Growth is key to continued business vitality, but it can’t be effectively achieved without a focus on visibility, control and agility.

That was the key message delivered to attendees of NetSuite’s SuiteWorld conference in Las Vegas this week by Oracle NetSuite executive vice president Evan Goldberg. 

With an additional focus on collaboration and productivity, businesses will position themselves well to “grow beyond” regardless of their current size or industry specialism, according to Goldberg and the wider messaging associated with the user conference. 

“These five attributes for success are the blueprint for growth. But, they become harder and harder to achieve as you grow,” Goldberg said. 

During his keynote speech at SuiteWorld, however, Goldberg chose to dive into the first three tenets of business success; visibility, control and agility. 

“Visibility means seeing your past, your present and your future; How your business has performed historically and how it’s operating now and trends that lead to more opportunities for efficiency and more growth in the future,” Goldberg said, adding that Suite Analytics would be a core feature of version 19.1 of the platform.

“How do you respond to what’s happening if you don’t have a steering wheel? If you can’t respond there is not much you can do re what you see. Every business wants to be able to control outcomes and to stay on mission. The greatest threat to growth is a loss of control,” Goldberg added. 

“Agility is really about capitalising on the opportunities that obstacles actually represent. Control is great – it helps you when you know your path to growth, but if your route changes, that’s where agility can keep you from going off the road. There will be inflection points. Visibility lets you see those coming and agility lets you capitalise on them.”

Goldberg said NetSuite’s key aim was all about ensuring customers are able to execute their vision and the key to that was the ability to deliver one system in the cloud that can help organisations scale at their own pace.

“That’s always been our true north,” Goldberg said, adding that NetSuite customers generally start their business life in a similar way, with a vision to invent something that either addresses a hole in the market or an untapped need for something. 

“You’ve had adversity and triumph, but you’re here and you’ve survived and you’re ready to ‘grow beyond’ and we want to help,” Goldberg added.

“If you’re here today, you’re likely in an organisation that’s trying to increase its impact. But, the journey – wherever you begin and where you hope to end – is not a straight line. It’s filled with twists and turns and side roads. Sometimes it requires paving entirely new paths and sometimes you achieve your most significant milestones by overcoming obstacles.

‘Grow beyond’ is where you see that challenge, you meet that challenge with entrepreneurial spirit and grit. When you do that, extraordinary things can happen. It’s where growth really accelerates – we’ve seen it in our own business.”

NetSuite customers were some of the most innovative companies out there, with such organisations growing three times faster than the average S&P company, according to Goldberg. 

“SuiteWorld is all about sharing your stories – with like-minded companies, with NetSuite folks, with the tremendous array of partners we have in the exhibit hall – and learning how to grow smarter and faster.”