Star Linen UK provides fine linen, bedding and bedroom products to the hospitality and mid-market hotel sectors. Part of a US company that has been in business since 1987, Star Linen was set up in the UK by an experienced management team and opened for business in May 2017.
A new UK startup
As a new business in the UK, with no historical sales or customer data, the team was able to set up all the required systems before the company started trading.
Star Linen evaluated a number of systems and suppliers to find a system that operated smoothly and efficiently. Explains Bob Jones, Financial Director of Star Linen, “We especially wanted to be able to integrate the financial system with customer relationship management (CRM) functionality, so that everyone in sales and finance could use the same programme and access all the same information.”
Handling Star Linen’s requirements at launch and in the future
After much research, and strong recommendation from Balloon One, including a comprehensive demonstration, Star Linen settled on NetSuite as the best fit for its needs.
Reveals Jones, “Being a new business gave us the luxury of being able to adapt our processes to fit those required within the standard installation of NetSuite – rather than having to heavily tailor the software to any existing processes.”
The cloud basis of NetSuite means that the system can grow as the company expands and develops in the UK. Star Linen can scale up its business, assured in the knowledge that NetSuite will be able to grow accordingly, as it can fully meet the needs of companies of any size.
Recounts Jones of the supplier selection process, “Balloon One was the chosen provider thanks to their experience of NetSuite and, as specialists in the wholesale distribution industry, they had undertaken similar implementations to ours in the past.”
A speedy implementation
Over a four-month period, Balloon One implemented NetSuite, plus all of the software’s distribution modules that deal with stock control, CRM/service, telesales and e-commerce.
NetSuite was a solution that Star Linen felt could help it move forwards. And a major plus was that, with NetSuite fully hosting the solution, all back-ups and upgrades were completely handled by NetSuite.
Comments Jones, “Another major benefit of NetSuite was that it allowed us to set-up our own website, with no need for any complicated integrations. Our web developers didn’t require any prior experience with NetSuite to set it all up; it was all done very simply within the NetSuite platform.” NetSuite allows Star Linen to see what their logged-in users have viewed, which helps with sales and with evaluating and understanding customer needs and behaviour.
One system to run the entire company
Balloon One provided extensive team training before the system went live, to ensure that Star Linen’s 14 users were confident and proficient in using the platform.
But the company is not intent on standing still and wants to continue to invest in NetSuite as it evolves. Elaborates Jones, “Once we have more data in the system, we want to look at implementing the demand planning module, which will improve our sales forecasting. It will use our order history to project future demand and calculate supply plans, even automatically generating purchase orders if we wish.”
[blockquote text=”We have a system that we’re very happy with. Our parent company has been using a different ERP system and they have been so impressed with NetSuite that they are looking to implement it for themselves.
With better access to the data that informs their decision-making process, and an excellent level of efficiency thanks to only needing to enter data into one system, NetSuite is helping Star Linen as it grows in the UK. With a fully-integrated system that handles the ecommerce, CRM, finance and accounting, Star Linen has been able to operate effectively right from its very inception in the UK.
Concludes Jones, “We have a system that we’re very happy with. Our parent company has been using a different ERP system and they have been so impressed with NetSuite that they are looking to implement it for themselves.”
If you would like to learn more about NetSuite as detailed in this Star Linen case study, please call us for a free demonstration on 020 8819 9071 or contact us using the website form.