Oracle NetSuite said on Tuesday, April 29, that it is preparing to roll out a new set of AI-driven features across Southeast Asia, with the Philippines and Singapore expected to be among the first markets to receive the technology.
The company said the rollout timeline across Asean is still being finalized, but cited the Philippines as a priority market due to its large and growing customer base in the region.
In a media briefing during the SuiteConnect conference at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Taguig City, company officials said the Philippines typically receives early access to new capabilities alongside Singapore.
“The two countries which always get the technology first in Asean is actually Singapore and Philippines,” said Amit Suzena, group vice president and head of Asia at Oracle NetSuite.
NetSuite said the new features, collectively branded under “NetSuite Next,” are designed to automate business processes, improve visibility, and support decision-making through embedded artificial intelligence.
Among the updates are AI-powered workflow tools, natural language search capabilities, and analytics enhancements aimed at finance, operations, and customer management functions.
The company is also introducing an AI Connector Service that allows businesses to integrate external AI tools and manage how data is accessed and used within the platform.
Despite the expanded capabilities, NetSuite said existing customers will not be charged additional licensing fees for the AI features.
“It’s all built into the system our customers buy. So, the AI is embedded,” Suxena said.
However, the tech firm said companies may still incur internal costs related to adapting their workflows and business processes to take advantage of automation.
“You may have some costs around changing your business operations and just the workflows internally but nothing from a NetSuite perspective,” the official added.
NetSuite said most of the new capabilities are already available in English across Asean, with broader rollout of NetSuite Next expected within the next 12 months.
Local client’s expansion, analytics gains
During the same press briefing, Pampanga-based real estate firm JDN said its adoption of Oracle NetSuite has improved its financial processes and analytics, helping guide expansion decisions as the company grew its portfolio over the past decade.
JDN president and CEO Aaron Jeffrey Montenegro said the company began using NetSuite in late 2014, and that its reported growth of more than 300% since then was driven primarily by expansion in leasable space and new mall developments, supported by improved financial visibility.
“Since moving to NetSuite, JDN has been able to improve operational efficiency, reduce costs, enhance controls, and expand business visibility as our tenant base has grown by more than 300 percent,” Montenegro said.
Montenegro said that prior to adopting the system, generating accurate revenue figures took several days, limiting the company’s ability to make timely decisions.
“And we analyzed the revenue. It took us a lot of days before we get the correct numbers. And in return, we cannot make fast decisions if we will be expanding,” he said.
He added that NetSuite’s financial tools helped the company refine its expansion strategy, including tenant mix, revenue projections, and pipeline planning.
“When we deployed NetSuite, it helped our expansion by allowing us to correct our tenant mix, correct our revenue, and streamline,” he said.
Montenegro said the platform’s analytics capabilities now allow faster computation of key metrics such as internal rate of return (IRR) and return on investment (ROI), which are critical in evaluating new developments.
“I think the analytics is fast now than before,” he said.
JDN said NetSuite is currently used across parts of its operations, particularly in finance, with full integration still underway.
The company has been consolidating systems following a corporate restructuring that placed multiple business units under a single parent entity.
“We’re at the finalization stage for fully integrating our company,” Montenegro said. “We consolidated the majority of the company two years ago and we’re centralizing now all of it. NetSuite is helping us.”
Founded over 60 years ago in Angeles City, JDN manages more than 70,000 square meters of leasable space across Central Luzon and operates several malls and commercial properties.
