Supply Chain Visibility and Order Management
Wholesale distributors operate complex supply chains, and NetSuite is built to provide visibility at every step. The ERP consolidates data from procurement, warehouses, and sales channels, serving as a single source of truth for inventory and orders. Distributors can see stock levels across multiple warehouses in real time, which helps in allocating inventory to orders and avoiding stockouts or overstock situations. NetSuite’s order management automates the entire order-to-cash cycle: sales orders flow through approval workflows to fulfillment with minimal manual intervention. By streamlining order entry, invoicing, and shipping (with support for multiple shipping carriers and methods), distributors can fulfill customer orders faster and more accurately.
Demand Forecasting and Warehouse Optimization
NetSuite helps wholesale businesses anticipate demand and optimize their warehouse operations. With advanced demand planning tools, companies can forecast demand using historical sales, seasonality, and trends, which leads to smarter purchasing and inventory placement decisions. This reduces the risk of stockouts (lost sales) and excess inventory (tied-up capital) by aligning stock levels more closely with actual demand. In the warehouse, NetSuite supports optimized picking, packing, and shipping processes. For instance, it can manage multiple warehouses and automate reordering when stock falls below thresholds. Features like wave picking and real-time inventory updates (often used in combination with barcoding and mobile devices) improve warehouse efficiency and accuracy, ensuring that products move swiftly from receiving to storage to shipment.
Challenges
Wholesale distributors must juggle supply chain disruptions, inventory imbalances, and complex logistics on a daily basis. Unforeseen supply interruptions or spikes in demand can result in stockouts, while overstocking to play it safe hurts cash flow. Many distributors also deal with fragmented systems—for instance, separate tools for warehouse management, order entry, and finance—which leads to data inconsistencies and manual work. These silos make it hard to get a clear view of operations, sometimes causing errors like shipping delays, incorrect orders, or invoicing mistakes. In a competitive landscape with thin margins, such inefficiencies and lack of visibility present major challenges.
NetSuite’s Solutions
NetSuite tackles these issues by providing an integrated platform tailored for distribution. It offers company-wide visibility into inventory, orders, and financials, enabling distributors to respond swiftly to changes in supply or demand. For example, if a particular product is selling faster than forecasted, NetSuite’s demand planning will highlight the trend and suggest replenishment before a stockout occurs. Conversely, it can signal when inventory is stagnant, prompting promotions or purchase order adjustments to avoid overstock. All departments—from procurement to warehouse to sales—access the same real-time data, which means fewer surprises and more coordinated decision-making. NetSuite also automates many manual logistics tasks: purchase orders can convert to incoming inventory receipts without re-keying data, and customer orders flow to picking lists in the warehouse seamlessly. With its Warehouse Management capabilities, distributors can optimize pick/pack routes and shipping, improving on-time delivery rates. Supply chain portals can even be used for vendors and customers to collaborate, further reducing latency in communications. By using NetSuite, wholesale distributors mitigate the risk of supply chain hiccups and run a leaner operation. They benefit from accurate, data-driven forecasting to balance stock levels, and process efficiencies that lower fulfillment costs and boost customer satisfaction.