The wholesale distribution industry is going through disruption, and meeting the market demands can be a big challenge for companies that have traditionally been using multiple disconnected systems. To succeed in the new omnichannel world, it’s important for wholesale distribution companies to integrate their core business systems and invest in solutions that streamline operations and eliminate inefficiencies.
With NetSuite, wholesale distribution companies can grow their businesses with software built in and for the cloud. They can increase market awareness, streamline their route-to-market processes, reduce inventory costs and lead times, increase efficiency, and establish partnerships with suppliers. This means increased margins and meeting the demands for profitability.
NetSuite benefits for wholesale distribution include:
- Ability to compete
- Empowerment to adapt and change
- Stability and growth
- Improved operational efficiency
- Improved controls and accuracy
- Increased speed to market
- Reduced cost to serve
- Faster time to value
- Increased profit margin
- Long-term partnerships
Top NetSuite functionalities for wholesale distribution and omnichannel companies
1. Customer relationship management (CRM)
NetSuite CRM provides a 360-degree view of your customers in real-time and provides a smooth flow of information across the entire customer lifecycle – from lead through opportunity, estimate, quote, sales order, delivery, contract renewal, upsell and support. Contact and activity management provides detailed documentation of customer interactions and opportunities for follow-up. NetSuite CRM also provides marketing automation that keep customers up to date with news and offers.
2. Order management
The process of taking, approving, scheduling, tracking, fulfilling, and getting paid for orders is at the heart of any wholesale distribution business. With NetSuite's order management capabilities, companies can streamline their order processing by eliminating manual bottlenecks, ensure customer satisfaction by maintaining defined service levels, and deliver on time from the most economical or geographically convenient location. NetSuite allows setup of supply chain processes per sales channel, thus seamlessly supporting omnichannel commerce.
3. Financial management
NetSuite’s comprehensive financial management capabilities allows wholesale distribution companies to automate and streamline crucial financial processes (e.g. order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, and record-to-report) within the organization. With dashboards displaying financial data and analytics in real-time, as well as automatically generated reports, the company can make informed business decisions. The risk for manual reporting errors is also significantly reduced.
4. Supply Chain & Purchasing management
NetSuite provides real-time, detailed visibility into key spend, inventory and supply chain management metrics. Needs are visualized based on forecasts, inventory control, and orders, and can be chosen to present either as a request or to directly generate a purchase/production order. With NetSuite, wholesale distribution companies can also automate and streamline large parts of the purchasing process and effectively manage supplier relationships via built in communication engine as well as a supplier portal.
5. Inventory & Warehouse management
NetSuite provides continuous forecasts that follow market fluctuations along with an automated replenishment process between warehouses, companies, and customers. The system allows wholesale distribution companies to optimize inventory levels and increase efficiency, reduce picking times, meet upcoming demand, reduce shipping costs, and plan the existing resources effectively.
6. Multiple entity management & consolidation
NetSuite provides multi-currency management, multi-subsidiary accounting, and consolidated financial reporting, which is ideal for wholesale distribution companies that operate in multiple countries and currencies. The system provides real-time visibility at the local, regional and headquarter level, for a comprehensive view of whole organization. With NetSuite, it’s possible to develop standard business processes in one company, and easily copy and deploy these in other subsidiaries. NetSuite’s intercompany framework provides a real-time intercompany engine to manage transactions between sister subsidiaries, ensuring their consistency across the group and an automated elimination process as part of the financial consolidation.
Words from a wholesale distribution company user of NetSuite
Vinted offers a peer-to-peer online marketplace for users to sell, buy and swap second-hand clothing. Founded in 2008, Vinted became Lithuania’s first tech unicorn in 2019.
Since Vinted were experiencing a high level of growth and were operating internationally in 15 markets, they decided to implement NetSuite to grow with their business:
“One of the major benefits of NetSuite was that it is a scalable cloud-based ERP solution. After seeing the NetSuite demos, we knew that we had found the right system for us.
With NetSuite, our monthly financial reporting timelines have become faster. Nowadays, we only need to log into one ERP system instead of eight different ones like we used to. It makes the user-experience friendly.”
- Marija Buivydaitė, Senior Director of Finance at Vinted
Do you want to know more? Visit our page about NetSuite for wholesale distribution companies or get in touch with us!