Tree of Life Grows Omnichannel Commerce With NetSuite

SYDNEY, Aug. 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), the industry's leading provider of cloud-based financials / ERP software and omnichannel commerce suites, today announced that Tree of Life, an Australian retailer of fair trade clothing and accessories from developing countries, has deployed NetSuite SuiteCommerce, the world's only software platform capable of bringing etail and retail operations together in one single commerce solution. Tree of Life is leveraging NetSuite SuiteCommerce to run its mission-critical, end-to-end omnichannel commerce business across its head office, 54 retail stores, wholesale business, and B2C Ecommerce site – all from within the one unified commerce solution. NetSuite replaced multiple, disparate software systems for Tree of Life including Salesforce CRM and a Microsoft SQL Server running Markinson Shopkeeper POS. With NetSuite SuiteCommerce, Tree of Life is able to transform the efficiency, transparency and performance of its rapidly expanding retail business online and within its brick-and-mortar locations, delivering an unprecedented frictionless omnichannel customer experience.

NetSuite SuiteCommerce Changes the Game for Tree of Life 
NetSuite SuiteCommerce enables Tree of Life to manage multiple channels and locations, providing it with a 360-degree view of each customer. With SuiteCommerce, the retailer now has the business insight and data it needs to grow revenue, open up new sales channels and expand its business. The platform also fulfils a strong demand for a single commerce solution that supports multiple customer touchpoints – from in-store point-of-sale (POS) to call centres and social media to online via desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets. In addition, pre-established dashboards and templates give Tree of Life the ability to generate reports whenever it wants with real-time data.

Additionally, NetSuite's Order Management System (OMS) enables Tree of Life to flawlessly view, analyse and fulfil transactions across webstore, brick-and-mortar and telesales, regardless of where it was originated from or where it will be filled. In an omnichannel commerce environment, these capabilities are especially important to meet the expectations of today's consumers. Beyond order management, NetSuite provides powerful back-office technology such as warehouse management capabilities including bin and lot tracking and support for the pick/pack/ship fulfilment process, support for multiple warehouse locations, and the intelligence to select the appropriate warehouse based on each company's business logic.

From a front-end perspective, Tree of Life views its online store as its most important channel and NetSuite SuiteCommerce has given it the tools to create a flexible, incredibly fast and open webstore that provides a highly personalised and engaging shopping experience across multiple devices. From a marketing perspective, it now relies on NetSuite's CRM capabilities for its weekly email blasts to 100,000 customers, which are a significant driver of sales online and in-store. NetSuite SuiteCommerce's advanced inventory management system has also significantly improved the retailer's control over its inventory with its automatically calculated reorder quantities and real-time visibility into sales figures and trends.

In conjunction with NetSuite SuiteCommerce, Tree of Life is also leveraging NetSuite SuiteCloud Developer Network (SDN) partner Fronde for shipping, which has built its FreightOne SuiteApp on the NetSuite SuiteCloud development platform and has achieved Built for NetSuite verification. Built for NetSuite is a program for SDN partners that provides information, resources and a method for NetSuite partners to verify that their applications and integrations meet new NetSuite standards and best practices, giving NetSuite customers additional confidence. The FreightOne SuiteApp provides Tree of Life with an expedited online estimate, packing and fulfilment solution to make the distribution process much easier for shipping throughout Australia and New Zealand. After the goods are shipped, all consignment details are retained in NetSuite allowing Tree of Life's staff or customers to track the delivery process.

"NetSuite provides an immensely scalable cloud-based business solution that quite literally runs every single operational aspect of our business from front end to back, allowing us to focus on growing our retail footprint across Australia," said Krishnan Borthwick, IT director, Tree of Life. "Despite our online sales growing tenfold in the last year, we have been able to easily manage this without further investment or resources – NetSuite manages this growth for us. It gives us all the information we need about sales performance and pricing to make informed decisions that help better our performance."

Replacing Multiple Software Systems with NetSuite's Unified Commerce Solution 
Tree of Life opened its first store in Sydney in the early 1990s, offering Indian sourced and inspired handcrafts, homewares, clothing and accessories. The retailer's previous IT system was complex and underperforming, plagued by data replication and integrity issues, as well as the logistical challenge of rolling out software upgrades to each of its retail outlets. Tree of Life lacked access to real-time business performance information and struggled without a central solution to aggregate transactions seamlessly from multiple branches, time zones and suppliers. It turned to NetSuite SuiteCommerce's fully integrated commerce solution to improve the efficiency of its business and power its back office operations, including POS, financials, CRM, Ecommerce, inventory management, order management and demand planning functionality. Unmatched by any other commerce platform available, NetSuite SuiteCommerce is the only software platform that delivers a single solution to bring etail and retail together, meeting the needs of today's etailers and retailers and enabling them to grow and expand their businesses.

Unprecedented Results and Omnichannel Customer Experience 
Since implementing NetSuite SuiteCommerce, Tree of Life now has comprehensive, real-time visibility of its business, enabling information to be immediately available to its head office and all stores across Australia. Tree of Life's management team has gained much needed insight into its daily business performance, which has helped drive growth and efficiencies across all aspects of its operations. By moving to the NetSuite cloud, Tree of Life has eliminated the need for ongoing upgrades, investment and maintenance of IT systems and gained fast implementation, easy configuration, flexibility, security, automated upgrades, automatic customisation carried to new versions, scheduled data backup and the ability to access the system from anywhere using a web browser or mobile device.

"We have a highly sophisticated solution in place that powers our business and enables us to perform complex operational and analytical tasks, yet is exceptionally simple to use," said Mr. Borthwick. "In one morning, for example, I deployed NetSuite to four new Western Australian retail stores on my own, remotely from Sydney and was able to train staff in minutes. I don't know of any other system that can do that. NetSuite has freed up my own bandwidth to work on value add projects and operations within the business, rather than just managing IT solutions."

According to Mark Troselj, managing director of APAC and Japan for NetSuite, "Tree of Life is one of a growing number of Australian retailers that have harnessed the power of NetSuite's integrated commerce solution to transform business efficiencies and performance, while also providing customers with a relevant and consistent brand experience across channels. NetSuite SuiteCommerce can help Tree of Life take its business to the next level."

For more information about Tree of Life, please visit www.treeoflife.com.au.  

About SuiteCommerce  
NetSuite SuiteCommerce is the only omnichannel solution to bring together retail and Ecommerce under a single platform, enabling 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 personalised shopping experiences optimised 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.

Today, more than 16,000 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 organisations 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.

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For more information about NetSuite, please visit www.netsuite.com.au.

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SOURCE NetSuite Inc.