"NetSuite allows us to run our business the way we want to. In real time, with simple customisation, and complete control. Without NetSuite, we would have had to devote significant resources to maintaining the level of technology complexity that NetSuite provides. Actually, it is every hard to imagine this business without NetSuite,"
Guardian Childcare Alliance Case Study - NetSuite CRM - NetReturn
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| At a glance | |
| Company: | Guardian Childcare Alliance |
| Location: | Headquartered in Brisbane, offices in Sydney and Melbourne. Childcare centres in all states. |
| Industry: | Childcare centre management |
| Challenges: | Develop a scaleable system to suit rapidly growing company and industry. |
| Software switched from: | Internal system, CRM done in Microsoft Outlook, accounting done in MYOB |
| Results with NetSuite: |
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The Challenge:
The challenge for any start-up is similar. Make the right choices the first time, because undoing mistakes is a lot harder and more expensive the second time around.
"I took a pretty open mind into our application decision making process," says Guardian Childcare Alliance group general manager, Anthony Smith. "However I did have some specific requirements. I certainly wanted whatever products or applications that we chose to be able to become completely embedded within, and integral to, the company," Smith said.
Guardian is a service company managing the needs of child-care centres and centre-owners and investors across Australia providing quality child-care. As a service provider in a rapidly growing sector, it was essential for Guardian to have scalability, remote access and real time updating.
"One of the issues for us was to keep all of our stakeholders happy. With the Guardian team, centre directors, owners and investors, you have three groups of people all working in the one direction, but needing slightly different information, immediately," said Smith.
Guardian presently has 23 childcare centres under management across Australia , with substantial growth estimated in the near future. Guardian wanted one system to manage its entire business with the minimum technology, implementation and training time.
The Solution:
"I was interested in Microsoft Navision as I was familiar with the program," says Anthony Smith. "But once I started evaluating NetSuite and realised the benefits that an online integrated application could bring to Guardian, then there really was no contest," Smith said.
NetSuite's combination of hosted application and integrated business solution was a major factor in choosing the application. "We wanted an enterprise quality system that provided a single solution for a number of problems," says Smith. "With NetSuite we can now have different centres adding information, which is updated in real-time and available in different formats to all of our stakeholders. Easy to say, but pretty difficult to achieve in my experience."
Guardian has also taken advantage of NetSuite's easy integration with other programs, importing data from childcare-specific software and making it available throughout the organisation.
NetSuite's advanced CRM capabilities allow Guardian to create detailed centre and client records that have proved invaluable. "It is the simple things, like tracking correspondence between parties that can make a huge difference to your business. It is all there on the contact records, so there can never be any dispute," says Smith.
On a single screen the Guardian team, centre Directors and Owner /Licensees can see any outstanding issues before making contact. "CRM for us isn't about increasing sales, it's about managing our business. We are in the service industry," observes Smith. "We want to understand everything we do from the front office through to the back office."
The Results:
By using a hosted environment Guardian doesn't have to worry about updating and managing computer systems and, because the Suite is browser-based, the team can access information from anywhere - important when the company is growing across Australia .
"NetSuite has enabled us to create a two way flow of information, allowing us to make much better business decisions and keeping centre owner/licensees immediately abreast about of changes within their businesses," says Smith.
"NetSuite allows us to run our business the way we want to. In real time, with simple customisation, and complete control. Without NetSuite, we would have had to devote significant resources to maintaining the level of technology complexity that NetSuite provides. Actually, it is every hard to imagine this business without NetSuite," said Smith.
"What is apparently complex to manage in other systems comes naturally to NetSuite," he added.
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