Golden Star Technology Inc. (GST) got its start selling whitebox PCs at Silicon Valley swap meets in 1984, back when 256 KB of RAM was cutting-edge and the floppy disk was a staple of computing.
As the IT industry evolved, so has GST(opens in new tab). Today, the Cerritos, Calif.-based GST is a leading IT and AV integrator and reseller, supplying more than 2,000 customers in public sector, hospitality and other industries with IT data center and audio-visual services and solutions.
With growth came diversification and complexity. Over the years, the 100-person GST built out a services team of 60 professionals, today handling 50 concurrent projects on average. More than 30 sales reps are engaged to resell technology from HPE, Dell Technologies, Cisco and other leading technology vendors.
For 10 years, GST relied on Microsoft Dynamics GP as its ERP system(opens in new tab), along with a third-party sales quotation system. High costs, limited reporting and a lack of integrated workflows prompted GST to re-evaluate its infrastructure. At the same time, the company wanted to incorporate dedicated CRM and professional services automation(opens in new tab) (PSA) technology.
“The previous platform wasn’t giving us the data we needed to look at the business and determine which levers we needed to pull for growth,” said Jeffrey Smith, SVP of Operations and Strategy at GST, named to the CRN 2016 Solution Provider 500 list, an annual ranking of North American technology services providers by revenue.
After evaluating Microsoft Dynamics AX, FinancialForce and Salesforce, GST selected NetSuite Services Resource Planning(opens in new tab) as an integrated solution for ERP / financials, CRM and PSA. It also chose NetSuite WMS Lite for warehouse management, extending NetSuite’s native real-time inventory and warehouse functionality.
Transformative Efficiency and Insights
In its first six months on NetSuite, GST has already transformed itself into a more efficient, transparent and data-driven company. GST has dramatically reduced manual processes and Excel work across the business. In accounting alone, the workload is so much more efficient that GST repurposed two full-time employees into revenue-generating sales roles.
Quote-to-cash processes are three times faster, with NetSuite integrating natively with a new Quosal sales quotation system. GST has easily created virtualized warehouses for better control and faster shipping, not possible with Microsoft Dynamics GP. Integrated project management and per-project accounting give GST better project scoping capability and financial visibility for its services team.
Ultimately, business visibility is the greatest benefit, Smith said. With NetSuite’s robust and easily customized reporting, GST has breakthrough insights into margin, pricing and services projects that have driven profitability.
“Having financials, CRM and PSA tied so tightly together has given us new efficiencies and insights, especially coming from a fragmented environment,” Smith said. “NetSuite has made us a more agile company and allows us to strategically focus on what we do best, and that’s beneficial both for us and our customers.”
GST has also seen unexpected benefits. For instance, sales reps love the real-time commission reports available in NetSuite, compared to once-a-month statements in the past. That’s a strong incentive for sales force performance, Smith noted.
With integrated ERP, CRM and PSA, GST is positioned to grow in the fast-paced and highly competitive technology services market. Top-performing firms are far more likely to utilize ERP, CRM and PSA systems in an integrated fashion, according to the annual Professional Services Maturity Benchmark report by SPI Research(opens in new tab), a research consultancy.
“NetSuite has given us the ability to choose our growth path,” Smith said. “We’re able to make better decisions on how and where to drive growth using real-time data.”
Golden Star Technologies at SuiteWorld
If you are heading to SuiteWorld(opens in new tab) this year, Jeffrey Smith from GST will be on site leading a session that will explore how leading IT value-added resellers (VARs) are using NetSuite to run and grow their businesses. During the session, scheduled for Thursday, April 27 at 1:30 p.m. PT, Jeff will walk through the quote-to-cash process to understand how NetSuite and NetSuite partners help ensure product configuration, service delivery and customer success.
Read the full GST testimonial to learn more about Golden Star Technologies(opens in new tab)