Talk to an Expert

Partners

How NetSuite Innovators Power Their Businesses with Cloud Supply Chain

Author
Isaac Wyatt, Senior Manager, Sales Engineering

Published Date
June 28, 2022

subscribe

share

Whether taking a B2B, B2C or omnichannel approach to selling your products, tracking your physical goods is crucial. Understanding what is where, what’s been ordered, what’s been shipped - and identifying any issues across your supply chain is key to any company’s operations in today’s hyper-competitive world.  As is increasingly demonstrated, even delivery ‘tomorrow’ can prove disappointing to ever demanding consumers.

ERP and Your Supply Chain

For many such companies, their ERP (enterprise resource planning) system is an essential part of the technology stack that supports their business operations.  For example, in ecommerce, 44% of employees rely on an ERP (Softwarepath 2021).  And the ERP market is continuing to grow.  In fact, it’s projected to reach $86 billion by 2027 (Allied Market Research 2019).

An ERP is an integral component for tracking product and shipments from manufacturer to customer, and managing all related transactions and costs.  Corporate functions, from procurement to finance, all rely on the company ERP to provide up-to-date and accurate data.  Without that, operations, and hence customer satisfaction and revenue, suffer.

Why You Don’t Want to be in the NetSuite - 3PL Network Integration Business

ERPs like Oracle Netsuite are often used in concert with a company’s warehouse locations to help manage and report on its order and fulfillment flow.  However, when you’re managing a network of disparate third party warehousing and fulfillment partners, it can quickly become complex and operationally costly

Like many companies, you may find that can lead to inaccurate and untimely data in your ERP, preventing you from executing efficiently in addition to effectively planning and forecasting for the future. 

The Smart Way to Work with ERPs like NetSuite

This is where cloud supply chain technology can come in, particularly when it comes to easily scaling fulfillment and operations.  Software platforms like Stord’s can automate the flow of information directly from ERPs like NetSuite to a company's network of diverse fulfillment partners.  

The Stord NetSuite SuiteApp seamlessly automates the flow of data between NetSuite and supply chain partners so businesses can effortlessly manage and orchestrate their end-to-end supply chain, without leaving NetSuite.

Numerous NetSuite customers rely on the Stord SuiteApp to gain real-time visibility into their supply chains, reduce labor and time requirements for managing 3PL partners, complete inventory reconciliation processes and source fulfillment partners in new markets

Stord’s SuiteApp starts where NetSuite ends, providing seamless integration between NetSuite and various supply chain partners, such as third party warehouses, and fulfillment centers and carriers, while also providing access to the Stord’s “Control Tower” software for centralized visibility and analytics.

To see how the Stord SuiteApp has driven substantive benefits for NetSuite customers, we’ve highlighted how several mutual Stord and NetSuite customers are optimizing their supply chains for their growing businesses through a cloud supply chain approach.

SuiteApp Success Stories: Driving Results by Integrating NetSuite into Supply Chains 

Enterprise Beverage Distributor

Challenge:

A national beverage distributor was using NetSuite to operate a network of 50+ co-manufacturing, co-packaging, and warehousing (3PL) partners.  There were no standard integrations with its ERP or automated workflows with most of their partners’ systems (e.g. warehouse management systems). 

This led to error-prone and high maintenance manual processes for communicating with partners.  Recording shipments and receiving activities in NetSuite led to inaccurate inventory levels, lack of visibility across partners, and high labor requirements for managing day-to-day activities.  Substantial integration work and IT resources were required every time a new 3PL was added to its network of warehouses.  With growing sales, the customer needed a way to automate communication and processes with their growing 3PL network quickly. 

Solution:

Stord partnered with the distributor on an enterprise-wide project to integrate all 50+ 3PL partners back to the NetSuite ERP via Stord’s cloud supply chain platform. Linking all these different systems was made easy via a single, API-based connection between NetSuite and Stord, and standard integration protocols between Stord and all the fulfillment partners. 

Within months, all partners were live and transactions were automated in real time. To date, this customer has processed over 100,000 inbound and outbound orders through Stord’s platform.

Consumer Packaged Goods Distributor:

Challenge:

A consumer packaged goods company runs an annual back-to-school promotion for a predefined list of specific products, which are outside of its traditional, year round catalog. This annual promotion has previously disrupted its existing operation, as these new products require special handling, preparation, and strict shipping guidelines to ensure all relevant dates are met. The customer had previously considered outsourcing this work to a 3PL partner, but ultimately felt the integration requirements with their newly implemented NetSuite ERP would be too cumbersome to manage. 

Solution:

Stord provided a seasonal fulfillment solution that enabled this customer to execute its annual promotion without disrupting its existing operation. All products were inbounded and shipped from a Stord warehouse & fulfillment facility, while adhering to the company’s strict handling requirement and SLAs. Stord’s SuiteApp enabled a quick and efficient integration to NetSuite for the new facility, ensuring a high degree of  automation for all relevant data flows and inventory integrity. 

Air Purifier Company:

Challenge:

An air purifier company was experiencing a significant increase in demand for its products throughout the country, but was having challenges scaling its operations to meet demand in a cost effective manner. At that time, the customer owned and operated a single warehouse responsible for fulfilling all DTC and B2B orders.  This resulted in space capacity constraints, cross training requirements for labor, and costly shipping rates for customers throughout the country. 

The customer needed to add additional fulfillment capacity throughout the US to optimize its shipping times and costs, but did not want to incur the overhead and headache of launching (and maintaining) its own facilities. Additionally, it had never worked with a 3PL partner before and faced challenges integrating any new 3PLs with its NetSuite ERP

Solution:

Stord delivered a three facility fulfillment solution, greatly expanding the company’s capacity through additional fulfillment centers in Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Austin, TX. The Stord sites focus on fulfilling the increased DTC volumes for the customer, while its remaining site in Texas shifted focus to fulfilling its B2B volume. 

All Stord locations were seamlessly incorporated into its supply chain through a single, standard integration between Stord and NetSuite’s ERP.  This enabled all transactional data (purchase orders, sales orders, transfer orders) to be easily and accurately communicated from each facility

As business has grown, the customer has been able to efficiently scale and fulfill high volume DTC orders from all three locations across the US, without needing to purchase or contract for a new facility or undertake high cost point-to-point integration projects with each location. 

Turn NetSuite into Your Supply Chain’s Secret Weapon

Managing a supply chain efficiently and cost effectively is rarely a company’s core strength.  But doing so is certainly critical to success.  If you’re leading an operation facing growing pains in delivering your product, whether B2B, B2C or omnichannel, via an increasingly disparate logistics network, you know how challenging it can be to connect your 3PL partners to your NetSuite and other systems.

As highlighted above, companies like these have turned their supply chains into a competitive advantage by partnering with Stord.  If you’re interested in learning how our logistics services and software platform can accelerate your growth and drive customer satisfaction, we’d love to talk.

More Articles

1/2