On a bright morning in Hong Kong, a select group of business leaders, finance executives, operations managers and NetSuite users gathered for an engaging and forward-looking event: the SuiteBeat Customer Meet Up hosted by Oracle NetSuite and Vantis. The theme: “New NetSuite AI capabilities boost insights and productivity”. The agenda was bold: to uncover how the latest release of NetSuite, powered by artificial intelligence, is not just an incremental update but a meaningful leap in how organisations run operations, glean insights and scale faster.
Here’s a recap of what went down, what was shared and, most importantly, what attendees walked away with.
Setting the stage: why now, why AI
The session opened with a warm welcome from the Vantis team (noting that Vantis has recently been recognised as a NetSuite Best Customer Success Partner), followed by the NetSuite product team laying out the macro-trend: businesses are generating more data than ever, workflows remain complex, and expectations for speed, accuracy and insight are higher than ever before.
The key message: To stay competitive, you don’t just need more data, you need smarter systems — systems that surface the right insights, automate the mundane and give users time back to focus on strategic work. The recent updates in NetSuite embody that shift.
What’s new: AI-powered features and enhancements
Attendees were guided through a series of demos and deep dives into the new release. While the event was specifically localised for the Hong Kong and Asia-Pacific region, the capabilities reflect global NetSuite direction. Some of the standout features included:
- AI-powered analytics and dashboards: The new version enables automated insight-generation — for example, the system flags anomalies, suggests trends and forecasts future metrics. This moves beyond static reporting toward predictive and prescriptive analytics.
- Intelligent workflows and automation: Routine back-office tasks such as bill capture, invoice matching, and expense reconciliation now embed machine-learning to reduce manual effort, reduce errors and accelerate process time.
- Embedded natural-language discovery and interaction: Users can now ask “What is my fastest-growing product line this quarter?” or “Which vendor invoices are past due and likely to escalate?” in conversational form and get instant responses.
- Improved item-recommendation and inventory optimisation: For businesses with commerce or distribution operations, the system now suggests which items to reorder, which SKUs to promote, based on real-time demand, historical patterns and forward-looking signals.
- More seamless global-ready features: Given Hong Kong’s role as a global hub, the new release emphasises multi-currency, multi-language, global compliance support — enabling local teams to benefit from NetSuite’s global cloud ERP platform.
Attendees appreciated the clarity of the demos — real-world scenarios, live demonstrations, and partner-driven success stories from organisations that have already begun to apply these features.
Why this matters: insight + productivity = competitive edge
In the Q&A segment, several recurring themes emerged, reflecting the mindset of the audience:
- Insight without delay: “In the past we waited for end-of-month reports — now we get insight mid-month, even mid-week, and act faster.” The new AI-capabilities in NetSuite mean businesses can pivot faster.
- Less time on repetitive tasks: With automation handling tedious clerical work, finance and operations teams can focus on value-added activities. One attendee noted: “Our team used to spend hours reconciling; now we spend time analysing what the numbers mean.”
- Better decision-making support: The system’s trend-spotting and forecasting allow leaders to make informed decisions, not just reactive ones.
- Scale safely and globally: For organisations in Hong Kong and beyond, having a platform that supports multiple entities, currencies and languages means growth is less constrained by back-office friction. NetSuite’s global capabilities are well-established.
Partner perspective: Vantis brings the local edge
One of the strengths of the event was the involvement of Vantis. As a partner with strong regional expertise and 4 consecutive years of NetSuite customer-success recognition, Vantis provided context on how companies in Hong Kong and Asia-Pacific can adopt new NetSuite AI features with minimal disruption. The event emphasised the importance of:
- Change-management: Even the best technology under-delivers if users aren’t trained, adoption is low or data quality is weak.
- Data-readiness: To get full value from AI features, clean, structured, well-governed data is key.
- Incremental rollout: Rather than “turn on everything at once,” a phased approach (pilot, evaluate, scale) often yields faster ROI.
- Local compliance and localisation: For Hong Kong-based companies, ensuring the system aligns with local tax rules, statutory reporting, Chinese-language UX and cross-border operations is essential.
Key take-aways & next steps
From the event, we distilled a handful of actionable insights:
- Start with a clear business question: Instead of “let’s play with AI”, define what you want to improve (e.g., reduce days-sales-outstanding, increase inventory turns, reduce invoice processing cycle).
- Leverage the new AI features in NetSuite immediately: The release already delivers capabilities you don’t have to wait for — explore the analytics dashboards, workflow automation and natural language features.
- Engage your users early: Get power-users, finance/ops leads and exec sponsors aligned on what success looks like — training, adoption and measurement matter.
- Monitor and iterate: Use the built-in dashboards and analytics to track improvement, identify gaps and refine your processes.
- Partner to maximise value: Work with a partner like Vantis who understands the region, the technology and best practices in rolling out NetSuite enhancements.
Final thoughts
The SuiteBeat Customer Meet Up in Hong Kong was more than a product briefing — it was a signal that the future of enterprise resource planning is now: one where AI is baked in, not an add-on; where insights drive action in near-real-time; and where productivity gains free teams to focus on growth rather than grind.
For businesses in Hong Kong and across the Asia-Pacific region that are using or considering NetSuite, the message is clear: these new capabilities unlock real competitive advantage — but only if you shift from viewing them as “nice-to-have” to “must-do.” As one attendee put it, “If you’re still waiting to evaluate, you may already be behind.”
