Offered by NetSuite
Most corporations racing from startup to an business chief face a alternative: limp together with scrappy early methods or endure a pricey platform migration.
DoorDash did neither. The local-commerce large scaled from its 2013 founding by IPO and international growth — buying the Helsiniki-based expertise firm Wolt in 2022 and UK-based Deliveroo in 2025 — whereas conserving its unique Oracle NetSuite enterprise system. Immediately, it serves over 50 million shoppers 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 finest for them.
Selecting flexibility over uniformity
When DoorDash chosen NetSuite as its company monetary management middle, it wasn't searching for a system to implement uniformity. It sought a scalable platform that might join all its methods, from ERP, CRM, HR, sourcing, and extra.
"Our philosophy has been to create a platform that allows our customers and business partners to use whatever tools work best for them," Lee says. "When we're managing growth, the majority of the conversation is about managing expectations — what people expect when you grow 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 strain from distributors insisting that fast development required a brand new enterprise platform.
He ran the numbers. The transfer to a different platform may price thousands and thousands and eat months of his staff's focus.
As an alternative, 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 associated fee or disruption of migration.
Lee concluded: "Why do I bother to move? I already have the scalability I need from NetSuite."
Immediately, DoorDash’s NetSuite backend gives enterprise-grade safety whereas its acquainted entrance finish gives the staff flexibility, making a steady, trendy 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 shortly — with out lengthy, pricey 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 flexibility to have and not have, and turn the switch on and off, is easy because it’s all integrated,” he explains.
Immediately, DoorDash’s expertise stack spans a number of methods — all integrating seamlessly with NetSuite because the monetary hub. “They do it, and you’re done,” Lee says.
Embedding experience to scale smarter, not greater
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 here with us every week. They know all my schematics, they know all my data infrastructure, they know all my database structure within NetSuite. Essentially, they are an extension of my team," Lee explains.
Shut collaboration advantages each events. DoorDash retains NetSuite attuned to the realities of hypergrowth and will get instantaneous suggestions on expertise functionality and scalability. In flip, NetSuite stays near a marquee buyer. Interplay is ongoing — and frank, based on Lee.
“We work directly with NetSuite ACS and often ask, 'Can NetSuite do this?’ If they can prove it can, we stay with NetSuite."
Another benefit is the ability to extend DoorDash's expertise without expanding headcount.
"If someone says to me, 'Gordon, you're just an accountant. How do you know about systems? I say, I don't. I have a network guy with us, an expert.’ That's the kind of partner I want to surround myself with, so that I can grow beyond what I am.”
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 growth. He provides that sustainable development relies upon as a lot on shared understanding as on expertise itself.
Too usually, finance and IT “look at the same requirement but see completely different things,” Lee says, describing what he calls the “blue versus purple” drawback. “The accountant doesn’t understand the configuration of the system,” he explains. “The IT guy doesn’t understand what the accountant was trying to tell them.”
NetSuite bridges that hole. With a unified information mannequin and built-in finest practices throughout finance, operations, and extra, it retains groups aligned and data constant. That shut collaboration, Lee notes, is what retains rollouts easy, information clear, and development sustainable at any stage.
AI technique: Belief solely inside information, get information 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 sooner entry to correct information can drive development.
By implementing an inside occasion, Lee is much less anxious about disruptive errors from LLMs educated on public information sources.
"Take into consideration a generative AI chatbot. While you ask a query, it will probably mirror many views,” he explains. Then again, a chatbot educated on personal enterprise methods advantages from “a clean data infrastructure.”
Lee is taking a methodical method: first get information pristine, then prepare AI on domain-specific terminology, and eventually see how inside AI can each discover the best info and automate downstream accounting processes to save lots of assets and speed up development.
Betting long-term on its unique 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 frontrunner in native commerce globally.
His mantra is straightforward: “Focus on growth instead of churning through vendors.”
* Primarily based on the mixed numbers for DoorDash, Wolt, and Deliveroo, measured as of September 2025.
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