Tree of Life was after a progressive platform that integrated the front- and back-end of the organisation and its business functions
What does operations liberation mean?
Business management in the cloud. Take your operations to the cloud to liberate your business from the limitations, cost, and complexity of traditional software solutions.Today’s fast-changing markets demand innovation from all areas of your business. Too often, the complex systems which run your operating processes are designed and built for last century’s problems - at a high cost to business performance.Operations Liberation is about rapidly delivering a single business cloud for accounting, distribution, e-commerce and customer management. By using one consolidated system, you can enable your workforce to innovate and respond to market conditions in real-time. Operations becomes a competitive advantage.
Customer
Tree of Life was created in the late 1960’s, following a spiritual journey to India by owners John and Wendy Borthwick. Inspired and mesmerised by the culture, they came back to Australia and began importing Indian clothing to sell. Thirty years on, what began as a single store in Edgecliff Sydney, it has now grown into a national boho clothing, jewellery and homeware retail chain with 45 stores across Australia and an established online e-commerce platform.
Background
While Tree of Life was expanding their retail group to reach the 45 stores they have today, their operational demands increased significantly. Additionally, their staff were spread over multiple offices, stores, warehouses and departments while needing to collaborate on an everyday basis. From very early on, Tree of life were very progressive in their IT practices and their website drove a significant amount of the overall sales: the organisation was one of the first movers in Australia to seriously invest in and develop an integrated e-commerce platform.
Objectives
With the expansion of the organisation in general, the diversification of the product portfolio and the opening of new stores and increased significance of the e-commerce channel, Tree of Life needed a business management system that would meet the demands of the business now and in the future.
Tree of Life was after a progressive platform that integrated the front- and back-end of the organisation and its business functions including distribution, accounting, customer management and e-commerce. Tree of Life partnered with Fronde (OnlineOne at the time) almost 10 years ago, to fulfil their mission of offering their customers the best boho retail experience in the world, both online and in the store, supported by efficient back-office processes.
Morgan Healy, Tree of Life said,
“By having access to real-time performance data, Tree of Life has the ability to make their products available to customers in the quickest and most efficient way possible, both online and in-store.”
Liberation Strategy
After analysing the overall business goals, current roadblocks in the operations structure and needs of the business now and in the future, Fronde recommended the business management solution, NetSuite.
This cloud-based business management and ERP solution, allows organisations to operate and integrate their accounting, distribution, e-commerce and customer management functions making information available anytime, anywhere and on any device.
For Tree of Life, the NetSuite solution gave them access to real-time data,dashboards and analytics to monitor sales and inventory activities on demand. Communication and visibility of data between end-customers, retail and distribution managers as well as the management team was no longer restricted. By moving to the cloud, the head office support team was also able to provide their retail staff with up to date insights from sales activities, and ultimately improve their customer’s boho retail experience in store.
Morgan Healy, Tree of Life said,
“Fronde is assisting us in ringing our business plans to life. They do this very well through their services and usage of cloud technologies.”
Outcomes
10 years on since Tree of Life’s initial implementation of NetSuite, the platform is at the core of all business processes: it is estimated that employees from most business areas would utilise a NetSuite application for 70-80% of all of their tasks. It enables the business functions to flawlessly interact and deliver internal and external customer outcomes. By having access to real-time performance data, Tree of Life has the ability to make their products available to customers in the quickest and most efficient way possible, both online and in-store. Through NetSuite, Tree of Life is in a position to improve their customer’s boho retail experience at all times and in a seamless way.
By having access to readily available data measured in real-time, the organisation has seen dramatic improvements in overall efficiency and productivity levels. Access to valuable insights anywhere, anytime and on any device, has enabled Tree of Life’s growth. Moving more processes into NetSuite continues to free up resources that then become available to innovate instead.
Today, Tree of Life continues to update the system to meet new demands and implement e-commerce as best practice.
*These case studies are from our archives. Exact publish dates are not known.
