Celigo named a Visionary in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™

When it comes to NetSuite integration, Celigo makes connections

As a NetSuite partner of the year (in various categories) for the past three years, Celigo is one of the highest profile integrators focused on bringing the cloud-based business management suite into small and midsize businesses (SMBs).

Its unique differentiation lies in the company’s ability to extend the value of NetSuite through key integrations with other high-profile software as a service (SaaS) offerings including Salesforce.com, Google Apps and Magento. It has productized its technology in the form of Celigo Integrator.

“We’re focused on helping orchestration connections with whatever makes your NetSuite implementation better, but this is more about pushing data back and force,” said Jan Arendtsz, founder and CEO of the San Mateo, Calif.-based solution provider.

To date, that approach has helped Celigo earn approximately 700 customers in the United States, the United Kingdom and the Middle East.

One of those clients is HanoverDirect, the multi-channel retailer and catalog organization — one with plenty of legacy brands and legacy IT equipment. When the company started centralizing on NetSuite, Celigo helped connect its various e-commerce platforms, gateways, call centers and gift card systems.

“We were able to do the customizations that allowed them to use NetSuite as the hub,” Arendtsz said.

Another example is a publicly traded retailer of home furnishings and cookware that he can’t name specifically. In this instance, Celigo — which currently has about 70 employees — used NetSuite and NetSuite Commerce to tie together a series of supply chain applications across different subsidiaries in order to improve logistics processes.

When I asked Arendtsz what convinces companies to say “yes” to cloud-hosted applications, he points primarily to the ease with which departments and business units can spin up mission-critical applications with minimal IT intervention. Even so, more businesses are pausing to perform longer-term return on investment (ROI) assessment, he said. “There is a perception that costs are starting to increase, but almost all the time, the convenience gained — even if someone does deem it more expensive — still helps dominate the argument,” Arendtsz said.