Introduced by NetSuite
Most corporations racing from startup to an trade chief face a selection: limp together with scrappy early methods or endure a expensive platform migration.
DoorDash did neither. The local-commerce big scaled from its 2013 founding by IPO and international growth — buying the Helsiniki-based know-how firm Wolt in 2022 and UK-based Deliveroo in 2025 — whereas preserving its authentic Oracle NetSuite enterprise system. At the moment, it serves over 50 million shoppers in additional than 40 nations.*
Chief Accounting Officer Gordon Lee says the secret is constructing a scalable ecosystem that enables groups to use instruments that work greatest for them.
Selecting flexibility over uniformity
When DoorDash chosen NetSuite as its company monetary management heart, it wasn’t searching for a system to implement uniformity. It sought a scalable platform that would join all its methods, from ERP, CRM, HR, sourcing, and extra.
“Our philosophy has been to create a platform that enables our clients and enterprise companions to use no matter instruments work greatest for them,” Lee says. “After we’re managing progress, the majority of the dialog is about managing expectations — what individuals count on once 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 firm scaled, Lee confronted rising stress from distributors insisting that fast progress required a brand new enterprise platform.
He ran the numbers. The transfer to one other platform might price thousands and thousands and devour months of his staff’s focus.
As a substitute, DoorDash stayed with NetSuite, which continued to scale alongside the firm’s progress. Constructed on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, NetSuite delivers the efficiency and reliability of an enterprise platform with out the price or disruption of migration.
Lee concluded: “Why do I hassle to transfer? I have already got the scalability I want from NetSuite.”
At the moment, DoorDash’s NetSuite backend supplies enterprise-grade safety whereas its acquainted entrance finish supplies the staff flexibility, making a steady, trendy basis for sustained, high-velocity progress.
Increasing the menu with out the technical indigestion
That flexibility quickly proved invaluable. The flexibility to add new purposes shortly — with out lengthy, expensive integrations — turned a significant 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 not have, and switch the swap on and off, is straightforward as a result of it’s all built-in,” he explains.
At the moment, DoorDash’s know-how stack spans a number of methods — all integrating seamlessly with NetSuite as 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 are 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 are an extension of my staff,” Lee explains.
Shut collaboration advantages each events. DoorDash retains NetSuite attuned to the realities of hypergrowth and will get immediate suggestions on know-how functionality and scalability. In flip, NetSuite stays shut to a marquee buyer. Interplay is ongoing — and frank, in accordance to Lee.
“We work instantly with NetSuite ACS and sometimes ask, ‘Can NetSuite do that?’ If they’ll show it will possibly, we stick with NetSuite.”
One other profit is the means to prolong DoorDash’s experience with out increasing headcount.
“If somebody says to me, ‘Gordon, you are simply an accountant. How are you aware about methods? I say, I do not. I’ve a community man with us, an professional.’ That is the type of companion 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 getting ready for IPOs or international growth. He provides that sustainable progress relies upon as a lot on shared understanding as on know-how itself.
Too typically, finance and IT “have 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 information constant. That shut collaboration, Lee notes, is what retains rollouts clean, knowledge clear, and progress sustainable at any stage.
AI technique: Belief solely inner knowledge, get knowledge geese in a row
Lee plans to take a look at the NetSuite AI Connector Service — which helps Mannequin Context Protocol (MCP) and lets clients join their very own AI to NetSuite — to see how quicker entry to correct knowledge can drive progress.
By implementing an inner occasion, Lee is much less apprehensive about disruptive errors from LLMs educated on public knowledge sources.
“Take into consideration a generative AI chatbot. While you ask a query, it will possibly replicate many views,” he explains. On the different hand, a chatbot educated on non-public enterprise methods advantages from “a clear knowledge infrastructure.”
Lee is taking a methodical method: first get knowledge pristine, then prepare AI on domain-specific terminology, and at last see how inner AI can each discover the proper information and automate downstream accounting processes to save sources and speed up progress.
Betting long-term on its authentic monetary core
From early progress 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 frontrunner in native commerce globally.
His mantra is easy: “Focus on progress as an alternative of churning by distributors.”
* Primarily based on the mixed numbers for DoorDash, Wolt, and Deliveroo, measured as of September 2025.
Sponsored articles are content material produced by an organization that is both paying for the publish or has a enterprise relationship with VentureBeat, they usually’re all the time clearly marked. For extra information, contact [email protected].
Disclaimer: This article is sourced from external platforms. OverBeta has not independently verified the information. Readers are advised to verify details before relying on them.
