Develop a Training Schedule

Create a calendar for a multi-phase rollout with courses for different teams and milestones:

Phase 1 – Basic System Training

• Conduct administrator / champion workshops first
• Deliver fundamental platform capabilities overview to general employees in groups

Phase 2 – Departmental Application Training

• Dive into workflows by functions such as accounting, sales, services, operations
• Align sessions to key process change timelines

Phase 3 – Role-Specific Training

• Cover detailed workflows for individual user types such as AR clerk, warehouse picker, etc.
• Align delivery timing to deployment schedules

Refresh and expand training on a regular cadence such as with major releases, ongoing lunch-and-learns, new hire orientation etc.

Step 6: Gather Participant Feedback

Distribute course evaluations at the end of every class. Gather input on:

• Pace and depth
• Areas for improvement
• Additional instruction needs

Monitor community forums and knowledge base content questions to identify concepts requiring reinforcement.

Analyze platform usage data and metrics to pinpoint adoption gaps. If a group infrequently logs into certain modules, refreshed training may help utilization.

Step 7: Track and Encourage Usage

Collect system access and usage analytics regularly to monitor adoption rates. Set goals around metrics like logins per week, dashboard views, workflow utilization.

Display department and company-wide adoption metrics visually to promote healthy competition. Call out gaps to leadership while highlighting successes for recognition.

Usage validation confirms training effectiveness. Employees unable to perform key tasks may require coaching assistance. Provide incentives for adopting new workflows, inputting data accurately and on time, and collaborating effectively in the system.

Step 8: Develop “Power” Users

Identify talented users across areas like reporting, dashboard customization, and process configuration. Invest in their advancement via expert content, mentoring programs, or formal NetSuite certification.

Empower them to support departmental colleagues, train new hires, lead enhancements, and potentially manage the system someday. They’ll be invaluable long-term subject matter experts.

Why Choose SuiteRep as Your NetSuite Training Partner?

SuiteRep brings over 150 collective years of NetSuite experience to guide clients on technology and adoption best practices post go-live. Our proven training methodologies help organizations achieve the highest ROI.

We offer dedicated solutions spanning:

• Adoption Strategy – Ensure training maps to larger business objectives beyond just standard functionality
• Specialized Course Development – Create customized content and scenarios for different roles
• Ongoing Enablement – Sustained learning via online modules, lunch-and-learns, refresher sessions
• Community Development – Foster connections between users for informal peer support
• Power User Progression – Advance top talent via NetSuite certifications to expand in-house expertise
• Adoption Tracking – Monitor usage data to quantify effectiveness and uncover additional needs
• Continuous Optimization – Enhance training over time based on community feedback and version upgrades

By combining tailored curriculum with role-based instruction techniques, SuiteRep drives proficiency inclusive of all learning styles. Our blended adoption services ensure your team extracts the most from NetSuite today while being equipped to meet future needs.

Learn more about SuiteRep’s training and change management services.