Posted by Mark Troselj, Vice President and General Manager, ANZ, NetSuite

Like many successful businesses that have undergone rapid growth and international expansion, STM Bags found that success comes at a price.

Founded in Sydney, the company built international success with its phone cases and bags for laptops, tablets and other electronics. The retailer has grown so much since its founding that it now has U.S. and Australian entities, plus 10 warehouses around the world containing more than 350 SKUs. The company wanted to maintain its momentum, but found its lack of global ERP software was holding it back.

As STM Bags grew from a small company to a large global one, its needs were changing. The company designs all its products, plus oversees manufacturing and distribution. Yet, the management team did not have visibility across all of its global operations, since each headquarters had its own instance of the legacy software (either MYOB or SugarCRM, depending on location). That meant separate stock lists, inventories and financial reporting—which led to difficulty in analyzing data and making accurate forecasts.

STM Bags went through a long search process for a new solution. The company looked at SAP, Xero, Saasu and Cin7, and eventually picked NetSuite OneWorld as just the right fit. STM Bags uses OneWorld for CRM, demand and supply planning, inventory and order management, document management, warehouse management, invoicing and payroll and financial consolidation.

STM Bags’ teams can also consolidate all the metrics of its two business entities. That was a big pain point before the company implemented NetSuite, as was the U.S. requirement that STM calculate individual state tax amounts. NetSuite’s global tax compliance feature solved that problem easily.

Since adopting NetSuite, STM Bags has expanded its use and is now able to do reporting and analysis on bag sales, with up-to-the-minute information. As a retailer, STM Bags needed better, cheaper inventory management. The company can now actually see how many bags it has on hand and forecast the demand, so the company can use shipping rather than air freight. That’s saved a lot of money on freight costs. Using a cloud solution also means that STM Bags spends a lot less time dealing with legacy applications.

STM Bags keeps aiming high with its new investment. The company has big plans for growth, especially in Asia. With NetSuite, the company is set to reach new heights.