Challenges
Redmap Networks recognised the opportunity for global expansion early on, but was hampered by a series of disconnected databases that made it difficult to see where its business stood and plan where it could go.
"One of our problems was we didn’t have one database. We had separate everything - financials, CRM. It was very hard to manage. Things were falling through the cracks and we were about to go global," Redmap's Kurt Carlsen explains.
Solution
Redmap wanted a scalable, hosted system and chose NetSuite to increase visibility into the business, create efficiencies in operational workflows and to lay the foundation for global expansion. The addition of the NetSuite OneWorld solution in 2008 gave Redmap the ability to work with multiple currencies, taxation rules and reporting requirements in real-time and at a fraction of the cost of a traditional ERP solution.
"We needed something that was web-based with the capacity to support global growth. NetSuite provided that - and we've now got a true multi-currency solution that works," he says.
"We considered other things. One option was going with the whole Microsoft Dynamics suite. We wanted to have a Software-as-a-Service solution and that was a high-level reason why we went with NetSuite. Our management team is located in many different places and we have management meetings all the time, but with NetSuite everything we need is all there in front of us."
Carlsen said that with the dashboard for sales reporting, company executives can easily see what the channel is doing, and how it's doing compared to the previous year, etc.
"It’s a very powerful tool," he says.
The CRM module gives Redmap greater insights into its customer interactions, he adds.
"We are doing more communications with our customers. Because NetSuite is cradle-to-grave, we can use it to do all our campaigning and prospecting through to closure, orders, support desk - everything. Once we set up a prospect and give them a number, the system tracks through the full life of the client."
Redmap has also developed a link so that its document management software links into NetSuite, so the company is both a user and developer of the software.
Next, Redmap plans to use the NetSuite OneWorld Ecommerce module as an interactive web gateway through which partners, customers and suppliers can communicate with Redmap in real-time, saving time and money and further improving communication and customer service.
"NetSuite is a country mile better than we had before - and we are not even fully utilising it yet. We couldn't live without it. It's as simple as that."
Results
Brisbane-based Redmap Networks has significantly reduced its operational costs and experienced rapid global expansion since consolidating its business operations on NetSuite five years ago.
Now, the addition of new NetSuite OneWorld in 2008 has given Redmap the one critical element it still needed - the simplicity of true, real-time multi-currency functionality for its cross-border operations that now include 12,000 customers worldwide.
Implementing NetSuite has enabled Redmap to manage its fast-growing business more efficiently and cost-effectively, growing from a single entity with little more than 10 staff in Australia into a global document management software provider with almost 100 staff and offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, the USA and the Philippines.
The ability to take operations off-shore while still enabling real-time visibility to business information through NetSuite has allowed Redmap to slash labour costs. At the same time it has grown its workforce to meet demand for its software applications.
NetSuite's web-based functionality has generated significant cost savings by enabling Redmap to operate a Philippines-based customer support centre at a fraction of the cost of a similar operation in Australia.
"A lot of our business is done offshore now," Carlsen says.
"Our support infrastructure in the Philippines runs 24/7. We can have six people in the Philippines for the cost of one in Australia. We couldn't run that sort of off-shore operation without NetSuite. We couldn't do half of what we have done without NetSuite. It just would have been too hard."
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