Introduced by NetSuite
Most corporations racing from startup to an business chief face a alternative: limp together with scrappy early techniques or endure a pricey platform migration.
DoorDash did neither. The local-commerce big scaled from its 2013 founding by IPO and international enlargement — buying the Helsiniki-based expertise firm Wolt in 2022 and UK-based Deliveroo in 2025 — whereas retaining its unique Oracle NetSuite enterprise system. Immediately, it serves over 50 million customers in additional than 40 international locations.*
Chief Accounting Officer Gordon Lee says the key is constructing a scalable ecosystem that enables 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 in search of a system to implement uniformity. It sought a scalable platform that would join all its techniques, from ERP, CRM, HR, sourcing, and extra.
"Our philosophy has been to create a platform that enables our prospects and enterprise companions to make use of no matter instruments work finest for them," Lee says. "After we're managing progress, 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 strain from distributors insisting that speedy progress required a brand new enterprise platform.
He ran the numbers. The transfer to a different platform may value tens of millions and devour months of his group's focus.
As a substitute, DoorDash stayed with NetSuite, which continued to scale alongside the corporate’s progress. 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 would like from NetSuite."
Immediately, DoorDash’s NetSuite backend gives enterprise-grade safety whereas its acquainted entrance finish gives the group flexibility, making a secure, trendy basis for sustained, high-velocity progress.
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 — grew to become 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 never have, and switch the change on and off, is simple as a result of it’s all built-in,” he explains.
Immediately, DoorDash’s expertise stack spans a number of techniques — all integrating seamlessly with NetSuite because the monetary hub. “They do it, and also you’re performed,” Lee says.
Embedding experience to scale smarter, not larger
For Lee, true partnerships flip distributors into a part of the group — 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 information infrastructure, they know all my database construction inside NetSuite. Basically, they’re an extension of my group," Lee explains.
Shut collaboration advantages each events. DoorDash retains NetSuite attuned to the realities of hypergrowth and will get immediate suggestions on expertise functionality and scalability. In flip, NetSuite stays near a marquee buyer. Interplay is ongoing — and frank, in accordance with Lee.
“We work instantly with NetSuite ACS and sometimes ask, 'Can NetSuite do that?’ If they’ll show it might probably, 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 have you learnt about techniques? I say, I don't. I’ve a community man with us, an professional.’ That's the form 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 getting ready for IPOs or international enlargement. He provides that sustainable progress relies upon as a lot on shared understanding as on expertise itself.
Too usually, finance and IT “have a look at the identical requirement however see fully 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 attempting to inform 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 clean, information clear, and progress 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 progress.
By implementing an inside occasion, Lee is much less frightened about disruptive errors from LLMs skilled on public information sources.
"Take into consideration a generative AI chatbot. Once you ask a query, it might probably replicate many views,” he explains. However, a chatbot skilled on non-public enterprise techniques advantages from “a clear information infrastructure.”
Lee is taking a methodical strategy: first get information pristine, then prepare AI on domain-specific terminology, and at last see how inside AI can each discover the appropriate info and automate downstream accounting processes to save lots of assets and speed up progress.
Betting long-term on its unique monetary core
From early progress to main acquisitions that helped develop 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: “Concentrate on progress as a substitute of churning by distributors.”
* Primarily based on the mixed numbers for DoorDash, Wolt, and Deliveroo, measured as of September 2025.
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