Posted by Thomas Kim, NetSuite Director for Account Management and Managing Director for the Philippines
Automotive service provider Motech had a long checklist of things it wanted to get from using NetSuite, but it's unlikely the list included protection against super typhoons. Yet, Motech got precisely that when Typhoon Haiyan hit its native Philippines in 2013.
While the rest of the country was being flooded by relentless rain, Motech didn't miss a beat, as it had no on-premise hardware or vital paper records to fret about. It was business as usual for the company. That is, if business as usual means tapping Motech's extensive customer database — which was safe inside its cloud-based ERP environment — from the middle of a violent storm to reach out to those in the most-affected areas and help them get vehicles back on the road.
If NetSuite has worked that well as a disaster recovery solution for Motech, just imagine how much it's helped Motech with the things it's actually designed to do. Like running the business and positioning it for growth, for instance. And while the fact that Motech had outgrown its previous set of disconnected Sage BusinessWorks instances was a big driver of its decision to adopt NetSuite OneWorld, it was really Motech's plans to dramatically expand its six-store chain through franchising that made the global business management system an ideal fit.
After all, if the company was already struggling with duplicate data entry, poor visibility across the business, and onerous IT maintenance requirements — all of which were the case with BusinessWorks — how were things going to get better if it started adding franchises?
Over the past few years, with NetSuite as its business management software platform, Motech has added 28 such franchises, and it has plans to reach 56 franchises in 2017 and 100 by 2020. Whereas such growth would have absolutely choked the old environment, Motech now has a platform that enables it to onboard each franchise as a "subsidiary" within hours. As such, its ambitions are much more achievable than they once seemed.
"I wouldn't be able to envision an expansion of that magnitude if I didn't have NetSuite to support the business," said Eugene Naguiat, the Motech president whose father, Rommel Naguiat, founded the company in 1977. "NetSuite has made it possible to go from simply running the business to truly growing the business in very creative and effective ways."
A good example of this is how Motech has been using NetSuite's CRM capabilities to send out thousands of personalized text messages each month to customers it knows are due for regular maintenance such as tune-ups, oil changes, brake replacement and the like. The company estimates that these texts generate nearly 90 percent of its business now, with a monthly investment of less than $400 driving nearly $170,000 in sales.
Motech also credits this text-based marketing effort with helping the company increase the number of cars it serviced from 37,000 in 2014 to nearly 80,000 during the first nine months of 2015. And again, without NetSuite, it's unlikely Motech could have accommodated that kind of growth.
And lest we forget, OneWorld has also helped Motech with the basic blocking and tackling of business:
- The built-in local Philippines tax compliance functionality has made it possible for Motech to perform financial reconciliations and meet local tax and reporting requirements much more quickly;
- The improved inventory and warehouse management features have enabled Motech to achieve zero inventory variance across its stores and warehouses, whereas it was writing off up to $10,000 worth of inventory annually prior to deploying OneWorld; and
- NetSuite's order management capabilites have given Motech a real-time view into stock levels order status, eliminating numerous bottlenecks and errors.
In fact, V.J. Africa, CEO of PGE Solutions, the five-star NetSuite Solution Provider that helped with the implementation and has provided ongoing support and optimization, said that Motech has made the most of its NetSuite investment.
"Motech has really taken full advantage of NetSuite to disrupt how car service is provided and reap the rewards of a customer-centric and data-driven approach to business," Africa said.
That said, Naguiat knows a good thing when he sees it, and what he's seen is how the addition of NetSuite OneWorld has allowed Motech to take off like never before.
Said Naguiat: "The flexibility, agility and visibility we have with NetSuite OneWorld has been a key driver, if not the main driver, in our continued growth."