NetSuite Helps Office Supply Dealers Hurdle their Biggest Tech Roadblocks

To stay profitable and competitive, office supply dealers working on slim margins have to balance their own costs with keeping their prices low enough to compete in the marketplace. Achieving this balance has gotten harder in recent years as more customers shop for deals online and get orders delivered to their business locations same-day or next day. 

The current inflationary environment, the remote work movement and rising costs are all forcing office supply dealers to sharpen their pencils and find new ways to manage item costs, boost their margins and work more efficiently. Organizations are turning to technology and automation for help. This is a smart move in a sector where many dealers are still running legacy business software that hasn’t kept up with the pace of change. 

Legacy systems often require the maintenance of onsite servers and ongoing IT intervention. Their on-premises architecture means Dealers get stuck running very old versions of the software, with no easy way of upgrading and little benefit if they did. 

In some cases, a dealer’s underlying database may be unstable and require frequent server reboots. This can lead to data corruption. In other situations, a dealer’s licensing fees for legacy software systems may be increasing by 5%-8% annually with no new functionalities or capabilities being offered up in exchange for the higher costs. When the decision is made to host these systems in a Cloud, Dealers find themselves in a predicament where they lose direct access to their data.

In many cases, these systems have weak or non-existent accounting, CRM, and reporting functionality, but don’t integrate well with other applications. Left with a hodgepodge of disconnected, outdated solutions, office supply Dealers spend unproductive time rekeying data or using spreadsheets to bandage up their disjointed software systems. 

“Office supply dealers feel like they’re being held hostage by their software providers,” said Melody Flynn, Senior Account Executive at Business Solutions Partners (BSP), a NetSuite Solution Provider, “and not receiving the support they need.”

4 ways NetSuite supports growing office supply chain dealers
Office supply companies need unified technology solutions that are built for their industry.  With BSP’s ISG Edition of NetSuite, incorporating Logicblock for eCommerce and Elite EXTRA for Proof-of-Delivery, dealers can dissolve information silos, preserve their profit margins and compete more effectively in their evolving marketplaces.

Here are four ways NetSuite helps dealers break through their technology roadblocks and operate more profitably:

1) High levels of flexibility.  Architected for the Cloud from day one, NetSuite is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform that’s highly configurable, customizable, and integration friendly. NetSuite provides roles, forms and fields that are configurable with “click-not-code” capability. This makes it easy for office supply Dealers to optimize the application and simplify their operations while staying ahead of industry changes and capitalizing on emerging opportunities.

2) Add-ons that address dealers’ specific needs. An optional NetSuite module, SuiteProjects is a full-featured project management solution within NetSuite.  Dealers gain full project visibility while automating processes around resource allocations, applying labor and expenses to projects and tracking project profitability. 

Another optional module, NetSuite’s Warehouse Management System (WMS) enables full automation in the warehouse using RF barcode scanning on mobile devices. Any scanning or transaction processing done on the devices throughout the warehouse immediately updates the associated records and inventory data in NetSuite.

3) A quick deployment model and strong implementation support structure. NetSuite’s SuiteSuccess deployment methodology lets customers leverage thousands of hours of industry-specific pre-built roles, dashboards, reports, key performance metrics and workflows right from day one. Combined with BSP’s implementation and support services and NetSuite’s plethora of free help guides and videos, office supply Dealers have all of the resources needed to successfully make the switch to NetSuite.

4) Cloud software that’s automatically updated twice a year. Once they have NetSuite in place, office supply Dealers no longer have to worry about being harnessed to aging software systems. NetSuite is automatically updated twice per year, with no IT intervention required. All 32,000+ NetSuite customers are running on the most recent and only version of NetSuite.  “The combination of NetSuite’s new releases and the Dealers’ ongoing optimization of the system over time results in NetSuite fitting these businesses like a glove,” said Flynn. 

Summary
When they replace their outdated, on-premises architected technology systems with the ISG Edition of NetSuite, office supply Dealers leverage a modern Cloud platform that is a foundation to future-proof their businesses with. The platform is agile and robust enough for Dealers to adapt to market changes and stay on top of the competition for decades to come.