Action Packaging gains unified platform for simple post-acquisition integration with NetSuite

Action Packaging loads up acquisitions easily with NetSuite

With 45 years in business, Action Packaging is now in its third generation of ownership as a woman- and family-owned packaging distributor and manufacturer, stocking more than 5,000 types of packaging items. After decades in operation, the company’s 20-year-old ERP system began to cause inefficiencies in inventory and customer relationship management, making it difficult to improve operations and pursue growth through acquisitions. Action Packaging turned to NetSuite for its intuitive, adaptable, and unified cloud platform that would provide the company with an acquisition playbook to support future growth.

Company

Action Packaging

Location

Woodstock, Illinois

Industry

Manufacturing
Wholesale Distribution

Employees

50 to 99

Applications REPLACED

Infor

NetSuite Products and Services Used

NetSuite Advanced Customer Support
NetSuite CRM
NetSuite ERP
NetSuite Inventory Management
NetSuite SuiteAnalytics Connect
NetSuite SuitePeople Payroll(opens in new tab)
NetSuite WMS

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“We want to continue to scale and grow through acquisitions and NetSuite will allow us to integrate all of those different companies that come with a legacy system. We now have an acquisition and integration playbook within NetSuite, so we know we can successfully take on any company that we acquire.” Sean Cwynar, President, Action Packaging

NetSuite as a change agent

A system to handle diverse customers: Action Packaging primarily sells its packaging solutions to the healthcare, industrial, retail, and food services sectors. Through 12 acquisitions, the company has diversified its product offerings to serve a variety of customers. However, its previous on-premises system was not built to support Action Packaging’s growth. Without an integrated customer relationship management system, onboarding a new sales or customer service representative was inefficient and time intensive. On the inventory management side, the team did not use handheld devices for barcode scanning and lacked ecommerce integration.

Speed and accuracy with NetSuite: NetSuite helped Action Packaging simplify processes and enhance its operational model. Warehouse management was improved through the adoption of handheld barcode scanners directly integrated with NetSuite, allowing for real-time inventory tracking and immediate, company-wide visibility into stock levels and item locations. With NetSuite Inventory Management, the team can fulfil same-day shipping and billing—directly benefiting customers and making Action Packaging more competitive against larger rivals. NetSuite Customer Relationship Management has accelerated both employee and customer onboarding processes by 5X, automating workflows and tasks such as IT setup requests or sending welcome emails with onboarding steps.

Providing an acquisition playbook: Since implementing NetSuite, Action Packaging has developed a framework for bringing newly acquired companies into the NetSuite platform. The process involves cleaning up vendor customer lists and mapping sales order and purchase order data to NetSuite, providing one central hub for operational data. The integrated NetSuite environment also improves collaboration among stakeholders and increases data visibility for all users.

Poised for future growth: With NetSuite supporting its operations, Action Packaging has the tools it needs to accelerate its growth plans—a technology foundation to attract talent, a platform that scales, and real-time access to data to empower innovation and expansion in its product line. The company has tripled its business in the past five years while live on NetSuite and secured a Crain’s Fast 50 award recognising the 50 fastest growing companies in the Chicago area. To continue improving business operations, Action Packaging is in the process of implementing SuiteTax to automate calculations and easily generate reports for audits, which will simplify sales tax reporting.