NetSuite Helps Premium Case Maker Grow 583% While Cutting Costs by $100,000 yearly

"Before NetSuite, it would have been impossible for us to work with any big retailer because we didn't have real-time visibility into inventory or into our daily multi-channel sales. With NetSuite, we can now commit to on-time wholesale product deliveries to Apple's regional hubs, and we can respond to their queries quickly and accurately, without risking stock run-outs because of faulty information."

—Sena Cases

Results:

The company grew 583% since 2007, from about $1M to $14M, and expects to nearly double again this year, while using just a single half-time IT staffer
Meanwhile, Sena Cases saves $1,000,000 yearly over the capital and maintenance costs of a comparable server-based system
Reliable, real-time inventory management has enabled Sena Cases to become an authorized Apple supplier, stocking inventory in Apple's regional hubs and selling through Apple's retail stores
Sena Cases responds to a large order from one of Apple's 3 US hubs within a day; with the old system, it would have taken a week or more
Faster invoice processing and the use of accounts-receivables ageing alerts have helped Sena Cases reduce order-to-cash cycles times by 50%
Improved inventory management has helped Sena Cases reduce stock-outs by 100%
Fedex integration and real-time rate calculations have helped the company cut shipping times for online orders by 50%, from 2 days to 1 day

Challenges:

Limited business software prevented this maker of premium leather cases from taking advantage of the exploding market for iPhones, iPads and other mobile devices
Lack of integration and visibility among ecommerce, accounting, customer service, and inventory management severely hampered business performance
Lack of process integration and real-time inventory visibility prevented Sena Cases from making wholesale commitments to big-box retailers such as Apple
Upgrading existing server-based software would have been expensive, and would still fall short of providing full process integration

Solution:

Role-based NetSuite dashboards let managers drill into KPIs to get real-time detail on customer service—customer service is critical for a premium company—as well as inventory management and other processes
For instance, management can drill into customer support cases to check the exact communication that's taken place between customer and support—something impossible previously