A Tool to Support Growing Businesses
There are several stories of successful business worldwide that, thanks to a little ingenuity, excel despite ferocious competition. The challenges of a blooming organization cannot be ignored: operations get more complex, more people join the team, manufacturing production explode, etc. There comes a time when Excel spreadsheets are no longer enough to satisfy your needs and you find yourselves asking how you can go about supporting your growth! After extensive research, one product stands out: Netsuite. This versatile cloud-based product from Oracle seems like it can sustain every aspect of a growing business, but what is Netsuite?
Support the Organization’s Finances
First and foremost, Netsuite allows supporting financial transactions and keep the grand ledger updated. An enterprise’s good financial management allows supporting current and future operations and adapting to the market. The software also allows centralizing the company’s data in a single place, in addition to defining, standardizing and unifying the purchasing, sales and manufacturing processes that allow taking up the competition while preparing for the future. The key to a good ERP system is actually to grow and evolve at the same pace a company would. The increasing volume of transactions need to be managed and it is sometimes at that point in time that an in-house system, or basic solution such as Excel, can no longer support growth.
Improve Stock and Inventory Management
The supply chain process is critical to support production. If the inventory level is too high, additional costs will show in accounting books. If, on the other hand, raw material is too low, production will have to be slowed down and there will be a considerable shortfall in sales. Being able to order when the time is right all while considering transit time and internal processing time is a daily challenge. Netsuite is able to supply procurement best practices and develop a process adapted to each company’s context. Again, this is where Excel or an in-house software could fail. For example, not being able to offer a sound management of a bill of material’s latest version, could lead to unnecessarily ordering parts from a previous version.
Capacity Management Solutions
In manufacturing, the production floor can prove to be a puzzle of optimization. Being able to visualize the effectiveness of the production is key, Netsuite can offer tools to measure the capacity of human resources and machines and determine time and material gaps. Managing several plants? Netsuite will be able to do this on a large scale for large production volumes. A distribution network will allow inventory to be transferred as needed at appropriate levels between geographic regions.
FIG.1 Example: Need for machine capacity vs Progression of production/week
Making Decision about Products Based on the Market
By having a good knowledge of the production and raw material purchasing costs in the order-to-cash process, Netsuite can offer visibility on profit margins for the products. The chart of accounts simplified through segmentation offers the possibility to group items by family and Netsuite can thus help determine what product offering better meet market demand. Thus, we are able to see best sellers versus those that perform less and adjust production consequently. For example, a retail company who would like to know the profit margin of their summer collection versus their winter collection would have two classes with the same name, grouping: pants, coats, etc. It becomes possible to instantly generate a report comparing the performance of pants and coats during a season or determine if a season if more profitable than the other. Oracle’s ERP also offers the possibility to predict the demand per product by analyzing past transactions which allows to remain proactive and on the lookout.
Easily Detect Issues in Processes
Because Netsuite centralizes transactional information through processes, it is possible to use its power toward the development of actionable information necessary to lead a company. With just a few clicks, selected variables will emerge and it will be possible to identify strengths and weaknesses in the buying and selling processes as well as in the production processes. Recurring issues will finally be detected and better understood and resolved once and for all.
FIG. 2 Example of a purchase tracking dashboard
Netsuite for a Better Understanding of Operations
Netsuite is a financial tool comprising pre-established processes based on years of experience proven by thousands of companies. It is a versatile product that allows understanding and managing a company of any size, anywhere in the world. Financial management being the core of the software package, included processes are aligned with the industry’s best practices to standardize operations. The procurement process optimizes inventory levels, the manufacturing one optimizes production floor, the sales process optimizes the response to market demand, and actionable information optimizes the overall understanding of operations. It is a critical tool that allows any company the opportunity to grow at any pace.
Whether it is to support you in the growth of your company, or to help you raise your level of alertness, the Createch team will be dedicated to setting the ideal pace for your project. Contact us!
