Outdoor Retailers, Distributors and Manufacturers Rely on NetSuite for Managing End-To-End Business Operations and Expanding Omnichannel Sales
33 Exhibitors at Outdoor Retailer Summer Market 2013 Run NetSuite
SAN MATEO, Calif.—August 1, 2013—NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), the industry's leading provider of cloud-based financials / ERP and omnichannel commerce software suites, today announced a number of customer wins in the outdoor industry. These new wins include: La Sportiva North America, a Boulder, Colo.-based maker of high-quality outdoor footwear, Liberty Bottleworks, a Union Gap, Wash.-based manufacturer of drinking bottles for athletes and outdoors enthusiasts, NEMO Equipment, a Dover, N.H.-based designer of innovative camping gear, PROBAR, a Salt Lake City-based maker of an all-natural vegan energy bar, Hydro-Photon, a Blue Hill, Maine-based maker of portable, ultra violet water purification systems and Surftech, a leading innovator, designer and developer of high-performance surf and stand-up paddle boards based in Santa Cruz, Calif.. They are among a growing number of leading outdoor companies that are capitalizing on NetSuite to improve their business performance and profitability, reduce IT costs, and make data-driven business decisions. Utilizing the NetSuite SuiteCommerce platform, these companies are also able to expand omnichannel sales through retail partners, global distributors and direct-to-consumer websites.
NetSuite's single, integrated cloud suite enables outdoor retailers and manufacturers to optimise every aspect of their business. It spans financials, inventory, order management, fulfilment, manufacturing, CRM and customer support, and enables multi-touchpoint sales across B2C and B2B web stores, mobile devices and POS systems (point-of-sale). Replacing cumbersome, time-consuming spreadsheets and standalone applications with NetSuite's unified solution, outdoor companies have dramatically improved end-to-end business speed, visibility and control, freeing resources to focus on product innovation, penetrating new markets and delivering a superior omnichannel customer experience. Outdoor companies also use NetSuite to streamline production at domestic and overseas facilities, with precise and real-time inventory management and demand forecasting to cost-effectively optimise manufacturing, minimise inventory carrying costs and free cash flow. The greater efficiency and productivity made possible with NetSuite's cloud solution has helped merchants of outdoor goods—from tents to footwear, nutrition bars, hydration bottles, water purifiers, electronics products, bicycles, ski and surf equipment and more—to compete more effectively with large multinational chains on price, product appeal, and brand presence at such retail stores as REI, Dick's Sporting Goods, Amazon and others. Outdoor goods companies are also driving omnichannel sales through B2B, B2C, Ecommerce, in-store, catalogue, and marketplaces such as Amazon.com and eBay, leveraging the NetSuite SuiteCommerce platform which provides flexible design capabilities, streamlined checkout, rich shopping interactivity and B2B portal functionality for wholesale buyers.
NetSuite is helping fast-growing outdoor retailers and manufacturers improve performance by:
"Outdoor companies shouldn't be chained to desktop applications, but focused instead on flexing their creative and innovative muscles to drive business success in today’s hyper-competitive outdoor market," said Ranga Bodla, NetSuite Director of Industry Marketing. "NetSuite's cloud business management solution is proven to be an ideal solution for outdoor distributors and manufacturers to gain a remarkable competitive advantage in driving sales and achieving operational efficiencies."
Outdoor companies running NetSuite are showcasing their products and success this week at the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market tradeshow July 31 to August 3 in Salt Lake City, Utah. NetSuite is one of the sponsors of the semi-annual Outdoor Retailer event for the sixth consecutive year. For more information, please visit www.netsuite.com.au/outdoorretail.
Among the NetSuite customers exhibiting at the Outdoor Retailer event are La Sportiva North America, Liberty Bottleworks, NEMO Equipment, PROBAR, Hydro-Photon and Surftech.
La Sportiva North America (www.sportiva.com), a wholly-owned subsidiary of La Sportiva, an Italian manufacturer of high quality outdoor footwear, apparel and ski hardgoods has realised double-digit growth since implementing NetSuite in June 2012. With real-time visibility into inventory and sales data and rich operational and financial reporting, La Sportiva has eliminated the manual work and double data entry required with its legacy system to better focus on growing the business and aligning production in overseas facilities to meet demand at numerous retail locations in the U.S. and Canada. NetSuite CRM gives La Sportiva a single view of B2B and B2C customers. Ease of use, customizability, mobility and excellent NetSuite support are among other advantages La Sportiva is realizing in the NetSuite cloud. "NetSuite gives us visibility into customer demand in a timely manner so we can get that information to our global production facilities," said Jonathan Degenhardt, Marketing Operations Manager at La Sportiva USA. "Having control over inventory is critical, and NetSuite has given us better forecasting and order management capabilities. We can get better information faster, which means superior customer service and improved quality across the board."
Liberty Bottleworks (www.libertybottle.com), the only American-made metal bottle on the market for athletes, outdoor enthusiasts and casual users, is doubling its growth year-over-year with NetSuite in place to manage financials, manufacturing, inventory, order management, CRM and Ecommerce, with a direct-to-consumer website powered by NetSuite SuiteCommerce. Selected over a competing Sage solution in 2010, shortly after the company launched, NetSuite provides the company with a scalable, unified platform to run end-to-end business processes, generating operational efficiencies that translate to a strong bottom line. With NetSuite, Liberty Bottleworks has expanded its number of retail dealers to about 1,400, including REI, Whole Foods and L.L. Bean, and its B2C customer base to nearly 10,000 while growing its custom-work line of business with such corporate buyers as Coca-Cola and the Seattle Seahawks. NetSuite enables Liberty Bottleworks to tightly manage up to one million components that go into its products, as well as finished goods inventory and production processes at its Washington factory. "We are honoured to be able to manufacture in the United States and NetSuite is a big part of making that possible," said Liberty COO Ryan Clark. "Every year we double our growth, but it would be unmanageable unless you enlist software like NetSuite. NetSuite is awesome and does an amazing job in tracking and managing inventory and enabling us to run the business as efficiently as possible."
NEMO Equipment (www.nemoequipment.com), a designer of innovative tents, sleeping bags and pads, and other camping gear sold online and through about 300 North American retailers including REI, and Eastern Mountain Sports; and internationally in Europe and Asia, has dramatically improved its efficiency and data-driven decision making since upgrading from QuickBooks to NetSuite in January 2013. The 11-year-old company uses NetSuite for financials, inventory and order management, CRM, PCI-compliant credit card processing and as the back-end for its custom-built web storefront. NetSuite's robust reporting has given financial managers, internal sales and other key stakeholders easy access to data and analytics, compared to the delays and manual work required with QuickBooks. With NetSuite CRM, NEMO has a consolidated record of all B2C and B2B customers to improve sales effectiveness and issue resolution. Inventory management enables virtual compartmentalization of stock by direct-to-consumer, B2B and U.S. military sales channels as well as real-time updates to the website, while pick, pack and ship time has been cut in half. NEMO selected NetSuite based on the experience of NEMO CFO Tina Bourgeois, who worked for Ibex when the outdoor clothing retailer implemented NetSuite in 2011."We now have the ability to slice and dice data in a number of different ways—the time savings in how fast information is available to everyone is astounding," Bourgeois said. "One of the key reasons we chose NetSuite was its ability to grow with us, and the breadth of complementary partner solutions."
PROBAR(www.theprobar), a manufacturer of vegan, organic, nutrition bars, is experiencing tremendous growth since implementing NetSuite in 2008 to replace a QuickBooks application that had shown its limitations. The company, based in Salt Lake City, uses NetSuite for financials, CRM, sales force compensation and returns merchandise authorization while SuiteCommerce supports a direct-to-consumer web store. With the NetSuite Manufacturing Edition, inventory management and demand planning, PROBAR has dramatically improved production efficiency at its Utah factory while gaining real-time visibility and control over raw materials sourced from about 500 suppliers that go into its line-up of more than 60 products. Running on the NetSuite cloud, PROBAR has expanded its B2B channel to about 3,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada, including REI and Eastern Mountain Sports, through both wholesale distribution arrangements and direct sales to retailers, with an EDI solution from NetSuite partner B2BGateway in place for some larger buyers. In the future, PROBAR expects to take advantage of NetSuite serial and lot tracking capabilities to strengthen compliance with federal and state regulations governing foodstuffs. "Over the past five years, we have come to rely on NetSuite 100 percent for financial data and reporting, and its ability to measure and improve our manufacturing efficiency," said Jules Lambert, PROBAR President. "There is no doubt that NetSuite is the perfect solution for us to help us continue to grow."
Hydro-Photon (www.steripen.com), the maker of SteriPEN, the world leader in portable ultraviolet (UV) water purification, upgraded to NetSuite in 2005 after its business growth outstripped the capabilities of QuickBooks. NetSuite gives Hydro-Photon, based in Blue Hill, Maine, a comprehensive solution to help manage a global supply and production network, with electronics, casing and other components sourced from two dozen suppliers in Asia and routed to three contract manufacturers in China. The solution also streamlines fulfilment and order management, integrated with a third-party logistics provider, co-operations in Oregon, which also runs NetSuite. Atop NetSuite, Hydro-Photon has averaged 37 percent sales growth over each of the past three years while expanding its North American channel to about 3,000 retail locations, including REI, Gander Mountain and Bass Pro Shops, and its international business to about 90 countries via distributorships and direct-to-consumer sales. The NetSuite OneWorld global business solution enables Hydro-Photon to conduct multi-currency transactions and comply with tax regulations in local countries. Inventory management provides real-time insight into components and finished goods, while NetSuite CRM delivers a single data repository to streamline the lead-to-cash cycle. "NetSuite is a great solution for us to be able to coordinate between external suppliers, contractors and our logistics provider," said Neil MacKay, Hydro-Photon President. "NetSuite is very flexible in its ability to extract data, and the report writing capabilities have helped to streamline a lot of processes."
Surf Technicians dba Surftech (www.surftech.com), a leading innovator, designer and developer of high-performance surf and stand-up paddle boards based in Santa Cruz, Calif., is riding waves of business success since implementing NetSuite in 2006 to replace an awkward combination of QuickBooks and a Fishbowl inventory application. Using NetSuite for financials, reporting, inventory management and CRM, Surftech is realizing annual double-digit revenue growth, despite new and fierce competition. "It's our ability to forecast accurately and deliver effectively that's kept us on top, and we wouldn't be able to do that without NetSuite," said Surftech CFO Heather Lee. NetSuite has given Surftech the agility to expand into the stand-up paddleboard market, tripling its customer base and bringing on a new outside sales force, with the reps rapidly up to speed on NetSuite CRM. Surftech has also tripled its number of inventory vendors, and given major distributors the ability to place their own orders, increasing sales and Surftech’s forecasting ability. Time needed for business reporting and analysis has been greatly reduced, while Surftech is processing 50 percent more transactions and supporting 80 percent more customers. "We were excited from the beginning that NetSuite had seamless integration of financials and inventory, but what we didn't anticipate was that NetSuite had the tools we needed to scale in many directions," Lee said. "Our scalability includes the ability to do more with less. The funds we’ve saved on IT staff and equipment we've been able to invest in other areas, such as product development."
Today, more than 16,000 companies and subsidiaries depend on NetSuite to run complex, mission-critical business processes globally in the cloud. Since its inception in 1998, NetSuite has established itself as the leading provider of enterprise-class cloud financials/ERP suites for divisions of large enterprises and mid-sized organisations seeking to upgrade their antiquated client/server ERP systems. NetSuite excels at streamlining business operations as demonstrated in a recent Gartner study naming NetSuite as the fastest growing financial management software vendor on a global basis. NetSuite continues its success in delivering the best cloud ERP/financials suites to businesses around the world, enabling them to lower IT costs significantly while increasing productivity, as the global adoption of the cloud is accelerating.
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