NetSuite Helps Auto-Equipment Retailer Pioneer New Online Business Model

Results:

• Company has experienced double-digit growth while freeing up 10% of IT staff time since bringing in NetSuite
• Heavy-equipment shipping time has improved by 25%, with most products shipping in 2 days
• Average order-to-cash cycle times have improved by 25%, costs shipping costs have been reduced by 10%
• Cloud-based integration of technical product data has improved callback response to customer inquiries by 75% on average, from 2 hours to just 30 minutes
• Customers now get a single invoice, even when products are shipped from multiple locations
• Real-time visibility into inventory data and NetSuite's browser access has made it possible for Greg Smith to add a road-sales initiative—with ability to make instant sales—to its online business model
• Visibility into warehouse inventories also lets Greg Smith shift heavy-equipment stock among locations in response to emergency or ad-hoc sales opportunities.

Challenges:

• Online pioneer in auto-service equipment sales wanted to build competitive advantage by improving shipping and service performance
• Limited business software made it difficult to coordinate inventory management among the company's 6 US warehouses, resulting in slowed shipments and some missed sales
• Multiple invoices, necessary for orders shipped from different warehouses, were cumbersome and confusing to some customers.

Solution:

• Greg Smith replaced six instances of QuickBooks Enterprise with NetSuite for financials/ERP, CRM, and Ecommerce
• NetSuite partner Explore Consulting helping integrate new Website with up-to-the-minute inventory status from Greg Smith's US warehouses
• NetSuite's dashboard now lets management analyze and optimize per-store profits, expenses, and hour-by-hour resource utilization.