| | July 20158CIOReviewMoulding Complete Business Solution through NetSuite SoftwareBy Steve Hankins, EVP & CFO / CIO, Globe Express ServicesWith 80 offices, 56 different general ledgers, 56 customer master files, 56 vendor master files, 30 legal entities spread over 20 different countries with multiple languages doing business in more than 20 currencies you have a challenge as a global CFO. One company seems as if it is 56 different companies.Cash position? 187 bank accounts and 80 banks spread all over the world. Financial statements? Consolidations? Customer profitability? Currency translation? How many accountants can you fit into "Excel hell?" Not enough.A simple question could take weeks to answer. Closing and consolidated financials for one period often were not completed before the next closing period began.My previous experience as a Fortune 100 CIO and CFO for 14 years was with a company that grew from $2 billion in revenue to over $8 billion over that period. Our task was to maintain a "one company, one system" approach as the company grew both organically and by acquisition. The new challenge as a "double-hatted" global CIO and CFO was now to not only integrate businesses and systems, but also accomplish it quickly.For the centerpiece of the solution set, I chose NetSuite.Having had exposure to the functionality and underlying technology of most of the ones available in the market, NetSuite had long been on my radar. As a consultant I previously led scripted demo selection processes that included and often chose NetSuite. From a functionality standpoint, that history and product knowledge was an advantage in being able to move quickly with NetSuite. The "cloud" SAS model of NetSuite allowed us to get right to work addressing our critical business issues. Investing time in building a hardware environment to host software was neither a Steve Hankinsopinionin my
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