Photo from Dowi Hosiery Mills’ Facebook account
Dowi Hosiery Mills, a manufacturer of socks and other hosiery products in the Philippines, has implemented NetSuite in September, 2014 after replacing a multitude of legacy, homegrown, custom software systems, manual processes and multiple databases to modernize and streamline key business processes.
Owner of the Darlington and Exped Socks brands, Dowi Hosiery Mills now uses NetSuite for financials, order management, invoicing, billing, purchasing, receiving, shipping, RMA management, multi-location inventory, reporting and analytics.
With NetSuite cloud ERP, Dowi is able to improve operational efficiency and productivity as well as gain the scalability needed to grow its business. As a result, Dowi Hosiery notes that it saved eight full-time employees that it otherwise would have needed to add just to keep up with the order processing and inventory tracking demands under the old systems and accelerated the path to market for new lines of socks with high-tech fibers. The company also observed that it is able to deliver much better service to its retail partners.
Since 1979, Dowi Hosiery Mills has provided durable, comfortable socks and hosiery to the Philippine market, selling brands such as Darlington and Exped through nearly 100 retailers.
Dowi’s retail partners include some of the nation’s most prominent names including SM, Robinsons and Landmark. Each retailer has its own requirements for order integration and data transparency, and their needs are growing more sophisticated every day.
Dowi had operated its business for years on homegrown, custom software and databases, but the system had severe limitations. The company felt these software limitations harmed the company’s ability to strengthen its retail relationships, and made it difficult to accurately match manufacturing output with demand.
“Our old software needed too many clicks and actions to complete basic transactions, which led to numerous delays,” said Marvin Tan, VP for operations at Dowi Hosiery Mills.
Dowi considered several on-premise solutions, but chose NetSuite for a native cloud ERP solution that meets the needs of a modern, growing business.
NetSuite delivers the following key features and benefits to power Dowi Hosiery Mills’ success:
- Efficient order management. Dowi Hosiery Mills is able to streamline order management processes by centralizing orders and efficiently processing them, reducing shipping delays and improving order accuracy.
- Multi-location inventory management. Dowi Hosiery Mills is now able to run its operations with full transparency across all warehouses and stores, helping it to track real-time supply and demand. This transparency helps the company anticipate and prepare for re-orders. It also helps Dowi monitor inventory at distributor and retail locations, which is considered to be on consignment until the product is sold to the retail consumer. Inventory transfers appear processed much more quickly, and Dowi’s entire logistics chain is functioning more smoothly.
- Native cloud solution. There is no longer a need to endure version lock, painful upgrades and maintaining on-premise systems. Instead, Dowi can now get automatic product upgrades twice a year and a platform that allows for easy customizations and integrations.
- Rapid implementation. Dowi Hosiery Mills was able to go live on NetSuite within a few months, speeding time to value.
- Data-driven decisions. With a unified platform, Dowi Hosiery Mills has real-time access to a single source of data across its entire enterprise to quickly make more informed decisions.
- Customization capabilities. Customization and integration capabilities within the NetSuite SuiteCloud development platform have helped Dowi Hosiery Mills tailor the system and integrate with other systems easily to meet its unique business needs and requirements. For example, by integrating the barcode printer, which labels Dowi’s finished products for sale at each retailer with NetSuite’s order management system, the company has seen reduced shipping delays and improved order accuracy.
- Efficient user interface. NetSuite’s intuitive, easy-to-use design makes users much more productive, both in day-to-day use as well as when processing complex transactions
- A scalable platform. NetSuite’s scalable infrastructure enables the business to be flexible as it expands to support growth without significant expenses.
- Real-time business visibility and business intelligence. With NetSuite, Dowi Hosiery Mills can gain real-time insights into key business performance indicators for a unified view across the head office and its subsidiaries and can gain a single version of truth.
“With NetSuite, we understand all of our inventory with the click of a button, and we never have to worry about servers or software,” Tan said. “Everything we need to run our business is easy to see and operate, and we can access our solution from anywhere.”
