Speedmaster Trades in SAP for NetSuite to Fuel Global Growth

The NetSuite Podcast

Find out how NetSuite can help your business balance the demands of a global supply chain: https://tinyurl.com/3b253s98 Hear the story behind auto parts manufacturer Speedmaster and why they turned to NetSuite to run their growing business in this episode with Speedmaster CEO Jason Kencevski and cohost Ian McCue. Jason starts by sharing how his father came to start the company [2:15] and key moments over the past 40 years that made the company what it is today [7:52]. The CEO explains the influence of his own interest in technology on the business [10:32], which led it to adopt SAP Business One. Jason explains where that system fell short [14:06], then highlights the benefits of a “living, breathing system” such as NetSuite [19:41] and how it supports better decision-making [26:16]. He walks through how NetSuite helps the manufacturer-distributor efficiently manage international operations [28:05], its supply chain [29:21], ecommerce [37:37], and online marketplace sales [41:30]. Jason wraps up by explaining what’s next for Speedmaster [43:52]. Follow Us Here: Jason Kencevski: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonkencevski/ Speedmaster: https://www.speedmaster79.com/ Oracle NetSuite LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/NetSuiteLI Facebook: http://bit.ly/NetSuiteFB Instagram: http://bit.ly/NetSuiteIG Twitter: http://bit.ly/NetSuiteTW #Speedmaster #autoparts #NetSuite #NetSuiteERP #manufacturingERP -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript:

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;14

Hey Suite listeners. Welcome to the NetSuite Podcast. I'm Ian McCue, a co-host of this podcast and senior content marketing manager at NetSuite. We have a great guest on today's show, Jason Kencevski from Speedmaster. Jason is the CEO of Speedmaster, a large manufacturer and seller of aftermarket auto parts for classic cars. To start, Jason shares why his dad started this business and how it turned into an industry leader over the past 45 years.

00;00;30;17 - 00;00;58;09

He explains how his own interest in technology led the company to invest in new systems that included implementing SAP Business One more than a decade ago. Jason dives into where the on-premises SAP application fell short when it came to running a global business and updating product data for 25,000 items. The CEO walks through how those frustrations led Speedmaster to replace SAP with NetSuite after a few years and how a “living, breathing system” made an enormous difference.

00;00;58;12 - 00;01;26;13

He digs into how modules including NetSuite OneWorld, NetSuite WMS, and NetSuite SuiteCommerce Advanced all helped the company run a smoother, more efficient operation. Jason wraps up with a few thoughts on what the future holds for vintage cars and what that means for his company. Stay tuned because all of that and more is coming up next. You're listening to the NetSuite Podcast, where we discuss what's happening with the next week, why we're doing it and where we're heading in the future.

00;01;26;15 - 00;01;45;22

We'll dive into the details about the software and the people at NetSuite who are behind all the moving parts. We'll also feature customer growth stories discussing the ups and downs of running a company and how one integrated system can help your business continue to scale.

00;01;45;24 - 00;02;11;17

So to kick this off, Jason, tell us a little bit about Speedmaster. What do you manufacture and who do you sell to? Yes, So I mean, Speedmaster has been around for over 40 years. We have a slogan, you know, we just make awesome car parts. But drilling into those awesome car parts, we design, test, and manufacture over 25,000 V8 car spare parts, you know, specifically aftermarket automotive, V8 car, spare parts.

00;02;11;20 - 00;02;31;21

And this is a business that your dad started back in 1979. And I saw on your website, you know, a cool video about kind of how it started. But for people who haven't seen that video, don't know that much about Speedmaster, could you kind of share that story about how this business came to be? Sure. Sure. I mean, you know, every great entrepreneurial story always starts with solving a problem.

00;02;31;23 - 00;02;48;21

I think that problem was my dad, you know, wanted to be the coolest kid in the block and have the fastest car so he can impress all the girls. I was doing that. You know, he was racing, legally of course. And, you know, he was racing and he blew up his engine and had to find out what broke.

00;02;48;24 - 00;03;05;22

Some of the components that broke were actually, you know, weren't perfectly designed or could have been designed better. And, you know, he started with the simple, simple entrepreneurial spirit of making something better, and the rest is history, believe it or not. Is this something that was kind of always your dad's passion? And did he did he have a knack for that stuff?

00;03;05;23 - 00;03;24;06

I mean, it seems crazy to just say this broke. Okay, let me now build, you know, a replacement part for it. Yeah, it's funny you say that because, I mean, I don't know, like, cars were his passion at the age, but, you know, becoming one of the most influential brands in the world right now. I don't think he was envisioning to do that.

00;03;24;06 - 00;03;44;01

I think at the time he's like, hey, a broken something. I want to be fast. Let me just fix it and move on. And it's just I guess that's probably the best way to start. You know, you don't always have to have the answer. You don't always have to think. With the Indy mind or not, you know, I appreciate, you know, Seven Habits of Effective Leaders will tell you always think with the end in mind.

00;03;44;01 - 00;04;07;01

But sometimes the start doesn't have to be that that far fetched. So Speedmaster seems to take a lot of pride in the fact that it designs and manufactures over 25,000 car parts. Why is that kind of important to the company and maybe a source of pride for the business as well? So I guess at its core, when you get to a certain point, you know, the top end of town, this, you know, three major players, you know, which is holy, it'll work.

00;04;07;01 - 00;04;41;00

And speedmaster you try to scale, you try to be horizontal. So what happens is you try your best to start looking for companies to buy or just shortcuts in to achieve your goal of widening your, you know, your variety. So for us, we take a lot of pride in that. And that good thing is that we're still privately owned, so we take a lot of pride in making sure that everything we actually design test the manufacturing house is actually done by our specialized team and we're not looking for which is fine, but we're not looking to find growth hacks to, you know, acquire companies to grow quickly.

00;04;41;00 - 00;05;03;04

And then you're not sure the quality of the products. You may have some problems. Also, at the same time, you will you know, you could inherit some of their bad behaviors, too. So, you know, it's always been the founder's ethos, you know, to really be hands on to design tested manufacture most of those components. And it seems like it's kind of become increasingly rare for an automotive components company to design and make its own products.

00;05;03;07 - 00;05;28;21

Why is that? Is it just is it more cost effective to go other places? Typically, it's hard to do in-house. Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, touching on the scale portion, it's hard. The scale, you know, it's really difficult to produce, you know, that amount of SKUs in a short period of time to scale. I guess, you know, if you want to increase 50 or 100,000 SKUs, it's a lot it's a lot quicker and easier to just buy a brand and, you know, have their offering.

00;05;28;24 - 00;05;54;11

You know, we try to keep it in-house and push that ahead. And I guess that means in turn, you're not buying a company, you're investing in other people. They work for you or work, you know, directly for you or indirectly for you. So, you know, the industry becomes intertwined with Speedmaster a lot more as opposed to just, you know, buying and selling someone else's parts to solve to not to solve a problem, but to increase a product offering, if that makes sense.

00;05;54;13 - 00;06;12;20

And part of your mission is kind of to create products that, you know, I'm quoting your mission here, are inspired by the blend of old and new technology. How is that that idea of kind of blending old and new? How is that core to what Speedmaster is and how does that maybe help differentiate you from some of the other companies out there that make automotive parts?

00;06;12;23 - 00;06;31;12

Yeah, So exactly that, you know, the mission statement is a blend of old and new technology. So the probably the best way to explain it is we're an aftermarket automotive car component manufacturer. So we have to solve a problem. Like every good business, we have to solve a problem. Typically the problem is that people want to go faster or, you know, the engine or whatever it may be.

00;06;31;12 - 00;06;52;13

The specific component is, you know, under higher amount of stress. I mean, back in the day, engines, you would only make 25 horsepower. Now they're making 400 horsepower all the way up to a streak, you know, like a current model Mopar or, you know, like a Dodge Chrysler, Mopar Demon has almost a thousand horsepower. So those sorts of engines back in the day were racecar engines.

00;06;52;13 - 00;07;16;26

And now the cars that you buy off the shelf at your local Dodge dealer. So what happens is, you know, to solve a problem, you want to be profitable and you want to do it the quickest way possible. And typically the easiest way is just to solve the problem. And you design something that solves the problem. What we do is we actually try to solve a problem by incorporating the original view, look and feel of the item, which becomes timeless.

00;07;16;26 - 00;07;42;04

So I think Apple does it very well. If you have a look at a lot of the Apple products, if you go back in time, a lot of the look and feel, I think there was a brand, I forget what it's called, but they all you know, it's basically replicating 1960s and 70 year old products today. So they become timeless and Speedmaster’s aim on that front would be to create a timeless looking component, not one that's functional and highly profitable, if that makes sense, which makes it tough.

00;07;42;04 - 00;08;05;20

And that's what makes us different. You know, we're timeless. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. One more question kind of about your history as a as a brand. So this this company started as Peak Performance about 45 years ago, like we said, or almost 45 years ago. And it's now become a big global operation as we kind of think about how, you know, what started as a small storefront, almost 45 years ago turned into what it is today.

00;08;05;21 - 00;08;29;10

What are some kind of key moments you think, in the company's history that got it to where it is now? heaps. Heaps adversity for sure. You know, originally my dad was solving a problem of just making car components to solve small issues that he found. And, you know, he'd become a manufacturer back in the day. But one massive key turning point was, you know, my dad had created a part that just wasn't working.

00;08;29;12 - 00;08;49;27

And the typical thing of, you know, not asking for help, people these days are too scared to ask for help. My dad was completely the opposite. He went to America and was at the SEMA show in Las Vegas in November. Every year it's been around for, I think, 50 or 60 years, and he took one of his distributors, which was problematic at the time, and he couldn't get the phasing right.

00;08;49;29 - 00;09;02;20

So, you know, he took it to the show and he spoke to one of the guys there whose technician is like, Hey, I've got this problem. You know, he gave him the distributor and they later he came back and said, Hey, have solved the problem. This is all it is, the phasing out, you know, this is what it is.

00;09;02;20 - 00;09;15;23

And when the guy brought it back, it was really funny because he brought the item back and he brought this gentleman along. My dad had no idea who it was, and he started asking questions, you know, how many do you make? You know, like, how do you make them? All that stuff was very simple at the time.

00;09;15;24 - 00;09;31;04

Yeah, we make a lot. He's like, What do you mean, a lot? And he's like, we make 500 a year. It's very, very good item. We make him in Australia. We design, test and manufacture them in Australia. Very, very proud. The guy's like, okay, great. You know, would you, would you have a look to export them to America?

00;09;31;04 - 00;09;49;09

My dad was like, Yep, sure, of course, why not? So the next day the man came along and I think at the time, I mean, I forget what the company was called at the time. It was one of the largest distributors of automotive car parts at the time. He came along and said, I'd like to buy your capacity of 500 per year, if that's okay.

00;09;49;09 - 00;10;06;14

And my dad's like, wow, Yeah, of course, no problem. It is like, but I need that per month. So you know what my dad was doing in one year potentially, You know, he just got an order for 12 years or 12 months worth of orders. In one conversation. So on the back of just the most random experience of, Hey, I need help, how do I fix it?

00;10;06;17 - 00;10;24;18

People respect that and respect the fact that you're willing to make things better, willing to ask for help. And that was pretty much the start of what you now know is Speedmaster America. And how long ago was that? When did that happen? So I think it was probably close to 25 years ago. Okay, We've been here for now.

00;10;24;25 - 00;10;51;01

Again, just don't quote me on it. But around 22 years, that was almost close to 25 years ago. Yeah, believe it or not. So, Jason, you obviously have a long history of the business. You grew up around it. You today are CEO and have been for quite a while. But as you just kind of look at your personal time with the company from when you first got involved and maybe when you first kind of started to take a leadership role within the company to where it is today, how did those how do those two things compare?

00;10;51;01 - 00;11;11;17

How does the Speedmaster of today compare to the one that you remember from early adulthood, childhood, anything like that? Yeah, lots of changes. You know, definitely couple of things. Definitely keeping up with the times, as you should. And I think this one has some of my flair attached to it. I'm not saying that all the amazing things that Speedmaster have done are my doing.

00;11;11;17 - 00;11;26;16

I'm saying that a lot of things that, you know, a lot of the direction I'd like for the company of the brand to go towards, you know, heavily influenced by myself, like, for example, you know, I'm a tech geek, I think would touch on that a little bit later. I'm a tech geek. You know, I built computers when I was a kid.

00;11;26;20 - 00;11;48;02

All my life I've been breaking those code in games and trying to hack computer games and whatnot, building computers. So always have had a tech savvy background. So applying that sort of tech savviness to Speedmaster, it was definitely one of the core fundamentals at moving forward for sure. And a key part of kind of keeping up with the times, like you said as well.

00;11;48;02 - 00;12;13;04

So makes sense. Yeah. So is this a company that kind of always saw value in technology and invested in kind of new and better technology as it became available? Or would you say that there was more of a shift when, when you came into to more of a leadership position? So definitely more of a shift. The business was heavily infatuated with building amazing car parts, building awesome car parts and whatever technology was required to do.

00;12;13;04 - 00;12;40;22

So you're talking, you know, whether it be manufacturing automation, whether it be the latest a machine. So, you know, number one priority on a technology front would have always been around the product. So there's at least three pillars to Speedmaster: our people, our products, and our approach. And I think the biggest one that I've impacted is the approach and the influence through technology would have been definitely, you know, heavily influenced bymyself, for sure.

00;12;40;24 - 00;12;58;11

You know, the efficiency and the automation that Speedmaster adheres to today on a global scale is, you know, almost second to none. Back then it was, you know, just business basics. You know, you sell an item, you invoice an item, you get paid for an item. You know, it's just business basics, but it's not like that today.

00;12;58;11 - 00;13;15;22

And definitely, you know, on the back of my heavy influence, also, my brother, who was part of the business for about six years and a lot of drastic, drastic changes happened. You know, on the back of his help as well. You were on SAP Business One, a solution probably a lot of people listening to this are familiar with.

00;13;15;24 - 00;13;31;28

I guess, first off, kind of how long did you use that software for and where did you feel like it really fell short in terms of supporting the business? Yeah. So at the time we were looking at different solutions. We weren't too sure about, you know, the power or the ability of cloud computing at the time was 2012/2013.

00;13;31;28 - 00;13;50;15

I mean, cloud computing wasn't new. It was old just at the time. It all thought weird that, you know, your whole infrastructure could come to a grinding halt if you lost your Internet connection. You know, I mean, Internet is not a new thing. So shouldn't have been to two things. But it was I mean, people were people were people were skeptical of the cloud for a long time.

00;13;50;16 - 00;14;16;06

So. Yeah. And so for that reason, you know, we moved to SAP, which is an on premise solution. It was tough. I mean, that's why I'm so passionate about sharing the NetSuite/Oracle messaging, because we've had such a great, great run with that. SAP, it was daunting. It took, you know, 18 months to understand our needs to roll out the case of the Speedmaster case or project, I guess.

00;14;16;12 - 00;14;37;11

And it was I mean, we'll touch on it probably later, I'm sure, with any of the other questions. But it was a flat system. It was a local server. Every time we would increase every, you know, every year would have to increase the server, increase the hard drive. We went from one server to two servers, two, three, three servers in Sydney, three servers in L.A. It was just becoming a nightmare for sure.

00;14;37;11 - 00;15;04;18

And this was you're talking only two years into the, you know, two years into it. So we're not talking ten years. You're talking together from one server to three. You know, we had to become experts in RAID and other technologies. boy. I think that that paints a good picture. I mean, the fact that it was only a couple of years before you were running into serious problems in terms of its ability to scale with the business you know, maybe says a lot and maybe is that would you say that's part of what convinced you that maybe the cloud is the way to go?

00;15;04;18 - 00;15;22;12

Because we're going to get that that scalability that we clearly need? We move to the cloud solution because Oracle NetSuite was the solution for us and it happened to be on the cloud. If I guess if NetSuite was an on premise solution, yeah, I think we would have run into the same problems. NetSuite, just obviously have got it right.

00;15;22;12 - 00;15;40;03

So potentially that's probably why they're in the cloud. I'm not sure, but I can guarantee you while I can't guarantee that NetSuite Oracle would have got it right, but they have and we only move to the cloud because of that fact. Was it a struggle in particular to manage international operations on Business One, because I think at that point you were already becoming or were a global company, right?

00;15;40;03 - 00;16;02;24

Was that a particular pain point? For sure, for sure. You know, the original solution that was rolled out was definitely a pain point. It was a local solution for Australia, a local solution for America. And then like potentially running like a pseudo hierarchy over the twowe didn't even get to touch on, you know, on the Asian manufacturing portion of it and was just better understanding that.

00;16;02;24 - 00;16;17;18

And even within two years or 2 to 3 years, we still hadn't had that pseudo global connection. So yeah, it was impossible because there was still lot to localize solutions. And so you start your search for a new ERP system, you realized it's time for a change. How did NetSuite kind of get on your radar, first of all?

00;16;17;23 - 00;16;53;12

Yes. So we sat down and we had a meeting and we're coming up to a three year period for SAP. It was me, our CMTO, chief marketing technology officer, and one of our auditors. Three of us sat down, had lunch one day, and we discussed, you know, the way that SAP was working and, you know, remote desktop being into a local L.A. connection to talk, to work on a local solution, you know, things like just adding a product in both locations meant you had to update all the item information on one location locally and then remote desktop to another location and then update all the same data.

00;16;53;12 - 00;17;12;13

And obviously had the lag and all the delay of the from stop. So it was impossible even just to create products, you know, take half an hour, an hour to create one product. And so you know, these are some of the things that we're discussing. And we were three years into SAP or verging on, you know, renewal or, you know, taking on another three years.

00;17;12;13 - 00;17;28;15

Still, I think that's typically, you know, how people go along with their and well, like, what do we do? Do we stick to this, you know? And at the time it was either we cut our losses and move on or we apply another three years. And I got to be honest with it was touch and go. We've had just finished investing a lot of money.

00;17;28;15 - 00;17;51;00

We hadn't seen any return, any return at all from this implementation. So to kind of ask for more budget from the company, imagine like we've just raised, God knows how much money to roll out this solution and then to go ahead and say that we are moving to a different solution after three years and then asking to raise, I don't know, the same amount more or less would have been scary, but that was a decision we made.

00;17;51;00 - 00;18;09;29

So when you to answer your question specifically how we came across it, well, our CMTO started doing his homework. He's like, Let me find an alternative solution. Let me see what I can find. And he did. And how did you decide that NetSuite was the right system for you? I'll jump on the back of our founder and instill, you know, some faith and trust in the people who made those decision.

00;18;09;29 - 00;18;29;05

So Eric and Dave at the time did some homework searching around. You know, we were looking at different solutions. SAP, SAP Hana, I think it was at the time of Demandware, which is I'm not sure if that's still around. Magento was also an option who were trying to play with the solution of, hey, we're a integrated ERP, not ERP.

00;18;29;05 - 00;18;45;11

But you know, they were trying to be a PIM and a few other different things. Sure. And so they had basically done their homework and said, hey, I think this is the one that we need to we need to go for at a closer look. And yeah, we made the right choice. So you went live with NetSuite back in 2017, six years ago now.

00;18;45;11 - 00;19;05;24

As the CEO, what were some of the biggest immediate benefits that you noticed? so I'm going to put it out there for you today. And I want to patent the word for all future Oracle NetSuite conversations. NetSuite is a living, breathing system. And I'm going to obvi you've heard it here today. We're going to we're going to we're going to trademark that term because it is true.

00;19;05;24 - 00;19;25;22

It's a living, breathing system. So we say benefits. Let's just go back to that terminology. So back in the day, you know, you would update an item whether it be a price or a weightor dimension or something. It would be flat, it would update the price or say, for example, even just like an item at its basics, an item, you know, today arrives and used to cost $5.

00;19;25;23 - 00;19;39;07

Now it costs $6. NetSuite has the ability to be living and breathing. And you can create, you know, systems and infrastructure or, you know, to actually, you know, have a minimum markup. You know, like if it cost $5, it has to go to ten. If it cost 6, it has to go to 11 and so on and so forth.

00;19;39;13 - 00;20;05;02

It's a living, breathing system. SAP was, I mean, I'm not I'm not sure if I'm allowed to compare the two, but I will. Now, you are. You know, SAP at the time was you know, it was just a dead system update of data point and it would be dead, dead in the water. And you'd have to go along and try and find out which jails it was connected to, which accounts, which and just go through and really just update that accordingly across the entire platform.

00;20;05;02 - 00;20;27;13

And it was, it was disaster. You know, now, I mean, you update an item, for example, if you update an item, whether it be a title or description or a weight, let's just talk about price update a price right now and it'll go live, not only in Australia, it would go live globally within the moment I save, the price of that item will be saved and will be live globally.

00;20;27;15 - 00;20;44;14

It'll then be live on our website. It'll be live on all our marketplaces. It will be live on all our resellers in a heartbeat. It goes live worldwide. I mean, is that mad? And what kind of business impact does that make? Does it mean less staff? Does it just mean you're spending less time on the stuff and your colleagues are spending less time on stuff?

00;20;44;14 - 00;21;03;19

What's the business impact of, you know, you update something in one place and it's good to go. It's updated everywhere. The impact is so monumental and it can only be explained in micro increments. It's like saying, you know, you look at a beach and you've got, you know, a kilometer of sand. But I'm going to explain to you what makes that beach.

00;21;03;19 - 00;21;28;02

And it's a grain by grain. Yeah. And that's what that's what it does. So what do I start? Well, okay, I go ahead and change a price on an item today from 50 to $100. That thing goes live across the world in a heartbeat. Then that means that as a brand, we have total transparency in ownership of our pricing, of our brand, of our item.

00;21;28;02 - 00;21;50;17

So then you're removing poor customer service, poor brand perception. Can you imagine if Apple for tomorrow decides to increase the cost of their iPhone from $1,000 to 1100 dollars and it's only increased on their website, but yet Best Buy and all the other people don't update their price. And then there's all these discrepancies and then all of a sudden you've got, you know, your brand credibility goes down.

00;21;50;22 - 00;22;27;17

It's just a monumental wave of issues that it causes. How did six out of the top seven best performing tech stocks gain visibility and control over financials, inventory planning and budgeting with NetSuite by Oracle? Answer: At NetSuite.com/code. NetSuite.com/code. Jason What types of insights and kind of reports did you get with NetSuite that you just didn't have before you couldn't get before? Back to the one liner of it being a living, breathing system.

00;22;27;20 - 00;22;43;26

Just everything, you know, like just, just well, first things first. As you know, you know, SAP and other solutions have reporting. So there's you know, reports are reports. I guess the difference is, is that these reports, you have a level of trust, right? You can actually trust them. And I'm not saying you can't trust the ones on SAP, but you're just not sure if a jail is updated.

00;22;43;26 - 00;23;20;14

You're not sure like, you know, when you run a P&L report today, it will be with whatever changes happened today, you know, you don't have to run anything in the background to confirm or check. It's all living, breathing, It's right there. And that kind of builds trust across all of the or the entire solution. But with the reporting, it being living and breathing, you know, you know, again, I think I've I think I've explained it in the past where, you know what, you watched a keynote speaker about somebody and they'll just talking about the impact of having data at your fingertips and that transparency, you know, back in the day, businesses would report on a

00;23;20;14 - 00;23;40;19

12 month period, you know, and then reporting on a 12 month period was too long because, you know, you can't steer the ship in the right direction. It's too long. Then it became quarterly because that's, you know, the best that we could crunch data quarterly, then turn into monthly, monthly, turn into weekly and weekly, then daily, daily, then hourly and now real time.

00;23;40;19 - 00;24;04;22

And NetSuite is at real time. So the reporting is real time. And I think another analogy that's pretty cool was, you know, if someone if they knew, I think it was like something like if an airplane leaves from L.A. So imagine this. You get in a flight again, don't quote me on it, but I'm pretty sure it's right if you get on a plane in L.A. and it's heading to New York, which is just right across the country, you know, straight across country.

00;24;04;22 - 00;24;28;11

And I think they'll saying if it's one degree out or two degrees out, it'll end up in Hawaii. It was something ridiculous. So an airplane, for example, at that point is not going to wait to get to Hawaii and say, wait something's wrong, It'll realize it's two degrees or one degree out after, I don't know, half an hour, 15 minutes, depending on, you know, depending on the flight plan and adjust and move to, you know, move forward towards New York.

00;24;28;11 - 00;24;48;22

And I think when we talk about reporting, it's a similar situation. Everyone can report. The question is, can you report on a real time basis to make those course corrections, you know, in real time. And that's the secret. You know, often people get up there and talk about those course corrections in real time, and that's one of the biggest but not one of the biggest is many, many factors that make Oracle an excellent and amazing solution.

00;24;48;22 - 00;25;07;08

But there’s reporting and there’s reporting, I guess so. Yeah. And can you paint the picture at all about how that reporting helps you make better business decisions or any examples or kind of use cases come to mind where you can take that information and apply it to help the business be more profitable, make the right decision for the future, whatever it might be.

00;25;07;11 - 00;25;27;05

Yeah, sure. So multiple, multiple, multiple ways. I mean, one of them would be every almost every company wants to minimize stock on the shelf, you know, So the better the data is, the more, you know, effective decision making you can make. So, for example, as a company that we hope customers will always try to ask for Speedmaster first.

00;25;27;05 - 00;25;42;19

But sometimes if you don't have a Speedmaster product, they may need it. They go and buy it somewhere else. Part of that philosophy is for us to make sure that we have the item on the shelf whenever the customer needs it. But it's also not a not a very healthy position to be in too. If you're overstocking too much on the shelf too, because that's not healthy for cash flow.

00;25;42;19 - 00;26;03;11

So you could have stock tied up on the shelf for 12 months. That 12 months slows down growth in a different department or a different product or a different, you know, R&D, That money is effectively taking away from somewhere else. So to be better at what we do, you know, with real time data, we're able to have an inventory turns of say, two or three times a year, which is an industry standard, you know, very, very high industry standard.

00;26;03;11 - 00;26;26;04

So that allows you to then have a faster turnover, which means, you know, you're not investing in unnecessary stock, which means you've got access to higher amount of cash flow and that gives you the ability to grow without having to borrow or slow down, you know, So just on that alone, just the ability to have and the super effective cash flow is second to none for especially private businesses.

00;26;26;04 - 00;26;50;09

And, you know, absolutely. Well, you know, we can only spend what we earn. It's like a dollar. I spend a dollar. I don't have the luxury of being a public company work and make one and spend 20. Yeah. Or just someone else's money, right? Yeah. You don't have a venture capitalist breathing down your neck. Yes, yes, yes. So digging a little bit into some specific NetSuite modules, I'll start with NetSuite OneWorld, which Speedmaster actually used from from day one.

00;26;50;11 - 00;27;15;27

How did that just simplify everything that goes into running a business that goes across Australia, the U.S. as well as China? Sure. So, I mean, OneWorld centralizes everything, adds transparency. Again, we just use that simple analogy of if an item gets changed or updated or modified in one location, it's instantly modified across the world. We have our research and development team in Australia who make a lot of changes every day.

00;27;16;03 - 00;27;30;28

They're making changes to items. So for example, just a simple bill of material where they go ahead and say, You know what, we're going to change this bill of material to a different component or a different part. We don't have to then go along and do a traditional method of, you know, printing bill materials, putting it on the wall, educating people of what's in them.

00;27;31;01 - 00;27;47;27

You know, the R&D team have made a decision of what's going to what that below material is going to look like moving forward to make a change to the system. The moment that's live, the next day that item gets pulled, it will have the new components in and it really doesn't. You know, we don't have to bridge the gap of communication.

00;27;47;27 - 00;28;10;27

It's done. It's what it's need needs to be. So it even just removes all those legacy, you know, versions of communication that aren't really unnecessary. You talked a little bit there about, you know, how NetSuite plays a role in one part of your manufacturing with the bill of materials. But could you just kind of explain how Speedmaster uses NetSuite to help manage its manufacturing and supply chain?

00;28;10;29 - 00;28;29;04

Sure, sure. So, I mean, again, it's a living, breathing system. So, you know, we set what we thought was minimum maximums at the time and then the system continues to, you know, get smarter and smarter and, you know, understand the forecasting of what's coming in, what's going out, when it's going to arrive, when it's not. And it continues to adjust in real time.

00;28;29;04 - 00;28;50;17

That airplane that could go to Hawaii, we could be that a component, that could be coming, you know, two weeks late or a month later or two months too early. It's adjusting that in real time. So those decisions again, made in real time. And it helps ensure that we either have the item on the shelf or not too much of it.

00;28;50;20 - 00;29;11;00

You know, we use WMS straight out of the out of the box and we've won best in class many awards for the way we use that solution in our facility because it can be that way. And to give an example, you know, if you were to come and see it firsthand, you're more than welcome to. But the human, the maximum human handling time of any parcel is 10 seconds.

00;29;11;00 - 00;29;32;03

That's human handling time. And for clicks of a button. So literally, you know, someone goes to a shelf, clicks for buttons. I think they're scanning the location twice the item twice, and it goes on a conveyor and it's done. And literally after four clicks of a button and a maximum handling time of 10 seconds, that item is on its way to you or me or wherever may be.

00;29;32;03 - 00;29;58;27

You know, I mean, obviously you should go and buy some parts of this conversation just to test it. But yeah, yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. And did you have any system in place before the WMS or is it really something that that helped you drive that efficiency to the level where it is now? Yeah. No, nothing. You know we, it was all paper based, you know, and again so SAP didn't have a native WMS, you know, it was probably a plug in, it was probably a third party.

00;29;58;29 - 00;30;30;12

There is amazing WNS solutions out there. I mean yeah there is amazing WMS solutions out there. But then to become a again a professional in connecting that solution, finding a solution, you know, engaging in a third party, adding another layer of connectivity, you know, and more silos. So, you know, some people use this solution, some people use that, different logins. And then NetSuite Inventory Management, obviously another piece of the equation, use your how does it help you track and manage the inventory for 150,000 plus SKUs that you sell?

00;30;30;15 - 00;31;01;16

It's nonexistent. I don't yeah, it's nonexistent. What used to happen in a month to two months of crunching data with Excel spreadsheets we're anti-Excel, we're Mac users and NetSuite only users. So we try to avoid Excel as much as we can. I mean, it's a you know, obviously it's a very powerful tool, but we want to centralize everything in NetSuite so yeah, it's basically dropped what used to take again, another external silo, another external team of two who would crunch the data, double check, triple check, you know, make sure that the forecasting was right all that.

00;31;01;16 - 00;31;21;13

Now is now done real time. And via the suggestion of the system, we still run reports just to double check to make sure that something is not missing or humans always know better. So we go back and double check something. But, you know, I don't think I don't think we've ever found a discrepancy to date. So what used to happen in days and months now happens in real time, actually.

00;31;21;13 - 00;31;39;00

So seconds I'll even put a time on it happens in seconds, because just to get your head around a time number, because it's happening real time. It seems like you're a big believer in continuing to add to the Suite versus going and trying to find external solutions. You know, an external WMS, external manufacturing system, whatever. Why is that?

00;31;39;00 - 00;32;03;09

Like what value do you see and continuing to add to NetSuite rather than going in looking for other solutions that might be great but aren't part of the Suite? I mean, you only know until you try. Silos are tough to manage. You know, you have any external software by default overnight, you're going to need a in-house or consultant to manage those two connections.

00;32;03;13 - 00;32;19;22

And just simple answers like, you know, like, like, for example, I guess let me give you a prime example. If you have a external WMS, who who's who in the company creates the logins, the usernames and passwords? How does all that work? You know, where does it come from? What does it go? Who who assigns the licenses?

00;32;20;00 - 00;32;38;12

Are those licenses paid? I mean, just simple things like which you don't even think about. Like, is that license that's in NetSuite because obviously that's which ERP. It's also important HR module. So you're hiring this person. You put that information in there. Have they got the right license for the WMS? No, that's a different license.

00;32;38;12 - 00;32;57;16

Someone else has to log in. So is that a HR job? Is it? Is it? Should human resources align that log in? Does the IT team, you know, connect that log in or, you know, sign on the right rules and responsibilities in a WMS? Yes. So we don't have that problem in NetSuite. We have all the rules responsibilities.

00;32;57;18 - 00;33;15;09

You know the moment you onboard a new staff member you onboard them, you assign them their role, whether it be a warehouse manager, whether it be a picker or a packer or a specialist. You know, we've got a number of different roles that we've created. And the moment that the HR team put an ad out for that position, it's assigned to a role.

00;33;15;11 - 00;33;37;18

That person starts, they get onboarded and by default they know the role and the responsibility and they all live all in one go, you know. So just imagine that just even the simplest, the little stuff, it adds up. Yeah, yeah. Let alone the big stuff. If something goes severely wrong. Then NetSuite SuiteCommerce Advanced. I also wanted to touch on I think you've touched a little bit about e-commerce and how NetSuite

00;33;37;18 - 00;34;02;17

helps there. But how important is e-commerce to the business, to Speedmaster? You know, I used to sell computers in back in 1999, I mean, of 16 years old, selling computers online. So e-commerce is at my core. One of the things, you know, I loved and when you say how important is it to Speedmaster? I guess the only way I can answer that is it's been important to me, you know, since I was a kid.

00;34;02;19 - 00;34;27;01

And while e-commerce was a competitive advantage, which it was for a long time, it was very important. Today, I daresay, you know, e-commerce is co-exist with the rest of the company. Like e-commerce has become like everyone needs an accountant, everyone needs HR, everyone needs 401k. So e-commerce has been is now a core fundamental or core fundamental of a business.

00;34;27;01 - 00;34;48;08

So it's not a competitive advantage anymore. But to you, to your point, how important it is in Speedmaster, it's been a core fundamental to me forever. Would it be, you know, over 25 years at least? So that being said, we were early adopters. Being an early adopter, we, you know, we had had a lot of success in e-commerce and for that reason we want to continue that success.

00;34;48;08 - 00;35;10;20

So we want to continue to showcase that we're at the forefront of technology because we always have been. It'd be pretty lame or crap to be this front runner, early adopter, and then all of a sudden just get chewed up by everyone else. And then just go, yeah, yeah, they, they just, they just do e-commerce. Yeah. So is it a channel where you still generate a lot of sales and, and also that you feel like drives a lot of awareness for the brand?

00;35;10;22 - 00;35;36;29

100%. So much so that we actually take pride in the way we have been able to amalgamate bricks and mortar into the e-commerce environment. You know we have an amazing loyalty program which we shared on stage with the founder at SuiteWorld in Australia, in which we still push traditional offline customers who normally would pick up the phone to go on our website and actually make that purchase.

00;35;36;29 - 00;36;11;23

So, you know, we completely digitize that offering. So it's a huge part of what we do. And second to that, why it's so important is because, you know, with a massive consumer base that we have, we can't have those 1 to 1 interactions. It's impossible to have, you know, say, for example, we've got, you know, 500,000 clients. I can't have 500,000 conversations that every time we bring out a new product, it's very important to the fundamentals of Speedmaster because the only way to continue to share our messaging, it's the only way to continue to share who we are, what we're doing, where we're going.

00;36;11;25 - 00;36;33;17

And it shortcuts all that ability. And looking at the product specifically, you had Magento before, which is now called Adobe Commerce after they were acquired a couple of years back. But why did you decide to move from Magento to SuiteCommerce? Advanced? So step one is to invest in our partnerships. The first step is always to offer or to see if there's an offer with, you know, the native solution.

00;36;33;19 - 00;36;59;27

In this situation being Oracle NetSuite SuiteCommerce Advanced. So we did go on that path that was that would always be our preferred choice. So you might argue it's not the best choice because we have a bias, you know in in something that's native. But ironically it, it ends up being when we discuss it and we can talk about what makes it good and bad actually becomes a no brainer. It’s less of a bias opinion and actually more of a no brainer.

00;36;59;29 - 00;37;21;06

And we did have yes, you're right. We did move from Magento to SuiteCommerce Advanced. The images, data and everything is coming from the ERP. So if I update an image on NetSuite, the up side of it, if I put in an image, the title description it because it's that center of truth within the click of the save button, it's now live on our website.

00;37;21;06 - 00;37;39;22

It's live worldwide. It's one center of truth. Last thing I'll ask you about terms of NetSuite products is the NetSuite Connector, which I think is a more recent addition for you guys. And you use it for eBay and Amazon, where you also sell your products. How does it kind of help you manage, you know, sales through those channels?

00;37;39;24 - 00;37;58;12

How does it work? Again, it just does it just gets the job done right? So it's there. It's there, but it's not and it's there, it's not. So we say, you know, we just make we opt to sell on eBay and. The item that you nurture in maintaining NetSuite is now on eBay. What does that tell you?

00;37;58;19 - 00;38;21;01

You know, the item that you want, the item you can maintain and nurture and you want it on Amazon goes to Amazon, you select it, you go through and tell it in NetSuite, which categories and so on. And so if you wanted to go into and it gets there, there's none of this sending data to a third party cloud solution, which is also another PIM because technically it has to be a PIM, it stores all that data.

00;38;21;03 - 00;38;54;24

Then this by the way, then there's some boy, don't even get me into this conversation. By the way, then you've got inventory issues. The other thing is, is that you have got real time inventory issues now. Now I'm gonna I'm going a tangent on that Magento situation. You fired up. Yeah. Got me fired up. I mean, you know, there's also the inventory change and so, you know, if you sell something on your website, on NetSuite, it's gone you know with silos you're then having to send FTP feeds or, you know, trying your best to have the data.

00;38;54;27 - 00;39;17;20

And a lot of these companies who create these connectors don't want data flowing in real time because it's a massive, you know, undertaking. So they want a five minute window or a two minute window or a ten minute window. I mean, you know, I think we you know, we saw five or 6 million items last year. We sell an item one item in less than a minute, every minute.

00;39;17;21 - 00;39;35;07

Right. So, you know, if that data is flowing less, you know, not real time, you're now selling items that aren't in stock. And can you imagine the customer service and complaints and all the rest? So back to the connector on the on the other side, the Ssme thing. You don't have a silo, you don't have a third party cloud solution.

00;39;35;10 - 00;39;55;10

It you literally say, hey, this is what's selling. And it's live, it's connected, it's instant. You don't maintain the silo and it's amazing. And then as we start to wrap up here, first, kind of want to ask what does the future look like for Speedmasters’ business? Do you have any key goals? And what's kind of your strategy for maybe reaching some of those goals?

00;39;55;12 - 00;40;22;10

Two things. You know, we continue to be retail ready, so we signed AutoZone a little while back. We’re now live you're talking 7000 stores across three countries or three continents, actually, I think as well. So 7000 stores. And what that means is the scale of that. They currently offer 3000 of our items which are related to more related to their demographic, which has over 2 million data points of fitment data.

00;40;22;10 - 00;40;42;21

So it fits me, make and model. So the aim would be to continue to grow that portion of the business, you know, going into Reilly’s and so on and so forth and all the other major manufacturers, along with everything else that we've got going on. So continuing that growth and those relationships which are, you know, one to many are based upon data, it's all data driven.

00;40;42;21 - 00;41;03;18

It's got nothing to do with automotive anymore at that point. It's just juvenile data. So as we continue to grow at that retail scale, you know, we have to have tons and tons of fitment data. So having the ability to be able to have all that data in NetSuite and not worry about buying another server and adding a rate three, four I don't know what they're up to now is important.

00;41;03;18 - 00;41;30;03

So that's definitely step one, you know, continually adding and growing the data set in the system and also potentially looking at, you know, opening up a second, third and fourth facility closer to the East Coast, you know, where 70% of our stuff is shipped. And I've used this in one of my videos as well, which is awesome, because if we did decide to open up a, you know, a third or fourth facility in a different location, we can do it with an Internet connection and a laptop because that's all.

00;41;30;03 - 00;41;48;12

Yeah, Yeah, it's pretty mental. Yeah, it is wild. Something I just thought about as we were sitting here. You sell a lot of parts for vintage cars. But what's vintage is always changing, right as time goes on. Is that a challenge in the sense of you're constantly trying to source make design parts for, for new cars each year?

00;41;48;12 - 00;42;09;20

Or maybe even more frequently than that. Sure. So, yeah, every year that goes by and another one, it becomes vintage. The good thing about that is, is that the manufacturers, GM, Ford, Chrysler, Dodge, they create a window of an engine that, you know, span sometimes ten years, sometimes 20, 30, 40. Ironically, you know, one engine almost went for 30 or 40 years.

00;42;09;20 - 00;42;27;01

And then within a ten year period, they build three or four of them. So as that continues to grow and they become vintage, we'll continue to build those components and car parts to solve those problems. You know, But for us, I think, you know, we've carved out the niche portion of what we want. You know, most of these cars will be weekend cars.

00;42;27;01 - 00;42;51;16

You know, they'll be weekend cars, ones that they drive on a Saturday and Sunday. As beautiful as nitrogen and electric technology continues to come along, which is it's beautiful. You know, it's really nice. It's great. You know on multiple factors. So as that continues, you know, I think there'll be a phase of like a window where you probably get like a ten year window where the engines will kind of won't become vintage and people will just continue to grow through that period.

00;42;51;16 - 00;43;10;03

So, you know, up to like a 99 years or so. So. All right, Jason, and let's wrap up with this. So you're a CEO if you're talking to another CEO of a kind of similar company in the sense that similar size, you guys sell products, how would you make the case for why they should consider investing in NetSuite?

00;43;10;05 - 00;43;29;03

Yeah, a tough one. First is first, you know, you'd have to buy me a coffee, you know, if you know, so we can chat about it for sure. Hope it was done over coffee. I’m not a big beer drinker, but one thing I can definitely tell you is that the heart to heart that I would have is all businesses require human and technology capital.

00;43;29;05 - 00;43;53;08

One thing's for sure is I can help them find the human capital as that's tough. Even I can't solve that problem for myself. But one thing I'm sure of, NetSuite is the answer to their technology needs. And I can be pretty blunt when I say that you'd be very hard pressed to find something compares. So again, every business needs two things human capital, technology capital.

00;43;53;08 - 00;44;14;21

And you'd be hard pressed to find something that beats the technology portion that NetSuite has to offer for sure. Awesome was great having you on, Jason and I appreciate the time. Anytime, thank you. In that was quite the endorsement for NetSuite Jason offered at the end there but I think it speaks to the system's flexibility and how it can make a real difference for a number of different businesses.

00;44;14;24 - 00;44;32;17

Speedmaster is such an impressive company when you look at the volume of business they're doing and the efficiency of their operations. And it's awesome to hear more about the role NetSuite has played in that journey. I want to thank Jason for joining us on this episode of the podcast. I also want to thank our editing crew at Oracle and, as always, all of you, for tuning in.

00;44;32;20 - 00;44;52;24

If you want more episodes like this one, make sure you subscribe to our channel and give us a rating interview. Thanks so much and talk soon. You just listen to the NetSuite Podcast. Be sure to tune in every week with more NetSuite developments, stories, and insights into the benefits of one integrated system to help you run your business.