Outdoor Brands Exercise New Business Agility With NetSuite

SAN MATEO, Calif., March 17, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), the industry's leading provider of cloud-based financials / ERP and omnichannel commerce software suites, today announced new customer wins and strong momentum among outdoor retailers, manufacturers and distributors turning to the NetSuite cloud to improve their business efficiency and sales performance. Transforming into agile enterprises with swift execution and customer focus, outdoor and fitness product companies are more competitive with larger merchants that have greater economies of scale by using NetSuite's integrated cloud business management solution for ERP, inventory and order management, CRM, ecommerce and more. For more information on how NetSuite helps outdoor retailers, manufacturers and distributors, please visit www.netsuite.com/outdoorretail.

These innovative merchants are taking advantage of double-digit growth in the outdoor and fitness markets with new capacity to rapidly develop and launch products while expanding sales scope across B2B and B2C channels and across multiple countries. For example, the Outdoor Industry Association reports that U.S. sales of outdoor equipment and apparel increased 10.2 percent in December 2013 over the previous year, reaching nearly $2.4 billion. Steady growth is expected in 2014 and beyond as more people engage in active, healthy lifestyles and an enjoyment of the outdoors.

With NetSuite's unified software platform, outdoor and fitness merchants are eliminating disconnected on-premise applications to improve operational and financial efficiency and visibility. These customers report dramatic decreases in manual administrative work and delays, and new abilities to monitor and guide the business through key metrics based on real-time data.

Realizing savings in greater productivity and the elimination of in-house IT infrastructure, NetSuite outdoor and fitness customers are focusing their resources on product innovation, expansion of channels and territories, and customer-focused sales and service in both wholesale and direct-to-consumer markets. As a result, many report steady double-digit growth and winning new business with large retailers such as REI, Dick's Sporting Goods and Bass Pro Shops, often utilizing EDI solutions from NetSuite SuiteCloud Developer Network (SDN) partners to streamline transactions with chains. Real-time inventory management capabilities in NetSuite enable outdoor and fitness customers to optimize stock, reduce carrying costs and scale to periods of peak demand, while NetSuite SuiteCommerce gives them a fast, interactive ecommerce storefront to build their brands and drive direct-to-consumer sales.

With NetSuite, outdoor and fitness companies are able to:

• Convert leads to orders, orders to shipments and shipments to revenue with NetSuite's advanced warehouse, inventory management and order fulfillment capabilities.
• Improve supply chain operations with integrated inventory and order management, and building demand forecasts with real-time data, reducing excess inventory and the risk of stock outs.
• Eliminate manual processes and IT systems maintenance by running the business in the cloud.
• Monitor and manage the business with the ultimate customizable business dashboard, featuring built-in best practices.

And NetSuite SuiteCommerce brings to these businesses key omnichannel commerce functionality helping them:

• Manage B2B and B2C ecommerce with NetSuite SuiteCommerce, providing businesses with the scalability and agility to serve both types of customers from a single platform.
• Provide a real-time, 360-degree view of the business by seamlessly integrating financials / ERP, CRM and ecommerce, thereby empowering businesses to manage their interactions directly with consumers, other businesses and trading partners.
• Manage all transactions and associated customer interactions regardless of touchpoint.

"Outdoor companies can't afford the drag of inefficient processes and systems if they want to compete and win in these fast-growing markets," said Ranga Bodla, Senior Director, NetSuite Industry Marketing. "We're very proud of the success our outdoor and fitness customers have achieved in transforming their businesses to be more agile, lean and effective in the cloud."

Among the many outdoor industry companies that have improved their business performance with NetSuite are Kurgo, Manduka, Sellmark Corp. and TriggerPoint Performance Therapy:

Kurgo (www.kurgo.com), a designer, manufacturer and retailer of dog travel and active dog products, has netted an average of 30 percent year-over-year growth since implementing NetSuite in 2008 to replace QuickBooks and Salesforce.com. The Salisbury, Mass.-based company, sells pet carriers, harnesses, seat covers and other goods, and has expanded its business across nearly 7,500 retail partner locations in about 15 countries of North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Those include Petco, REI, PetSmart and L.L. Bean. A smaller portion of the business runs through a direct-to-consumer website. NetSuite gives Kurgo on-demand visibility into inventory that has enabled it to optimize stock levels and production by overseas contract manufacturers, while an EDI solution from NetSuite partner SPS Commerce streamlines transactions with large retailers and a fulfillment partner in Illinois. Processing thousands of orders a month through NetSuite, Kurgo also leverages CRM and sales force automation capabilities to improve sales effectiveness. Transparency into key business data has enabled Kurgo to make informed strategic decisions and secure additional lines of credit to support business growth. "NetSuite is the backbone of our business and has given us visibility and scalability to grow 30 percent a year," said Gordon Spater, Kurgo Co-Founder. "For a small, fast-growing company, an investment in NetSuite is critical. I can't imagine life without it."

Manduka (www.manduka.com), a maker of high-quality and sustainably produced yoga mats, straps, towels, water bottles and bags, has more than doubled its revenue since upgrading from QuickBooks to NetSuite in the fall of 2011. Based in Los Angeles, Manduka has improved operational efficiency by 40 percent with NetSuite, while cutting its monthly financial close time from eight to four days. With NetSuite, Manduka has expanded its wholesale channel across 4,000 yoga studios and 5,000 retail locations in the U.S., including REI, Nordstrom and Dick's Sporting Goods, with a distribution business that spans 75 countries, as well as a direct-to-consumer website. NetSuite also proved valuable in Manduka's July 2013 release of its yogitoes products, providing a streamlined financials environment that readily accommodated the new company and enabled elimination of $120,000 in accounting expenses. NetSuite order management scales to peaks of up to 15,000 orders a month, while an EDI solution from NetSuite partner SPS Commerce streamlines transactions with large retailers. NetSuite allowed Manduka to move to paperless order processing, saving 1.56 tons of paper a year, the equivalent of 19 trees as well as the energy to heat a home for a year. For 2014, Manduka plans to expand the use of NetSuite Demand Planning for inventory forecasting, replacing a 100MB Excel spreadsheet. "NetSuite is a very important business partner to Manduka," said Jill Krishnamurthy, Manduka VP of Finance. "Before NetSuite, we spent a lot of time just figuring out where inventory was. The ability to create meaningful reports based on real-time data in a dynamic business landscape is such an important process for us."

Sellmark Corp. (www.sellmark.net), a developer and merchant of outdoor-oriented products under five brands, has experienced more than 70 percent average annual growth since implementing NetSuite in 2006 while gaining the agility to rapidly launch and manage new lines of business including brands like 12 Survivors and Southern Crossbow. The Mansfield, Texas-based company leverages NetSuite as an end-to-end platform for financials, inventory and order management, and CRM across all of its brands. With NetSuite, Sellmark has grown its business across 56 countries and 2,500 retailers worldwide, including Cabela's, Gander Mountain and Bass Pro Shops, with sales personnel leveraging CRM to grow B2B channels. NetSuite SuiteCommerce supports a smaller percentage of direct-to-consumer sales over five branded ecommerce storefronts, with the OzLINK solution from NetSuite partner Oz Development in place for shipping optimization. "The great thing about NetSuite is we have a platform to quickly grow the business," said Chris Aylor, Sellmark Director of Domestic Sales. "The integration and usability of NetSuite and ability to use it anywhere has been tremendously valuable. NetSuite is really at the cutting-edge forefront of ERP and CRM."

TriggerPoint Performance Therapy (www.tptherapy.com), a company that empowers people to reach an optimal level of movement by providing the world's best therapeutic self care products and education, has significantly improved its business performance and efficiency since implementing NetSuite in March 2013 to replace QuickBooks and a Fishbowl inventory management application. Based in Austin, Texas, TriggerPoint is projecting 20 percent growth throughout 2014 with NetSuite supplying the company with new visibility into inventory and sales of the GRID foam rollers, TriggerPoint Performace Therapy products and kits, Performance Cooling products and instructional DVDs and professional education products. With NetSuite's CRM capabilities, TriggerPoint sales reps have a single, consolidated customer view to grow the business across leading retailers such as REI, Fleet Feet Sports and Academy Sports, gym chains such as Equinox and UFC, and distributors across 26 countries. NetSuite SuiteCommerce provides TriggerPoint with a direct-to-consumer ecommerce storefront, natively linked to back-end financials and inventory and order management. With its upgrade to the NetSuite cloud, TriggerPoint has dramatically improved its access to information and eliminated time-consuming manual work across disconnected applications. "NetSuite gives us one single place for everyone to access the information they need," said Marco Salinas, TriggerPoint Director of Information Systems. "The ability to see how our sales are tracking in real-time helps us react and communicate much better than we could with our previous systems."

Today, more than 20,000 companies and subsidiaries depend on NetSuite to run complex, mission-critical business processes globally in the cloud. Since its inception in 1998, NetSuite has established itself as the leading provider of enterprise-class cloud financials/ERP suites for divisions of large enterprises and mid-sized organizations seeking to upgrade their antiquated client/server ERP systems. NetSuite excels at streamlining business operations as demonstrated in a recent Gartner study naming NetSuite as the fastest growing financial management software vendor on a global basis. NetSuite continues its success in delivering the best cloud ERP/financials suites to businesses around the world, enabling them to lower IT costs significantly while increasing productivity, as the global adoption of the cloud is accelerating.

About SuiteCommerce
NetSuite SuiteCommerce enables B2C and B2B merchants, manufacturers and distributors to seamlessly connect every step of a multi-channel, multi-location business—from ecommerce, POS and order management to merchandising, marketing, inventory, financials and customer support. Featuring an advanced webstore that allows the creation of uniquely branded and personalized shopping experiences optimized for multiple devices, SuiteCommerce empowers businesses to run across multiple touchpoints—web, brick-and-mortar stores, social, mobile—all from a single, unified cloud-based commerce system that provides unprecedented visibility into your business and customers. Please visit www.suitecommerce.com for more information.

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SOURCE NetSuite Inc.