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Offered by NetSuite
Most corporations racing from startup to an business chief face a selection: limp together with scrappy early programs or endure a pricey platform migration.
DoorDash did neither. The local-commerce large scaled from its 2013 founding via IPO and international enlargement — buying the Helsiniki-based know-how firm Wolt in 2022 and UK-based Deliveroo in 2025 — whereas conserving its authentic Oracle NetSuite enterprise system. At the moment, it serves over 50 million customers in additional than 40 nations.*
Chief Accounting Officer Gordon Lee says the key is constructing a scalable ecosystem that permits groups to make use of instruments that work greatest for them.
Selecting flexibility over uniformity
When DoorDash chosen NetSuite as its company monetary management heart, it wasn't in search of a system to implement uniformity. It sought a scalable platform that would join all its programs, from ERP, CRM, HR, sourcing, and extra.
"Our philosophy has been to create a platform that permits our prospects and enterprise companions to make use of no matter instruments work greatest for them," Lee says. "Once we're managing development, the vast majority of the dialog is about managing expectations — what individuals anticipate whenever you develop from A to B."
The migration query
Two years after its founding, DoorDash surpassed a million deliveries and expanded into Canada. As the corporate scaled, Lee confronted rising stress from distributors insisting that fast development required a brand new enterprise platform.
He ran the numbers. The transfer to a different platform might value tens of millions and devour months of his staff's focus.
As a substitute, DoorDash stayed with NetSuite, which continued to scale alongside the corporate’s development. Constructed on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, NetSuite delivers the efficiency and reliability of an enterprise platform with out the fee or disruption of migration.
Lee concluded: "Why do I trouble to maneuver? I have already got the scalability I want from NetSuite."
At the moment, DoorDash’s NetSuite backend offers enterprise-grade safety whereas its acquainted entrance finish offers the staff flexibility, making a secure, fashionable basis for sustained, high-velocity development.
Increasing the menu with out the technical indigestion
That flexibility quickly proved invaluable. The power so as to add new purposes rapidly — with out lengthy, pricey integrations — turned a serious benefit throughout hypergrowth.
For instance, as DoorDash expanded from restaurant supply into grocery, comfort, and retail, Lee turned to NetSuite’s stock modules to deal with the distinct calls for of these new classes.
“The pliability to have and never have, and switch the swap on and off, is simple as a result of it’s all built-in,” he explains.
At the moment, DoorDash’s know-how stack spans a number of programs — all integrating seamlessly with NetSuite because the monetary hub. “They do it, and also you’re finished,” Lee says.
Embedding experience to scale smarter, not larger
For Lee, true partnerships flip distributors into a part of the staff — and that’s precisely how he describes NetSuite Superior Buyer Assist (ACS).
"They’re right here with us each week. They know all my schematics, they know all my knowledge infrastructure, they know all my database construction inside NetSuite. Basically, they’re an extension of my staff," Lee explains.
Shut collaboration advantages each events. DoorDash retains NetSuite attuned to the realities of hypergrowth and will get instantaneous suggestions on know-how functionality and scalability. In flip, NetSuite stays near a marquee buyer. Interplay is ongoing — and frank, in response to Lee.
“We work straight with NetSuite ACS and sometimes ask, 'Can NetSuite do that?’ If they will show it will possibly, we stick with NetSuite."
One other profit is the power to increase DoorDash's experience with out increasing headcount.
"If somebody says to me, 'Gordon, you're simply an accountant. How are you aware about programs? I say, I don't. I’ve a community man with us, an knowledgeable.’ That's the type of accomplice I need to encompass myself with, in order that I can develop past what I’m.”
By embedding experience inside our partnerships, DoorDash scales with precision and management. Lee says the mannequin applies to different corporations making ready for IPOs or international enlargement. He provides that sustainable development relies upon as a lot on shared understanding as on know-how itself.
Too usually, finance and IT “take a look at the identical requirement however see utterly various things,” Lee says, describing what he calls the “blue versus purple” drawback. “The accountant doesn’t perceive the configuration of the system,” he explains. “The IT man doesn’t perceive what the accountant was making an attempt to inform them.”
NetSuite bridges that hole. With a unified knowledge mannequin and built-in greatest practices throughout finance, operations, and extra, it retains groups aligned and data constant. That shut collaboration, Lee notes, is what retains rollouts easy, knowledge clear, and development sustainable at any stage.
AI technique: Belief solely inside knowledge, get knowledge geese in a row
Lee plans to check the NetSuite AI Connector Service — which helps Mannequin Context Protocol (MCP) and lets prospects join their very own AI to NetSuite — to see how quicker entry to correct knowledge can drive development.
By implementing an inside occasion, Lee is much less apprehensive about disruptive errors from LLMs skilled on public knowledge sources.
"Take into consideration a generative AI chatbot. Once you ask a query, it will possibly replicate many views,” he explains. However, a chatbot skilled on non-public enterprise programs advantages from “a clear knowledge infrastructure.”
Lee is taking a methodical strategy: first get knowledge pristine, then prepare AI on domain-specific terminology, and at last see how inside AI can each discover the appropriate data and automate downstream accounting processes to save lots of assets and speed up development.
Betting long-term on its authentic monetary core
From early development to main acquisitions that helped increase its footprint throughout the globe, DoorDash has relied on NetSuite as a constant basis for innovation and scale.
Lee credit NetSuite’s versatile structure and shut partnership with serving to allow DoorDash because it continued to scale and cement itself as a pacesetter in native commerce globally.
His mantra is easy: “Deal with development as an alternative of churning via distributors.”
* Primarily based on the mixed numbers for DoorDash, Wolt, and Deliveroo, measured as of September 2025.
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