NetSuite Inc., a major provider of cloud-based financials/ERP and omnichannel commerce software suites, announced that Victoria’s Port of Portland in Australia has gone live with NetSuite. Port of Portland replaced Epicor for financials; Astea International for shipping, accounts payable and receivable; HR3 for payroll; and MEX for maintenance, projects and operations, with a single instance of NetSuite for financials, payroll, project management , asset management and shipping. Port of Portland was able to significantly improve the efficiencies of its financials and project management capabilities with NetSuite, as well as streamline its ship scheduling process to support its growing customer base of exporters.
Port of Portland is a deep-water bulk port located between the ports of Melbourne and Adelaide and is the international gateway for the Green Triangle Region, responsible for nearly two thirds of Australia’s wood production. The port specializes in the import and export of bulk commodities, particularly agricultural, forestry and mining products, as well as aluminium and fertilizer. It has approximately five million tonnes in annual throughput, which is expected to grow to seven million tonnes over the next few years. With more than 300 ships passing through the port each year, it delivers $3 billion into the region annually.
Port of Portland is focused on growing its customer base of exporters, and needed to update its core business systems in order to support this future growth. Its previous systems were out of date and lacked integration, which required a lot of inefficient manual processes that led to data inconsistencies. Ship scheduling, in particular, was hand written on pieces of paper and not captured properly in its software systems. After reviewing a number of on-premise solutions, such as Technology One, Klein Ports, One Port and Microsoft Dynamics NAV, it turned to NetSuite’s fully integrated cloud-based business management solution to future-proof its business, as it was the only solution that met all of its requirements.
“As we are a small-to-medium business with only 55 employees and 20 operational maintenance staff, NetSuite’s cloud-based solution was very appealing to us — it means we can be cutting edge with the latest advancements in technology, without having to manage and upgrade it ourselves,” said Kara King, company accountant for Port of Portland. “We don’t have a full-time IT person and we are in a remote location, so having NetSuite helpdesk at our fingertips is a big thing.”