San Mateo, Calif.—July 11, 2014—NetSuite Inc., a provider of cloud-based financials/enterprise resource planning (ERP) and omni-channel commerce software suites, announced four wholesale distribution and manufacturing customers that powered business transformation and growth running their organizations on NetSuite for the past 10 years. NetSuite’s unified suite of business management software allowed companies like Allied Valve, Ambiente Wine Importing, DiscounTechnology, Mountz Inc. and more to grow and prosper without the hassles of upgrades, hardware maintenance and information technology (IT) staffing requirements that come with antiquated client-server-based ERP systems.
In the past 10 years, these early adopters of cloud technology never had to replace a server supporting their ERP instance, hire an IT specialist to handle their financial applications or call in consultants to help with an ERP upgrade, allowing them to focus on business innovation, customer service and business expansion. NetSuite has 18 customers in wholesale distribution and manufacturing that were with NetSuite for 10 years or more, enabling them to streamline their operations and continue to innovate, including iAutomation, Data Physics, Eco-Bags Products, Ruff Wear, Happy Jack and RedBuilt.
Replaced Sage with NetSuite Cloud for Business Transformation
Ambiente Wine Importing, an Austin, Texas-based distributor of boutique wines serving retailers and restaurants across Texas, was running Sage ERP Accpac 10 years ago, paying thousands of dollars a month to keep a system running that sales people couldn’t access and regularly undergoing the “nightmare of upgrades,” according to Jordan Actkinson, president and owner. Since switching to NetSuite, Ambiente Wine grew to two and a half times its size, and now distributes to more than 2,000 stores and restaurants, while IT is handled by a part-time contract worker, and the company maintains just one server to handle storage.
“Before NetSuite, I had to pull all-nighters to get updates done and that was once a year,” Actkinson said. “Now all those upgrades are handled seamlessly in the cloud.” Ambiente now benefits from the anywhere, anytime access of NetSuite, with sales reps entering sales orders directly into the back office through NetSuite while they are on the road, eliminating costly errors and time-consuming processes. NetSuite provided a more reliable service than the previous Accpac solution, while helping Ambiente eliminate entire steps in its manual financial processes and improving accuracy.
Managed Rapid Growth on One Solution
Allied Valve was a company operating across three locations when it brought in NetSuite 10 years ago to manage the business as one single company. Supplying valves and services as pipelines for gasification facilities and fueled, in part, by the Bakken Oil boom, it since grew to six locations with 165 employees and approximately tripled its sales. NetSuite’s cloud-based business management software suite allows Allied Valve to view all inventory and staff, spread across six states and some remote areas serving the oil fields, as a single organization with real-time visibility into inventory and service staff.
Technicians are able to place orders directly at customer sites via 3G-connected iPad tablets by putting industrial valve specifications directly within NetSuite records, while the NetSuite Customer Center allows customers to track billing and maintenance information. “The ability to take NetSuite anywhere and for our CEO in Europe to be able to monitor what’s going on with the business has always been a big factor for us,” said Jodie Schwirtz, Allied Valve’s CIO.
Turned to NetSuite after Outgrowing QuickBooks
DiscounTechnology is an independent value-added reseller of enterprise storage systems, hard disk drives, solid-state drives and networking technology that saw the potential of cloud computing early on. When the San Diego, Calif.-based company launched, it was running its accounting on QuickBooks, but CIO Jesse Menczer saw the challenges of running multiple databases and applications in previous employment. “I spent three years evaluating different platforms to determine if there was a way to do it all in one large application suite,” Menczer said. “We had faith the product would stand up to its promises and it most certainly did. Here we are many years later and it’s still working smoothly.”
DiscounTechnology now runs its financials, customer relationship management (CRM), inventory and e-commerce on NetSuite; and since adopting the solution 10 years ago, grew by about 1,000 percent in top-line revenue while staffing grew by 700 percent, supporting 80,000 total customers. It ships to customers across the entire globe. NetSuite enabled the company to share real-time inventory with customers through its website and other business-to-business platforms, improving customer satisfaction and reducing customer support calls.
Consolidated Disparate Applications and Launched New Business
Mountz Inc. provides torque tool solutions and metric fasteners to a variety of industries, including aerospace, automotive, electronics, energy, medical and packaging. Ten years ago, the San Jose, Calif.-based company was struggling with a disconnected array of applications, running Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains (GP) for ERP, Peachtree for accounting and GoldMine for CRM. Those siloed applications meant that it took four hours for Mountz to create a complex purchase order. Since selecting NetSuite, Mountz now runs its financials, manufacturing, inventory, distribution, CRM and more on one unified system, and that same purchase order process now takes less than 30 minutes.
The move to NetSuite saved Mountz an estimated $100,000 a year on IT personnel and hardware, according to owner Brad Mountz, freeing up resources to focus on research and development, expansion and innovation. It also helped Mountz launch MountzPRO, a unit focused exclusively on the automotive professionals market that saw double-digit growth. Mountz also purchased a third line of business, Mr. Metric, which uses NetSuite to catalog and promote its metric fastener products.
With NetSuite, personnel at San Jose headquarters, and offices in Alabama, Canada and Mexico have a single view of the organization with real-time data updated across all major business functions. “With NetSuite managing our core business system, we have a more stable system with no upgrade hassles or server maintenance, giving us the time to focus on growing our business and innovation,” said Mountz. “In the meantime, our planning, budgeting and supply chain oversight improved even as we grow.”
