Implementing an ERP system like NetSuite can seem like a major investment upfront, but the long-term returns typically outweigh the initial costs. For growing companies struggling to manage financials across multiple platforms, properly implementing NetSuite can lead to significant ROI in both hard cost savings and productivity gains.
In this article, we’ll break down the major benefits our clients at [Anchor Group] have realized from NetSuite, including:
- Consolidated financial reporting
- Improved compliance
- Enhanced supply chain efficiencies
- Better inventory management
- Increased sales productivity
We’ll also detail what sets Anchor Group apart for NetSuite implementations and how our guided approach ensures you realize maximum value.
The Overarching Benefit: A Unified Business Ecosystem
At its core, NetSuite strives to provide clients with a complete, unified business ecosystem that seamlessly integrates CRM, ERP, PSA, omnichannel commerce, and HR systems. This consolidated environment connects sales, finance, operations, inventory, and more within one cloud-based platform.
By replacing an array of disjointed legacy systems and spreadsheets, companies gain real-time visibility across the entire business, enabling smarter and faster decisions.
For most organizations, the lack of cohesion between systems leads to:
- Data errors from manual transfers
- Reporting delays
- Lack of insight into overall performance
With NetSuite, your platform becomes the business’s system of record – not Excel. This leads to improved data accuracy, transparency, and productivity at every level.
Benefit 1: Consolidated Financial Reporting
Many of our clients relied on manual processes for financial management prior to NetSuite. For example, exporting sales data from one system then trying to reconcile it against actual revenue and AR aging in their accounting software.
This is hugely problematic. Not only is it time consuming to manually compile reports, but there’s too much margin for human error. Bad data leads to bad decisions.
With NetSuite, real-time reporting allows you to make data-driven decisions about finances, inventory, capacity planning, and more.
Moreover, automated intercompany accounting eliminates manual reconciliation needs between business units or subsidiaries. You’re able to set up business rules and logic at the point of transaction so balancing the books becomes seamless.
The impact of consolidated real-time reporting cannot be understated. One client reduced their monthly financial close process from 10 days down to 3 days after implementing NetSuite. That productivity gain drops thousands of dollars to their bottom line.
Benefit 2: Improved Compliance
For retailers, manufacturers, distributors and other regulated industries, compliance is both mandatory and complex. Trying to adhere to standards like GAAP or IFRS is near impossible with financial data fragmented across systems.
Having a “single source of truth” in NetSuite ensures accountability at every transactional point. Moreover, their built-in dashboards and reports tailored for your industry’s compliance needs make staying on top of standards much more manageable.
One example is the SuiteCommerce Advanced platform’s GAAP Evaluation report including weighted average costing, LIFO/FIFO, and amortized cost. This level of transparency simply isn’t feasible with spreadsheets and disjointed systems.
Benefit 3: Enhanced Supply Chain Efficiencies
For product companies, supply chain efficiency is a major determining factor in profitability. However, demands on supply chains have never been more complex with global sourcing, logistics partners, distributors and selling across multiple channels.
NetSuite’s unified platform is uniquely positioned to help companies optimize their supply chain. Capabilities include:
- Connecting global manufacturing with product design via CAD integration for faster iteration
- Managing commitments and costing across a worldwide supplier network
- Automating purchase order approval routing
- Sophisticated tax engine supporting global commerce
With these features and seamless integration of demand planning, inventory management and procurement, businesses can model supply and demand more nimbly.
The result is increased capacity to deliver products in competitive timeframes without excess inventory liability. One company saw a 23% YOY increase in inventory turns after implementing NetSuite.
Benefit 4: Better Inventory Management
For companies selling physical products, excess inventory can quickly eat into margins. Without clear visibility into what’s on-hand versus pending orders, it’s impossible to optimize stock levels.
By centralizing order management, fulfillment and inventory data into NetSuite, businesses can establish more accurate accounting. Features like automated stock reordering and batch management further reduce waste.
Moreover, real-time updates to inventory quantity and location enables companies to fulfill orders more efficiently via drop shipping or channel distribution. This leads to lower carrying costs, less write-downs for obsolete items and better customer experience.
Benefit 5: Increased Sales Productivity
CRM and sales force automation (SFA) tools have become mission-critical technologies for businesses to manage pipelines, activities and accounts. However, many systems operate in silos, leading to blindspots for sales leaders.
NetSuite neatly ties together critical sales workflows natively into its platform. Sales reps and leadership get complete visibility across the entire lifecycle, from lead to close, including visibility into inventory levels, fulfillment and support issues.
With a robust mobile solution, the NetSuite platform keeps sales teams focused on moving deals forward versus tracking down customer information across systems. Companies switching from other CRMs to NetSuite often cite sales productivity lifts between 10-30%.
Why Choose Anchor Group for Your Implementation?
As you assess NetSuite partners, choosing the right NetSuite implementation consultant can make all the difference for a successful rollout. With years solely focused on NetSuite, Anchor Group offers a breadth of technical expertise alongside industry-specific best practices.
Our guided approach delivers maximum ROI by focusing on three key pillars:
1. Comprehensive Solution Mapping
The #1 reason ERP implementations fail is lack of business process definition before launch. At Anchor Group, we walk clients through a detailed solution mapping exercise at project kickoff.
Our cross-functional teams work closely with your staff to fully map existing workflows, identify improvement areas and define requirements. This phase is crucial to setting the stage for how NetSuite will transform operations.
2. Precision Configuration & Data Migration
Configuring various transaction points and data migration is where we see projects go awry if not done precisely. Our meticulous approach is focused on:
- Detailed setup of transactions, workflows and reporting to match the solution map
- “Clean as you go” data migration to avoid cutover chaos
- Rigorous testing cycles ensuring transactions flow accurately
With complex global company rollouts, we assemble Agile project teams across time zones to keep configuration sprinting. Our goal is bulletproof configuration leading to seamless adoption.
3. Adoption Training & Knowledge Transfer
The best configured solution will fail if a company’s team doesn’t fully adopt the platform. To drive adoption, Anchor Group’s training consultants take a three-pronged approach:
- Ensure all users complete system training specific to their role
- Provide side-by-side support during post go-live transactional usage
- Assign NetSuite administrators guides on managing platform governance
Between role-based training and our Train-the-Trainer model, we empower companies to expand system expertise internally over time. This leads to greater self-sufficiency.
By taking this guided, best practice approach centered around your company’s specific workflows, Anchor Group delivers some of the highest ROI NetSuite projects in North America. Our substantial investment in SuiteSuccess methodology and industry expertise leads to clients realizing over 20% efficiency gains within months after going live.
Let us show you how a well-executed NetSuite implementation can transform your workflows, productivity and bottom line.
