Luxent: The Right NetSuite Partner Helps Businesses Grow Faster

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Vivian Keena, President and CEO, LuxentVivian Keena, President and CEO
Luxent is a premier NetSuite solution provider that partners with small and medium sized businesses to select, implement, integrate, and grow with the fastest growing cloud ERP platform. With decades of expertise in the manufacturing and distribution industries as well as a variety of verticals including food and beverage, health and beauty, automotive, medical device, life science, and lighting, Luxent prides itself on serving as a trusted advisor to customers as they navigate what can be a very difficult and confusing process.

In an interview with CIO Applications, Vivian Keena, President and CEO of Luxent, shares her insights on how the company leverages its expertise to provide exceptional solutions to clients.

What’s different about Luxent?

After decades in the software industry, we’re the team that really gets it: We understand how platform providers like NetSuite operate, we understand the technology and how to best deploy and accelerate it, and, most importantly, we understand midsize businesses across that are at a critical point in their company’s growth.

The insights we have gained and the experience we’ve built and provided makes Luxent a different kind of consulting firm. For our customers, this looks like a trusted advisor who is alongside them every step of the way from selecting to implementing to growing with the best software solutions available.

How should a CIO tackle the selection of new ERP software?

CIOs have a lot on their shoulders and it can feel overwhelming to contemplate a new ERP platform, not to mention the process of migrating and adopting. There are three things I would tell a CIO to think about when tackling the question of selecting a new ERP system:

First, take some time to reflect on your business and software pain points: What isn’t working? What works but is cumbersome? Where do you lose the most time? What do you need to grow and scale your business? Defining these answers will help you prioritize the key features and considerations as you look at the ERP options before you.

Next, take the time to make a list of everything that has to integrate.

We find that integration needs are one of the most overlooked items when it comes to assessing ERP functionality and it can be a huge showstopper when you’re ready to go live.

Finally, don’t waste your time looking anywhere but the cloud. Technology is going to the cloud and anything onpremises is unlikely to have much more of a lifecycle. A knowledgeable cloud partner can make all the difference here, because there are plenty of systems that will market their cloud capabilities but in reality, they aren’t fully there. You want an open API and holistic, comprehensive cloud platform that doesn’t just work in the cloud, it was built there.

How do you know it’s time to move off of QuickBooks and into a real ERP solution?

This is a question we’re asked all the time. Many businesses start on QuickBooks and keep it around far too long after they’ve outgrown it.

The quickest way to know whether it’s time to move off of QuickBooks is to ask yourself what you’re doing outside of QuickBooks. If you’re exporting data so that you can manually report in Excel, if you’re relying on three different people to tell you where inventory is, if you can’t find all the details of your customers’ orders and interactions – it’s time to move away from QuickBooks.

It’s not just QuickBooks, either. If you’re on any legacy ERP or accounting application that’s slow, cumbersome, doesn’t have mobile access, and makes reporting a nightmare, it’s time to move to something more robust.

Why would a business want to work with a consulting partner vs. the ERP developer on their implementation?

It comes down to the difference between implementing and consulting. A platform developer likely has excellent implementers who know the solution inside and out. However, this doesn’t make them good consultants.

Consulting, in my view, is about being a trusted advisor who understands both the technology and your business. Implementation is transactional, especially to a developer who has a “technology first” mindset. For Luxent, we have a “customer first” mindset and the difference is between these mindsets is subtle but important: When it’s customer first, you start with the customer at the center and tailor the software to suit and support them and their needs. Not the other way around.

One way you’ll see the effects of using an implementer or a consultant is in your user adoption rate. I’ve seen businesses implement ERP only for it to become a very expensive database while users go back to their old ways of manually tracking and reporting. A consultant that’s built your solution around your needs, pains, and growth opportunities will ensure deployment and adoption are central, not an afterthought.

  • We Have A “Customer First” Mindset: You Start With The Customer At The Center And Tailor The Software To Suit And Support Them And Their Needs. Not The Other Way Around


What is Luxent’s philosophy on being a service provider?

Service – great service – is really at the core of who we are. Luxent is a service company that sells software. We prioritize strong relationships with our customers that keep the lines of communication open and enduring.

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