NetSuite and Transcosmos together in Japan

NetSuite, Inc., all over the CRM news lately, provided a reason for more headlines today. Reportedly the leader in on-demand business software suites, NetSuite representatives today announced further expansion within the Japanese market. Partnerships were sealed with outsource services provider Transcosmos and IT venture capital firm / consultancy Inspire Corporation.

Including distribution, engineering and equity factors, these commitments of Transcosmos and Inspire add up to an investment of over $18 million. The agreements were undertaken in order for NetSuite to reach further into the Japanese small- and mid-sized business market; the company hopes to leverage “the expertise in marketing, outsourcing and IT provided by Transcosmos and Inspire.” This represents both a bold and cunning play by NetSuite as, despite popular perception, over ninety percent of the Japanese economy is taken up with smaller enterprises.

Transcosmos provides NetSuite with the resources of Japan’s single largest outsourced call center company. Additionally, Transcosmos is an industry leader in website building and online advertisement reselling in Japan. The firm hopes to realize its “Marketing Chain Management” plan with the addition of NetSuite product, promising to live up to the mission statement of creating a model that helps companies optimize their marketing content and efficiently perform marketing tasks, acquire new customers, expand sales, and enhance customer satisfaction by bringing into sync real-time marketing and the contact and call centers that enable companies and consumers to communicate directly with one another.

Tokyo-based Transcosmos Inc. (also known as Shibuya-ku) has been a player in Japan’s outsourced information services market for an incredible forty years. since 1966. Today, Transcosmos boasts over 7,600 employees and reported annual sales of 106.5 billion Yen for fiscal year 2005. Hoping to cut itself a big slice of the broadband pie, 2002 saw the restructuring of Transcosmos into “The Marketing Chain Management Company,” a firm with heavy emphasis in VoIP and broadband internet services.

Inspire Corporation is perhaps most familiarly known as the firm headed up by Makoto Naruke, a visionary type who joined Microsoft back in 1986 and rose to become head of Microsoft Japan in 1991. After leaving the big company’s Japanese version in 2000, Makoto founded the investment firm Minato-ku (the Japanese name of Inspire) on the foundation of what has been called “the first Japanese Strategic IT fund.” The fund was designed to foster management innovation via strategic investment in IT systems through investment and fund offerings to middle class public companies.

Today, Inspire administrates several funds, including the Inspire Advanced Technology Fund, and has expanded into the fields of marketing and intellectual property rights. “NetSuite is the first and only on-demand software company to create such a strong group of distribution and investment partnerships in Japan,” said NetSuite, Inc. CEO Zach Nelson in the company’s announcement. “Moreover, their investment commitment reflects their confidence in NetSuite’s leadership position in on-demand business software suites throughout the world.”

Naruke (definitely a “when he speaks, people listen” voice) added that “Being in IT for many years, I have recognized that NetSuite is undoubtedly the greatest product I have seen in the last decade, and we are passionate about making this product the number one on-demand ERP, CRM and e-commerce solution in the Japanese market.” The only question remaining for NetSuite at this point is just how far their stock can rise in Japan, but their prospects have got to be, well, sunny.