This emissions testing company is committed to delivering safe, reliable, and regulatory-compliant emissions testing. It serves customers worldwide in the power, chemical, and automotive industries. The goal is to help companies grow strategically and sustainably by helping them follow government standards and guidelines.
People, processes, and technology are three key components that determine the success of an M&A transaction. Failure to keep a close eye on either of these areas can lead to poor business performance and inefficiencies.
Technology and processes are the two areas that slipped through the cracks after this emissions testing company underwent a recent M&A transaction. Instead of operating with one enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, the company had two — creating duplicate work that impacted productivity and real-time visibility into ongoing projects.
After several months of operating in two systems, the company decided to consolidate all of its accounting processes and workflows under one platform. Market research was conducted to identify the best solution to support business needs.
Once the company carefully reviewed each solution, it landed on NetSuite. This cloud-based solution enables companies to manage all key business and financial processes under one platform. More importantly, it had all the customization features the company needed to design a one-of-a-kind solution for its business.
But the company had a problem. It didn’t have someone in-house that could lead an organization wide initiative of this magnitude. The company realized it would need the help of a certified NetSuite expert to pull it off.
Due to the complexity of the implementations, it was critical for the company to find an independent NetSuite consultant with at least six years of experience. After researching where to find the best independent experts with its criteria, the company came across Graphite.
Its caliber of talent and ease of finding and onboarding independent talent made Graphite an easy choice for getting access to the NetSuite candidate the company needed. So it engaged an account executive (AE) on the platform to get the project started.
The expert that would ultimately be onboarded would need to have experience in building custom solutions for user requirements, profiles, and more.
Using that description, the AE identified 75 candidates on the platform. Digging deeper, the AE then narrowed down the list to three experts that best fit the criteria.
After reviewing all three candidates and interviewing them over the Graphite platform, the company decided to onboard a NetSuite expert with 20 years of experience. The fact that the expert had worked at NetSuite itself was a huge selling point.
There are three phases to a NetSuite implementation project: configuration/design, validation/ testing, and go-live support. To arrive at the right configuration, the expert traveled to the company’s on-site location to discuss what their instance of NetSuite would look like.
Together the expert and the company discussed the requirements of the base configuration in addition to specific workflows like billing, project management, and more that would need to be brought into the NetSuite environment.
With the information on hand, the expert set out to build the base configuration. This approach would allow them to test out the configurations in a safe environment without impacting the business’s current ERP ecosystem. After testing the base configuration and getting the green light from the company, the expert kicked off the second phase of the project.
The expert provided the NetSuite requirements to the execution team to initiate the transition of the two legacy ERP systems into the new one. Once this phase was complete, the expert initiated the go-live phase — handling any issues that cropped up post-launch.
Graphite’s customer success team conducted multiple meetings with the expert and company at key milestones of the project to ensure it was going smoothly. Both the company and the expert enjoyed interacting via the platform, the ease of invoicing and payment, and the frequent communication from the Graphite team.
