Background
Rapidly growing wholesale retailer upgrades ERP system to NetSuite
Simply Noelle is a North Carolina-based wholesaler and retailer of women’s fashion apparel and accessories. Its founder and president, Deb Groh, started the company in 2005 after successfully running a home-based business creating giftware and eventually moving to women’s apparel. The Kissing Krystal and The Riverton Wrap are two of the company’s flagship products.
Shortly after opening its doors, Noelle’s product line expanded rapidly as hundreds of new styles were added to its catalog each season. This attracted industry attention and led to an eventual strategic acquisition by Ganz, a global retailer with an international sales team and diverse product line. Following the acquisition, Noelle had a global reach, better customer service capabilities, and more runway for new product innovation.
The rapid growth of its product line and Noelle’s newly enabled global reach through the strategic acquisition by Ganz meant that the company needed to upgrade from its patchwork of disparate software systems. Noelle selected NetSuite’s all-encompassing ERP but ran into multiple issues during the implementation process.
Challenge
NetSuite ERP implementation process results in costly delays and unmet expectations
The complexities of Noelle’s business processes required significant customizations to its NetSuite ERP, so the company worked with two implementation partners to help guide a smooth transition. Unfortunately, the only thing that went smoothly was the process of paying for their NetSuite software.
After receiving a nine-month implementation timeline estimate, the project ultimately lasted two years. A lack of direction from the implementation teams, along with a pattern of miscommunication and missed deadlines, fueled the delays. Noelle’s NetSuite ERP went live in late 2018, but the system still required a staggering amount of customizations and development before any hope of achieving ROI.
Unless drastic changes were made, the company would continue wasting time and resources trying to get the new ERP fully functional. It was clear, Noelle needed to find a new NetSuite partner for an ERP recovery and to help prevent a potential ERP failure.
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Solution
Noelle selected SuiteCentric, a certified NetSuite partner, to assist with a NetSuite ERP recovery
After interviewing several NetSuite partners, Noelle selected SuiteCentric because of its breadth of NetSuite knowledge and transparent communication practices. Within minutes of the first meeting, SuiteCentric was able to identify multiple issues in Noelle’s NetSuite ERP and offer straightforward solutions.
SuiteCentric was tasked with helping to organize and streamline Noelle’s financials, develop order and shipping customizations, create unique workflows, and resolve complex technical issues across multiple departments.
In its work on Noelle’s financials, SuiteCentric assisted with properly configuring and re-architecting aspects of the General Ledger, Accounts Payable, account reconciliation, cost allocations, and more. Upon completion of this project, Noelle could leverage NetSuite’s automation capabilities, the finance department experienced an increase in overall productivity, and it could easily access critical real-time financial data.
As a global wholesale retailer, Noelle’s order management and fulfillment processes must be finely tuned because it operates several months ahead to anticipate upcoming seasonal trends. Production starts almost as soon as the orders are placed, and shipping commences shortly after, so accuracy and efficiency are paramount.
SuiteCentric created a split order customization in NetSuite that enabled Noelle to streamline and automate these processes. As an example, a single order with fall and spring items could be split into two orders, so Noelle could close the fall order once fulfilled and keep the spring order open until it was fulfilled. Previously, this order could not be closed until all sales orders were fulfilled, and this complicated Noelle’s financial close process.
In addition to these larger projects, SuiteCentric resolved issues in nearly every one of Noelle’s departments. Shipping, sales, ecommerce, production, graphics, and the IT department worked directly with SuiteCentric to properly leverage NetSuite’s extensive capabilities. The ERP recovery was underway.
SuiteCentric is very easy to communicate with, very responsive and they hit their timelines in a big way. If I have a problem and it is not one person’s expertise, they will find the right person to get the problem solved.
Results of a successful NetSuite ERP recovery
- Better and more efficient reporting
- Everything can be viewed in real-time within the same system rather than having to generate reports manually by pulling information from different platforms.
- Noelle can automatically generate daily reports that are visible via customized dashboards.
- Complete company-wide visibility
- Noelle has on-demand real-time access to KPIs and critical information to monitor trends and forecast for future events.
- Seamless anywhere access to NetSuite for Noelle’s remote workforce
- NetSuite’s cloud ERP enables Noelle’s remote workforce to access key information from anywhere in the world with an internet connection.
- Expansive administrative functions and control
- Before using NetSuite, Noelle was only able to make administrative changes with the assistance of the legacy ERP system’s IT department.
- Now Noelle has total control over user management, role and task modification, role-based visibility, and much more.
- Increased efficiency and automation
- Reports and processes that required multiple people and manual processes are now automated and can be executed instantaneously.
- Easy real-time access to KPIs and automation enables Noelle to focus on other mission-critical tasks and growth.