CLIENT PROFILE
Michel Sales is a fourth-generation manufacturer's representative serving the plumbing, heating and HVAC industries through wholesale distribution.
THE SITUATION
Michel Sales had a range of challenges it was looking to solve:
- Replacing the software it had outgrown
- Gaining financial visibility to make better business decisions
- Compiling data it needed to manage growth
- Improving efficiency of processing orders in its warehouse
The enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution NetSuite was an ideal solution for Michel Sales, but implementing it required specialized knowledge and skills.
THE STRATEGY
Wipfli doesn’t open a box and then abandon companies to struggle with their own technology implementations. The Wipfli team was onsite at Michel Sales collaborating with its staff members to determine their needs and how we could optimize NetSuite for them. Wipfli then provided extensive onsite training to employees to go beyond simple adoption to support Michel Sales’ deeper change management goals.
Our team continues supporting Michel Sales after the go-live date. We are monitoring NetSuite to ensure smooth operations, proactively exploring additional ways to streamline processes and answering questions as they arise.
WHAT WERE THE RESULTS?
It took less than four months for the Wipfli and Michel Sales teams to implement NetSuite, optimize the system and train users — which is an almost unheard-of speed for an ERP implementation.
Michel Sales also benefitted from Wipfli’s manufacturing experience in how to improve its pick and pack stations, as well as use bins and integrate bin information into NetSuite so that both employees and processes could become more efficient.
Optimizing NetSuite was another key benefit Michel Sales enjoyed from working with Wipfli.
Its leadership team now has much greater visibility into the business’s data and is able to customize dashboards and view financial reports to help inform the decisions they’re making. Wipfli continues to collaborate with Michel Sales to advise and help them grow with their new ERP implementation.
