NetSuite Administrators are in high demand and are proving difficult to fill within organizations. The specificity of the required skill set, complex certification journeys, and the extremely broad depth of NetSuite’s capabilities make being an administrator a daunting task.
Afterall, NetSuite administrators are responsible for troubleshooting, optimizing, integrating, and generally maintaining your NetSuite instance. It requires discipline in both technical know-how and business acumen. You’ll need someone who not only understands how to maintain and optimize NetSuite but also the business goals and strategies the organization aims to achieve with it. This way, they can not only administer NetSuite, but also optimize it to your business objectives.
Simply put, NetSuite Administrators are integral to any NetSuite team. Given NetSuite’s high level of customization and robust functionality, administrators are needed to keep everything running smoothly and efficiently. A NetSuite Administrator’s day-to-day tasks might involve configuring and maintaining the instance, managing users, roles, and permissions, creating dashboards and reports, adding new modules, or automating routine processes.
As of the time of writing, there are currently 602 open Jobs on LinkedIn for a NetSuite System Administrator. These NetSuite Administrator jobs are roughly split evenly between remote (284) and on-site (281), with 37 offering the flexibility of a hybrid work environment.
With NetSuite boasting just over 41,000 users, roughly 2% of all NetSuite-using companies currently have a NetSuite System Administrator posting on LinkedIn at the same time. There are a number of reasons why companies struggle to find the right NetSuite talent for their team, and we’ll touch on the most common reasons below.
While the pandemic led to a boom in remote work, more companies are returning to hybrid or on-site models. With the housing market in wild fluctuations, relocation is no longer as simple as it once was. This forces a company to offer a highly attractive onboarding package or limit its applicant pool to the local area.
When you do find the right person in your backyard, you are now competing with their option to work remotely. According to a recent Blind survey, 64% of employees said they would choose working from home over a $30,000 pay increase.
Regardless of on-site, hybrid, or remote work, you’re competing against a large pool of potential employers.
The System Administrators with 100% of the experience you are looking for are already working and are well compensated. You can find yourself opening your wallet further than you’d like if you want to buy out a full-time employee from another company.
Supply and demand. Even if you are lucky to find a good NetSuite Administrator, the salary requirements may be more than what works for your budget.
System Administrators with prior experience at one or two companies will provide strong system administrative support for your team. These support tasks include: setting up employees and roles, running saved searches and reports, adding custom fields, and researching topics in SuiteAnswers.
However, they may not be skilled enough to address more complex requirements. These requirements range from understanding why your financial statements are manual to run, why certain data is inaccessible, or why your month-end process takes two weeks.
Furthermore, really challenging opportunities such as switching costing methods from FIFO to Average, optimizing and automating NetSuite, setting up new modules or additional subsidiaries, or understanding how NetSuite handles the new Lease Accounting Standards ASC 842 & IFRS 16 are also not likely in their wheelhouse.
In these instances, you may be either under-optimized or hiring multiple administrators, each focused on specific aspects of your NetSuite instance. Having multiple full-time administrators on your payroll is just another way the costs can snowball.
How much does it cost to get NetSuite certified? Getting certified can cost thousands of dollars, including training time, exam fees, and study materials. Additionally, users will need a NetSuite instance to practice and learn on, which isn’t often available outside of work.
Given these roadblocks, it is clear why so many companies are struggling to fill their NetSuite Administrator roles effectively. Fortunately, there’s a solution that overcomes these barriers while being cost-effective. Outsourcing some or all of your NetSuite administrator tasks to an experienced NetSuite consulting firm like ScaleNorth can save you both time, money, and frustration.
The complexity of NetSuite and the scarcity of qualified NetSuite administrators make the role highly in demand and difficult to fill. More and more savvy businesses are turning to outsourced NetSuite administrators and consultants as a cost-effective and flexible solution.
ScaleNorth’s team of NetSuite consultants and administrators can handle nearly any NetSuite task, including automating routine processes, creating custom fields, managing roles and permissions, implementing new modules, integrating with third-party systems, building custom dashboards and reports, designing workflows, and more.
Offering both ad hoc and managed support packages, we’re countless businesses’ preferred partner for all things NetSuite. If you need a team of the best and brightest NetSuite administrators and consultants, contact ScaleNorth today.
