DoubleRadius, Luxor Workspaces, Orly Beauty, Pendleton, PolyStone Planters, Sourceability, and StudioC Inc. worked with NetSuite Alliance Partners to maximize their business processes

At NetSuite, we’re very proud of all our Alliance Partners and the hard work they put into selling, implementing, and supporting our leading cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform. This year’s Alliance Partner Spotlight Awards recognize those partners that have demonstrated commitment and success in implementing NetSuite. We’re shining a well-deserved spotlight on partners that have developed outstanding expertise, customizations, and/or intellectual property in specific microverticals and those that demonstrate commitment to and success in implementing NetSuite Analytics Warehouse, OpenAir, SuiteCommerce, and NetSuite Planning and Budgeting.

In this blog series, we highlight those customer projects that earned the associated Alliance Partner a 2023 Spotlight Award.

Technology that Supports Scalability

ORLY manufactures and distributes nail lacquers; manicure tools; and nail, hand, feet, and body care products. The company, which was founded in 1975, was using QAD ERP for Manufacturing, but that technology was hindering scalability in other aspects of the business. Key challenges included limited integration among disparate systems, no full picture of the business, narrow financial visibility, and missed market opportunities.

With Appficiency as its NetSuite implementation partner, ORLY implemented NetSuite’s order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, customer relationship management (CRM), manufacturing, advanced financials, and numerous other modules. For ORLY, Appficiency also built integrations between Shopify and NetSuite. Other integrated solutions included RF-SMART Warehouse and Work Orders and DemandCaster.

The successful NetSuite implementation took place during the global pandemic, even as ORLY dealt with staff availability issues and personnel changes. Today, ORLY has an ERP that it can use to manage its end-to-end operations without silos and with the ability to deliver a full financial picture of the business as needed.

ORLY has overcome scalability issues and continues to grow its business on NetSuite. Appficiency continues to support ORLY on ongoing projects to expand its use of NetSuite and to further improve operations.

You Can’t Run a Growing Business on Spreadsheets

Founded in 2021, StudioC Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Caratlane Trading Private Limited. The omnichannel jewelry brand makes contemporary jewelry that is affordable, accessible, and wearable, but it was running its growing business on spreadsheets. StudioC was looking for a system that would help it enter new markets rapidly to meet product demand. It wanted to eliminate manual entries and the use of spreadsheets in warehouse operations, as well as sync back-end systems with Magento.

After considering Microsoft, Sage, and NetSuite, StudioC decided to implement NetSuite’s apparel, footwear, and accessories (AFA) module. Yantra created a unique jewelry bundle that provides real-time, two-way integrations with Magento while automating procurement to deliver real-time stock statuses.

The solution also catered to specific jewelry industry needs, such as auto creation of downstream work orders to address special requests like engraving or non-standard assemblies. The bundle also gave StudioC the ability to accurately compute the exact costing basis, critical given the ever-changing rates of precious metals.

StudioC has experienced significant benefits since implementation, including increased visibility across its entire business, improved alignment between sales and supply chain operations, and enhanced inventory management. Additionally, StudioC now has transaction-level visibility of its entire supply chain ecosystem and the ability to trace the lifecycle of each stock unit.

Wanted: A Data Backbone

PolyStone Planters, established in 2014, specializes in manufacturing garden planters and related products that have the appearance of concrete or cast stone, with the added benefits of being lightweight, durable, and long-lasting. The company had previously used QuickBooks but required a data backbone to help it oversee, monitor, and evaluate its manufacturing operations.

In its new ERP, the company also wanted a system that could scale along with it — both in terms of transaction volume and software functionality. PolyStone needed reliable support services to help maximize the value of its technology investment. Along with NetSuite, the company considered Prodsmart, Fishbowl Manufacturing, Microsoft Dynamics, Brahim Solutions, and SAP by Design. It selected NetSuite and is using the ERP’s manufacturing standard module.

For PolyStone, The Parker Initiative (TPI) provided a customization that funnels incoming, non-connector orders into ShipStation to create imports into NetSuite. This serves as a bridge to efficiently bring in orders and gives PolyStone time to assess its options while taking advantage of the immediate benefits of going live on NetSuite.

TPI’s implementation and system expertise resulted in a successful conversion that was completed on schedule. In addition to streamlining PolyStone’s back-office operations, NetSuite also supports more thorough tracking of both revenue and expenses.

PolyStone is now working to fully leverage NetSuite’s CRM functionality to support its B2B sales process, specifically tracking customer information and interactions from the first point of contact and right through to a purchase order.

Accelerating Leadership Decision-Making

Pendleton Woolen Mills is an American textile manufacturing and luxury lifestyle company based in Portland, Oregon, that has been family-owned since 1863. The company has benefited from hands-on management for six generations and sells via brick and mortar stores, ecommerce, and wholesale. Pendleton operates seven facilities, manages 40 Pendleton retail stores and publishes apparel and home goods direct mail catalogs. Prior to implementing NetSuite Analytics Warehouse, Pendleton used Excel “spreadmarts” for analytics and reporting on two separate sales channels: direct to consumer (DTC) and wholesale.

Pendleton needed an automated way to access metrics and analytics across its DTC and wholesale channels. To support the creation of dashboards and analytic reports for business reviews, Pendleton was performing time-consuming manual processes weekly and monthly. The company considered Microsoft PowerBI before deciding to work with Myers-Holum to implement NetSuite Analytics Warehouse. Pendleton uses NetSuite for its D2C end-to-end sales and order-to-cash processing, and its wholesale channel uses BlueCherry ERP.

Myers-Holum utilized NetSuite Analytics Warehouse to integrate sales and inventory data from NetSuite and BlueCherry. Pendleton also wanted to include additional metrics and reporting content for inventory movement and inventory levels from the wholesale side. Leveraging Boomi as the data integration platform, Myers-Holum delivered these additional metrics within the original timeframe and continues to work with Pendleton on further customizations.

The resulting benefits of NetSuite Analytics Warehouse include:

Complete product hierarchy: Pendleton now has a complete, and automatically updated, product hierarchy for its wholesale and consumer channels. This eliminates the need for manual processes and spreadsheets and ensures accuracy and completeness of data in NetSuite Analytics Warehouse.

Key metrics and KPIs: With full visibility across its channels, Pendleton can access key metrics and KPIs for sales, product movement, and inventory activity. This ensures accurate, reliable, and current reporting and eliminates the need for legacy processes.

Drill-down capabilities: The NetSuite Analytics Warehouse dashboards provide drill-down capabilities for deeper insights into business activity and additional detail.

Machine-learning capabilities: Pendleton plans to leverage the machine-learning capabilities in NetSuite Analytics Warehouse for inventory forecasting, sales forecasting, and demand planning. This will allow them to customize planning and forecasting based on historical data and incorporate data from their textile mills’ systems.

Visualizations: Pendleton plans to build out key visualizations and shift its mindset from spreadsheets to visuals. Once a mill’s production is combined with wholesale and DTC sales in NetSuite Analytics Warehouse, Pendleton will have complete visibility of everything in one place.

“With NetSuite Analytics Warehouse, we removed the human element from the data aggregation and reporting,” said Steve Batchelor, VP of information technology at Pendleton. “That's a huge factor for us in terms of the number of hours that our staff previously spent on aggregating data and researching questions about the data. We now have data consistency updated with drill-down capabilities to get to the details. This is available to everyone who needs access to it. We now have one system of record, one version of the truth providing the same answer to all of us. That’s a big win.”

Disparate Systems and Siloed Information

Luxor Workspaces, a wholly owned subsidiary of EBSCO Industries, is a diverse company engaged in information services, outdoor products, manufacturing, and general services. Founded in 2004, Luxor Workspaces provides furnishings that foster a more collaborative, functional, and productive work environment.

Luxor Workspaces previously dealt with disparate systems, siloed information, and a lack of real-time visibility into its shipment/fulfillment processes. Luxor wanted to move from its legacy system and was seeking an alternative. NetSuite was the main contender thanks to the ERP’s breadth of functionality. Luxor Workspaces provides financial data on a daily basis to parent company EBSCO — which is still using Sage — so a NetSuite-Sage integration was necessary.

NetSuite’s retail solution has been customized to meet Luxor’s specific needs and integrated with its other business processes. Core modules that Myers-Holum put in place include document-to-business, order-to-case, procure-to-pay, work orders, as well as assemblies and advanced order management.

Myers-Holum also provided various customizations and integrations, some of them NetSuite/SAP integrations for general ledger, impacting transactions, vendor bills, and vendor payments, and some minor electronic data interchange (EDI) integrations for standard order-to-cash transactions.

One of the key benefits of NetSuite ERP is that it provides Luxor with immediate visibility into its shipment and fulfillment processes. This means Luxor can track the current status of its orders to identify and address any issues or delays that arise. With this level of visibility, Luxor can make more informed decisions about inventory management, order processing, and shipping, which improves efficiency and positively impacts customer satisfaction while reducing costs. Next steps include optimizing Luxor’s integrations and completing an integration with Salesforce.

Managing Over 1 Billion Electric Components Across Multiple Continents

Sourceability, a global distributor of electronic components, offers digital tools, services, and data with the power of technology to meet customers’ evolving demands. Among their tool suite is Sourcengine, the leading e-commerce marketplace, which features more than 3,500 suppliers and over one billion parts. Sourceability's mission is to provide high-quality products, timely delivery, and exceptional customer service to its global network of suppliers and customers.

Sourceability previously used ePDS by Axiom and had been through a failed SAP implementation. It wanted to track customer orders and supplier inventory in real-time so it could offer immediate quotes to customers. Sourceability evaluated NetSuite, Chuboe iDempiere, Corning — IFS ERP, SWK Technologies — Acumatica, and Columbus Global - Infor. Its main system requirements were CRM, supply chain management, quality, distribution, bill of materials (BOM), inventory, and accounting. After considering all its options, Sourceability chose NetSuite because it offers improved accounting capabilities, role-based access, a unified system, customized workflows, and integration opportunities.

Myers-Holum implemented NetSuite, handled the data migration, provided integrations to Descartes, OzLINK Shipping-Enhanced Features, Descartes ShipRush, Expensify Connect, and StrongPoint, and provided many customizations.

Building custom business process flows/automations allowed for flexibility and accommodated Sourceability's unique business requirements. Other benefits to Sourceability include:

High-volume transaction automation: Custom business process flows/automations allowed for automation of high-volume transactions for opportunities, vendor quotes, orders, and QC inspections. These are now processed at both a high frequency and the desired speed.

Reconciliations and retroactive adjustments: By creating custom scripts, reconciliations and retroactive adjustments were more automated, allowing for more efficient and accurate processing of transactions.

Consolidated custom reporting: Custom business process flows/automations enabled the creation of consolidated custom reporting on commissions, costing, and other important metrics.

Custom inventory management: By creating a custom order/lot item allocations module, Sourceability can now move items around the globe, reserve items, and gain greater control over inventory management.

Sourceability’s processes are now unified on a single system. It has process automations and modules that prepare it for growth and meet the distributor’s specialized needs, including custom allocations, commissions, quality management, and part search modules. Sourceability can track customer and supplier inventory in real time and provide immediate quotes. With NetSuite tailored to its specific needs, Sourceability has experienced increased efficiency, reduction in manual tasks, improved accuracy, and greater control over business processes.

Extending and Enhancing Existing Functionalities

DoubleRadius, which was established in 2001, offers services including wireless design, equipment supply, installation, and video security. The company previously used NetSuite SiteBuilder to power its website but missed having a content management system (CMS) in the platform that would allow it to make changes to static content on its pages and publish those changes on the fly.

Other issues the company faced include non-responsiveness of the website due to content that didn’t adapt to different screen sizes and resolutions and increased complexities involved in maintaining the site due to the non-modular structure and design dictated by the SiteBuilder platform.

Working with Folio3, DoubleRadius not only successfully migrated its SiteBuilder website to the NetSuite SuiteCommerce module, it was also able to incorporate many customizations into the new SuiteCommerce-based site. Those customizations include:

. Folio3 also provided customizations, like an intelligent item recommendation engine that uses the browsing histories of Double Radius’ customers.

• Custom search: The built-in product search was customized to allow users to search for a given keyword within products as well as in static pages of the site.

• Upcoming corporate events calendar: This allowed users to easily view all the upcoming events marked on a custom calendar widget hosted on a page.

• Warehouse-wise stock visibility: This customization allowed out-of-stock behavior to be separated and customized for each warehouse.

• Hubspot integration: This customization made it possible to push lead data captured via a custom form into Hubspot.

• Uploading and attaching/referencing documentation with an item: With this customization, users could attach and provision, for example, additional reference/technical documentation and user manuals within an item that could be downloaded by site users while viewing item details.

After this platform migration, DoubleRadius’ less technical team members can now easily make changes to sites using SuiteCommerce’s drag-and-drop functionality of pages and components in the CMS. They can also conveniently add/link new pages to the site. The search functionality is much more intuitive than what was available in SiteBuilder, and the self-service account center allows customers to easily view invoices and reorder frequently purchased items.

Thanks to SuiteCommerce, DoubleRadius has received positive feedback from its customers on the site’s navigation, user experience, and features, such as dynamic shopping lists. Up next, Folio3 is expected to work on a set of enhancements and customizations requested by the DoubleRadius team.

Connect With Our Outstanding Partners!

Appficiency
Yantra
The Parker Initiative
Myers-Holum Inc.
Folio3