More than half of Distribution organizations with upgrade aspirations struggle with how to plan and execute the transition to automation.

As the pace of change in the wholesale distribution industry accelerates, many distributors struggle to keep up. Some common changes are the surge of digital, the competition and disruption of Amazon, and changing customer buying habits and expectations. 

Find out the importance of and the essential steps needed to achieve a successful implementation of NetSuite Distribution, cloud ERP built for wholesale distributors facing the forces of today’s increasing demands.

Savvy Customers Demand and Expect More

Here’s the reality the pandemic has proven undeniably: consumer expectations are at an all-time high. Many companies saw record demand and in all new channels resulting from curbside, delivery, and stay-at-home requirements. Consumer expectations aren’t likely to diminish anytime soon. 

“For example, the e-commerce industry has experienced rapid global growth from users of all generations due to stay-at-home mandates and social distancing requirements. More consumers are adapting their shopping behaviors as they see the convenience it provides. These shifts in how consumers buy and take delivery of their orders influence the type of automation and fulfillment strategies companies will require to help achieve the customer service levels that customers expect.” - Companies Still Struggling to Execute on an Automation Strategy

Many companies may have recognized that an integrated, inter-connected, online system was important for their companies ongoing ability to grow, a recent survey showed that only 43% have a plan for achieving the all-important digital transformation of their value chain and business processes.

So you can see, more than half of the Distribution organizations with upgrade aspirations struggle with how to plan and execute the transition to automation. The COVID pandemic has accelerated conversations around technology and solution strategy and the deployment plans they need to create value from day 1. Fortunately, NetSuite Distribution has formalized this process into a few steps.

Step 1: Unifying Your Data Into a Holistic View

In the first step, the goal is about ensuring you are operating from a unified base as the critical foundation. With a real-time platform, you get a single view of customers, their orders, items, and inventory. NetSuite has seen customers improve gross margins 1–5% post implementation.

To stay competitive in today’s real-time environment, your distribution industry software must make it easy to do things you used to have to send to experts. With NetSuite Distribution, you can self-serve the following:

• Creating customizable, role-based dashboards specifically tailored for each business user’s need, providing a real-time view into company performance across finance, sales, marketing, inventory, service and fulfillment.
• Connecting NetSuite application forms, fields and records in a simple point-and-click view. SuiteBuilder makes it easy to rapidly represent sophisticated data relationships without any code to surface insights and trends.
• Personalizing NetSuite to your company's own terminology and branding.

Step 2: Enable the Omnichannel Experience Customers Demand

One of main reasons distributors outgrow their legacy, often on-premises systems is one simple requirement from their customers: anytime, anywhere purchasing and engagement. The advent of curbside pickup, online to in-person ecommerce, and new delivery model innovations we haven’t seen yet, have made it practically impossible to support without extensive automation and integration.

With NetSuite Distribution, wholesale distributors are empowered with an extendible platform that makes it easy to add ecommerce or other omnichannel capabilities to enhance and provide a greater customer experience. This phase is critical as buyers move online in increasing numbers.

Step 3: Becoming More Strategic

Post-implementation and now freed of the constraints and limitations of your previous system and its manual, time-consuming projects, you’ll find you have time to tackle the strategically important analytics and search for actionable insights.

Now, your focus can shift to more innovative and disruptive strategies enabled by your new automation and customizable alerts and dashboards. You can analyze impacts from pricing and margin management and review important, but previously unseen business intelligence. NetSuite has seen its customers improve their actionable insights by over 56%.

Learn more about how distribution companies like yours are seeing tremendous results after implementing NetSuite distribution ERP with the guidance of the experts at Oasis Solutions.

The Oasis Difference

If you decided to implement NetSuite, then you’re already off to a great start! It’s flexible, customizable and robust enough to help your business be more productive for the long-term. Our ERP consultants are available to help you avoid costly mistakes before your next ERP implementation.

Since 1991, Oasis Solutions has been serving businesses throughout North America with software consulting, development, training, and support. Oasis is an award-winning business management software partner for Sage software, NetSuite, and Workday Adaptive Planning.

Oasis has been around since before technology was a buzzword. We  assist businesses in assessing, attaining and supporting business, manufacturing and inventory management software.

Our team has more than 350 years of combined industry experience. Our software specialists offer expertise in accounting, human resource management, and custom software development. Unlock your company’s full potential and discover how to start improving your business today with your custom Oasis Analysis.

If you are planning to implement a new ERP or have recently implemented an ERP, contact us at Oasis Solutions to objectively evaluate the project. We will provide value by helping you achieve the success you expected and help you grow and thrive with your business. Call 502.429.6902. Let's Chat!