Leading Student Accommodation Provider Signs Deal to Implement
NetSuite OneWorld Across 50+ Global Campus Locations
Sydney, Australia—22 January, 2009—NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), a leading vendor of on-demand, integrated business management software suites for mid-market enterprises and divisions of large companies, today announced that it has won a global contract with Campus Living Villages to deliver NetSuite OneWorld, a cloud computing solution that enables multinational and multi-subsidiary companies to manage their global business operations in real-time.
An international leader in the provision of student accommodation at university campuses, Campus Living Villages (CLV) operates, manages or is developing 50,000 beds across over 50 campuses in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the USA. The Campus Living Villages Fund has assets worth over US$1 billion, and is managed by Campus Living Funds Management, a wholly owned subsidiary of one of Australia's leading investment and project development groups, Transfield Holdings.
Although headquartered in Sydney, CLV operates over 100 subsidiaries to manage its various campus villages and development projects. The company had been using Intuit MRI in its US operation and MYOB across the Asia Pacific, but had only limited visibility and wanted to improve data integration and streamline information and subsidiary management moving forward.
Campus Living Villages Chief Financial Officer Joanna Wakefield said NetSuite OneWorld's ability to deliver local controls within each subsidiary while providing global visibility was a major factor in winning the contract.
NetSuite Wins Against Stiff Competition
"We conducted an intensive six month evaluation process that assessed offerings from over a dozen different vendors," said Ms Wakefield. "Our key drivers were to gain greater visibility into our financial performance, with real-time access to information across the enterprise to enhance our decision-making and improve efficiency. We dismissed many large enterprise options early in the process as they were cost prohibitive for a medium scale company like CLV."
"NetSuite offered us a cost-effective, fully integrated solution capable of spanning the globe with multi-regional support for tax issues, regulatory compliance, language and currency. NetSuite OneWorld offered the broadest array of functionality and a high degree of customisation with a real-time dashboard capable of integrating both financial and operational data," she said.
NetSuite OneWorld is to date the first and only announced on-demand system to deliver real-time subsidiary management and business consolidation capabilities to mid-market companies for accounting / enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and Ecommerce operations, at a fraction of the cost of traditional on-premise ERP solutions.
"We originally went to market for a financial solution, but as NetSuite got to know our company and better understood our needs, they were able to demonstrate a wide range of benefits to be gained by expanding the scope of the project to encompass functionality for CRM, eCommerce, project management and more," said Ms. Wakefield.
CLV plans to initially implement the General Ledger before rolling out additional functionality.
"Not only do the NetSuite solutions enforce best practices to enhance the way we operate, but we get to deal with a single, highly responsive vendor for all our core systems, saving us time and money," said Ms Wakefield.
Unlimited Scalability
Ms Wakefield indicated the company's initial reservations about the Software as a Service (SaaS) model were quickly dispelled after realising the enormous benefits in terms of rapid implementation and easy scalability across a growing number of geographically dispersed sites.
"Campus Living Villages has an ambitious schedule of expansion, with plans to double in size over the next few years. Although our initial licence is for 100 users with plans to add up to 200 more users within two years, we anticipate having twice that number within the medium term," said Ms Wakefield.
Since all functionality is delivered via a standard browser, the company can easily bring on board new subsidiaries as it expands, making adjustments for regional compliance and regulatory issues with NetSuite's subsidiary management.
With its multi-site, multi-currency, multi-language, local tax compliance and local inventory sourcing capabilities, CLV expects NetSuite OneWorld to simplify and streamline its global business operations, allowing it to implement new efficiencies across the organisation.
Initial New Zealand/UK Roll-out
Campus Living Villages will partner with NetSuite to conduct an initial roll-out at its campuses in New Zealand and the UK before embarking on the larger-scale implementations across Australia and the United States.
"This is a very significant win for NetSuite," said Johnny Jones, Vice President of International Sales for NetSuite. "Campus Living Villages will be one of our most sophisticated NetSuite OneWorld implementations in terms of the geographical spread and the number of subsidiaries using the system. We're also delighted to have won this contract in the face of strong competition from every major supplier in this space," he said.
"We look forward to working closely with Campus Living Villages to implement NetSuite OneWorld around the world and deliver the functionality they need to drive their business into the future."
About NetSuite
NetSuite Inc. [(NYSE: N) is a leading vendor of on-demand, integrated business management software suites for mid-market enterprises and divisions of large companies. NetSuite enables mid-market companies to manage core business operations in a single system, which includes accounting / enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management ( CRM), and Ecommerce. NetSuite's patent-pending "real-time dashboard" technology provides an easy-to-use view into up-to-date, role-specific business information. For more information about NetSuite please visit www.netsuite.com.au
About Campus Living Villages
Campus Living Villages specialises in working with universities to deliver tailored student accommodation solutions in Australia, New Zealand, the United States and, most recently, the United Kingdom. Its sole focus is student accommodation. With an established international track record providing exciting and supportive residential environments, coupled with tailored student life programmes designed to enhance the campus experience, CLV is the largest provider of on-campus student accommodation in the world.
Campus Living Villages has the expertise to manage all parts of the development and management process with in-house expertise in design, development, building, financing, sustainability and operational management. It allows universities to provide housing without having to be involved in the cost and complexity of building and managing student facilities. Visit: www.clv.com.au