Location: E-commerce-based mail order company founded in 2003, with a retail outlet added in 2008 in Leatherhead, Surrey, UK.

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1 Customer: GetGeared Website: Location: E-commerce-based mail order company founded in 2003, with a retail outlet added in 2008 in Leatherhead, Surrey, UK. Industry: Retail (motorcycle helmets, clothing, parts and accessories) Challenges: Upgrade the systems infrastructure of the business to allow for growth Reduce business risk Improve management control Software switched from: Actinic Proprietary Quickbooks Other software considered: Actinic Enterprise Venda Red epages SAP Business One Page 1

2 Proprietary integrations Results with NetSuite: Increase of items shipped from 17,000 to 24,000 in two years Collaborative workflow Robust back end Automation has led to more accurate stock data, thus better customer service NetSuite Partner: BlueBridge One Pull-out Quotes: We chose NetSuite to be our company s central platform. We are on to a winner here: we need a powerful system that can underpin everything we do today. And we need one that can grow with us while we work to double our turnover and staff in the next two to three years. NetSuite will deliver both objectives with no problems. The Results: Georg Braun, MD of GetGeared With the help of NetSuite, GetGeared, an SME with 10 employees and a 2m annual turnover, has set itself up to be the best possible e-commerce operation to serve the two million motorcycle enthusiasts in the UK. The initial aim is to reach 5m turnover, with 25 employees. If NetSuite can do that without bankrupting us, we are on to a winner and we certainly believe the system will deliver, says Braun. Page 2

3 The Challenge: The company was started in 2003 by two experienced management and IT professionals who had come out of the e-commerce/dotcom boom with a huge amount of experience. They began with a start-up system called Actinic, which took them from zero to about a half a million pound turnover in a short time. However, this system had three shortfalls: it was not an enterprise system, being based on only one PC, so there was no backup in the event of a system failure. It was simply an e-commerce order taking and processing system, and we soon reached a level where the proprietary system we had implemented was no longer viable, explains Braun. He believes the key to a business s success is the ability to collaborate. Workflow needs to be structured, employees need to access all orders processed by another employee, and we needed stability of the system so that if one PC broke, it would not cause any damage to our business. The instability of Actinic itself became a real risk, as we are 75% a mail order company. Braun soon realised that what he had was a system which was highly unstable, non-collaborative and creaked on all sides, with no back end for financial control. He knew he had to search for a much more robust system that would take his business forward. With 13,000 items being stocked, the need was for lots of order processing via the website, some warehouse management, and multiple access from multiple locations. Not many systems can do all that but thankfully we came across NetSuite Solution Provider BlueBridge One, who impressed us immensely and ultimately managed the entire project for us. The Solution: The company chose NetSuite for three reasons: it ticked all the boxes for what they needed ie it was a system that is universally accessible, integrated and capable on the front end so what the site s customers see is equal to what happens at the back end. NetSuite and all its capabilities have given us an infrastructure that we wouldn t have been able to achieve ourselves, says Braun. We ve got a big business infrastructure now; although we are only an SME, NetSuite provides Page 3

4 us with better reporting than I was used to in all the FTSE 100 companies I ve worked in. It is extraordinary. Implementation started in 2007 and took nearly a year from signing to switching off the old system. Braun emphasises that it did go very smoothly but was time-consuming because the new system was so different and also because the business had reached a certain scale and they wanted to improve some elements of product presentation in the new system. In effect, they were moving from spreadsheets to an enterprise system with financial data. As a result, the business has flourished. For five years in a row, turnover has grown 100% year on year. In 2007 they shipped 17,000 parcels, while in 2009, this went up to 24,000 parcels, a growth which Braun admits would not have been possible simply by using spreadsheets. Previously, our systems had become the key limiting factor to growth but, suddenly, new locations for employees weren t a problem. Even adding a bricks-and-mortar store to our e-commerce operation was not a hurdle: we simply fired up the EPOS system for access to NetSuite. Now, when customers phone in, our staff can collaborate without geography being an issue and without it being an issue how a customer has purchased from us. I don t know of a system that would enable us to achieve the same. From a customer interface point of view, GetGeared has an incredibly capable website with all the resources that matters in a transaction real-time stock availability on 13,000 stock items, a robust front end and real-time collaboration. Automation has also led to strong benefits, in that the staff have gone from nearly real-time information on the website to absolute real-time information. They have done away with spreadsheets, so the faults that occur when manipulating data have disappeared. Stock accuracy is now better than it has ever been and customer service has improved, thanks to the collaboration tool inside NetSuite which creates a seamless workflow. In my experience, it is difficult for an SMEs to upgrade their systems and workflow as they approach 1,5 million turnover. The step change required is involved and costly, so they struggle to grow beyond that ceiling. Getting a small business through that 1.5m barrier is tough. I believe that with NetSuite, and with help from BlueBridge One, we have found the solution to ensure we can continue to grow without starving the business of cash flow and Page 4

5 without burdening the team with complex systems integration issues, explains Braun. BlueBridge One s expertise allowed us to achieve more from the solution with fairly modest levels of investment. We had capable support from very clever people. Page 5