In 2006, a ‘constantly curious’ Greig Brebner brought his dream of a ground-breaking product to life. Since then, BLUNT Umbrellas has not only become an iconic and much-loved brand, but also a beacon of innovation, style, and vibrancy. Its unique selling point, however, lies in its commitment to sustainability in a throwaway world, a value that sets it apart from its competitors. BLUNT’s unique take on sustainability is to make products that are engineered to last a lifetime, and should something go wrong, they are modular and repairable, meaning humans can have long-lasting relationships with the products they own.
Since its inception, BLUNT has repaired around 9,000 umbrellas across three markets and sent out over 4500 spare parts for at-home DIY repairs.
The business employs 30 staff in its Auckland head office and service centres in New Zealand, Australia, the USA, and the United Kingdom.
Opening up new markets - the challenges
By 2019, BLUNT had outgrown its existing financial solution, so the business approached Fusion5 in search of a more scalable, future-facing, cloud-based solution.
Feeling hampered by a lack of clear sales and profitability reporting with breakdowns by market, channel and customers, BLUNT was keen to improve transparency across the business to enable faster and better decision-making.
BLUNT also wanted to support its rapid growth trajectory without adding to its headcount – which meant minimising manual data entry. As BLUNT’s plans included moving into new markets, the new solution needed to be flexible enough to grow alongside the business and provide strong procurement capabilities – allowing more control over the supply chain.
Multi-subsidiary, multi-currency, and automated bank reconciliation to handle the Shopify integration were all non-negotiable.
NetSuite OneWorld ticked all BLUNT’s must-have boxes. To top it off, several BLUNT employees had real-world experience using NetSuite at other companies and sang their praises of the business benefits it delivered.
Within nine months, Fusion5 had implemented NetSuite OneWorld Global Business Management System and integrated it with BLUNT’s line-of-business applications, including its Fast Four Bank Reconciliation solution (later rebranded to ZoneReconcile), several third-party logistics systems, Shopify, and SPS Commerce.
'It feels like it was made for us'
NetSuite is doing more than I expected it to; it’s wonderful. I think NetSuite is a phenomenal system for a business like BLUNT. It feels like it was made for us.
Kate Callender joined BLUNT as CFO in 2020. Although she had considerable experience using other ERPs, NetSuite was new to her – and a revelation.
“NetSuite is a really cohesive system due to the level of automation it enables, along with integrations to our other systems - like Shopify for the website and our customer service application. With NetSuite, I only need a finance team of three instead of a finance team of 10. So, I’m understandably a huge fan.”
Growth without complexity or extra headcount
Callender says that NetSuite OneWorld has allowed them to manage the complexities of reconciling bank accounts in four countries, as well as for sales made via Shopify and Afterpay.
“Our revenue has tripled since 2020, and we’ve added two further global subsidiaries. With its ability to scale and integrate, NetSuite has handled our growth seamlessly without the need to add unnecessary headcount. - Kate Callender | Chief Financial Officer, BLUNT Umbrellas.
Callender says that in terms of growth and profitability, NetSuite has lived up to BLUNT’s expectations by delivering live reporting on sales and profitability by channel, market, customers, and SKUs.
“We spend less time producing consolidated management accounts - after we've completed our balance sheet reconciliations, the financial reports are practically instantaneous.”
“It has improved our overall efficiency and productivity by allowing us to scale without experiencing bottlenecks in our workload. The level of automation supports our increased sales volume (especially in the e-commerce area) without generating more work.
“NetSuite is a big part of why we've been able to keep our overall team size down. The big difference with NetSuite is that it's not just the finance or operations department using the ERP. Everyone in the company uses it – from our finance to customer service to sales.”
For Fusion5, the relationship with BLUNT hasn’t gone into maintenance mode just because NetSuite has been successfully implemented. Far from it.
Instead, the partnership has gone from strength to strength as Fusion5 works with Callender to build a sustainable technology strategy that will enable the business to reduce technical debt, leverage the value of a single source of truth, make better future-facing technology decisions and more. All without adding unnecessary complexity.
“Our relationship with Fusion5 definitely goes further than just NetSuite. They play an active part in our future." - Kate Callender | Chief Financial Officer, BLUNT Umbrellas.
“We’re committed to using SaaS products, and Fusion5 has helped us navigate this by providing the knowledge, guidance, and expertise that we just don’t have in-house. They’ve worked with us to draft an IT roadmap, which has helped us manage instances of shadow IT and internal lobbying for solutions that could be done more effectively and seamlessly within NetSuite.”
A strong overarching relationship
“Fusion5 genuinely just want us to do better. I can ask all the ‘dumb’ questions I like, which is important to me; if I don’t ask, I can’t do my job properly. They never mind explaining technical concepts in non-technical jargon and in a way that’s relevant to my role and the decisions we need to make."
“Fusion5’s advice has enabled us to determine what we should be doing in the future and set some guardrails around making more disciplined and strategic technology decisions.”
“Our relationship with Fusion5 definitely goes further than just NetSuite. They play an active part in our future. - Kate Callender | Chief Financial Officer, BLUNT Umbrellas.
“We’re committed to using SaaS products, and Fusion5 has helped us navigate this by providing the knowledge, guidance, and expertise that we just don’t have in-house. They’ve worked with us to draft an IT roadmap, which has helped us manage instances of shadow IT and internal lobbying for solutions that could be done more effectively and seamlessly within NetSuite.”
“Fusion5 genuinely just want us to do better. I can ask all the ‘dumb’ questions I like, which is important to me; if I don’t ask, I can’t do my job properly. They never mind explaining technical concepts in non-technical jargon and in a way that’s relevant to my role and the decisions we need to make."
“Fusion5’s advice has enabled us to determine what we should be doing in the future and set some guardrails around making more disciplined and strategic technology decisions.”
