IPL Case Study - NetSuite CRM - NetReturn
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| At a glance | |
| Company: | IPL Group |
| Location: | Sydney national distribution centre, QLD and VIC Sales/Service and Resellers Australia wide |
| Industry: | Distribution: IT&T |
| Challenges: |
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| Software switched from: | Citadel system bought in 1991 |
| Results with NetSuite: |
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The Challenge:
The IPL Group was founded in 1982 by its current Managing Director Stead Denton to import and distribute computer peripheral products. It is comprised of two companies in IPL Datron Pty Ltd and IPL Communications Pty Ltd.
In a close working relationship that spans over two decades, IPL has built a strong and solid presence in the Australian office technology market. Today the company is the national distributor for some of the world’s leading manufacturers within the IT&T industry including Oki, Alcatel, Siemens and Avaya.
The IPL Group utilises a reseller channel to distribute the products they represent. IPL provide their resellers with:
- Product – carry inventory and distribute through their distribution centre in Sydney
- Technical Support – training, accreditation plus pre and post sales support to the resellers
- Marketing Support – generation of leads and joint marketing funding
- Administration – credit and 30 day accounts
The level of service provided to the channel had become harder to manage and the system they had in place, Citadel, which was purchased in 1991, added strategic security issues into the mix when the software company was taken over.
“We needed to drag IPL from last century to this century,” said Bruce Whall, COO of IPL Group. “We had no ability to manipulate data and had to wait till the next day to see sales figures. We made it work but to find a system that would do it all for you was brilliant.”
The Solutions:
After an exhaustive review process of systems including SAP and Microsoft, IPL chose NetSuite, through its Australian and New Zealand distributor NetReturn.
“NetSuite’s hosted model appealed to us immediately and the payment program based on usage was a strong selling point. NetSuite came with all the bells and whistles plus a flexibility we had not experienced with our previous system.”
While providing all the features needed by IPL to run their business more effectively, there were a few key stand-out features that influenced the final decision to go with NetSuite.
“We needed to become more competitive and were falling behind. Even data a day out of date just does not work in the real world. The information in NetSuite is immediate, the reporting is a breeze and management has everything they need on one piece of paper – or on a dashboard.”
The Results:
While Bruce admits that they could have struggled with their old system for a few more years he is a stickler for a rule of thumb – “Always change things when you don’t need to change. If you need to change something in a hurry, you are going to stuff it up.
According to Bruce, who oversaw the project, the NetSuite implementation was relatively stress free and with an ongoing strategic plan in place with NetReturn for process improvement through NetSuite, the result is a partnership for success.
One of the main concerns for Bruce was the ability of IPL to remain competitive. NetSuite now provides them with the tools to future-proof the business. NetSuite provides the flexibility to change quickly to strategic and customer requirements as they occur and enables IPL to implement web-based trading to their channel.
“NetSuite has avalanched us into the 21st century. We now have the ability to pull 50 times more information out of NetSuite compared with our previous system.”
“There are many features that NetSuite has that are brilliant, however for me the best feature is accessibility – I can be at my holiday place in the mountains and still be able to check out the daily sales results – on the hour if necessary – how great is that.”
Find out more: contact NetReturn at 1300 886 025 or 0800 543 371
