Madi International specializing in distributing cosmetics brands to salons and spas, retailers, pharmacies and department stores, across GCC countries faced challenges of siloed data and having to manage multiple on-premises applications, till they implemented Oracle NetSuite cloud suite that has helped them integrate data, automate processes and connect teams.
Madi International is one of Middle East’s premium professional beauty business, successfully operating in GCC and MENA region with multiple concepts providing a selection of trusted brands to clients.
Madi International covers a variety of recognised brands, refits, professional training, beauty concepts and ground-up developments, catering to customer needs and aims to be the trendsetter in the beauty industry.
Madi International is in the B2B beauty business, primarily distributing over 70 cosmetics brands to salons and spas, as well as retailers, pharmacies and department stores. Madi International is also a services company, offering training and workshops on the latest techniques for the products it offers. With over 25,000 SKUs, having the right product, in the right place, at the right time is crucial for its business.
Headquartered in Dubai, Madi International operate across UAE, Qatar, Saudi, Oman and Bahrain, which also adds a layer of complexity to its business. Prior to adopting Oracle NetSuite, Madi International was scaling its operations fast. It needed a cloud-based business management solution to keep up with its pace of change, and to help connect the dots across different departments.
Growing pain points
Previously, Madi International used an on-premises system that required them to manage five different servers, making it difficult to operate across country-borders. It was not adaptable or customisable, and it meant various departments were working from disconnected information.
“My job is to make sure our house is in full working order, so Madi International can face whatever challenges and opportunities are ahead of us. This means removing departmental obstacles across finance, operations, logistics and demand planning,” explains Rabih Madi, Chief Operating Officer, Madi International.
Madi International needed to have real-time data and real-time insights across its operations. At the same time, Madi International had objectives to become more efficient as an organisation, so it wanted to automate a lot of its manual tasks, in other words, to do more with less.
Most importantly, Madi International did not want multiple pieces of software. It wanted a single system to connect its operations.
“As an integrated suite, Oracle NetSuite appealed to us the most. Plus, being cloud-based, it would help teams to collaborate, and support us to stay focused on strategy, execution and delivering growth,” points out Madi.
Oracle NetSuite perspectives
“Depending on which stage they are in their growth journey, there are multiple factors that may encourage SMEs to adopt a cloud-based ERP system such as NetSuite,” says Hossam Refaat, Senior Director MEA, Oracle NetSuite.
Recently established, fast-growth businesses may have reached a point where they have collected a patchwork of different systems – or Excel spreadsheets – to manage whole departments or processes. As their finances, customer base and operational complexity grows, data gaps appear.
These pockets of siloed data mean that without connected and accurate information from sales, inventory management may suffer, while not having the latest information from accounting can trigger a ripple effect on everything from marketing budgets to future strategy.
SMEs need one source of information that contains accurate, real-time data. By automating core business processes, Oracle NetSuite helps break up information logjams, supports staff to make better decisions more quickly and frees up their time to work on more high-value exercises like helping the business grow even faster.
As SMEs expand into multiple countries, geographies, and subsidiaries, they must ensure systems are able to support and enhance their new business models, deal with added layers of complexity such as multiple currencies and tax regimes and provide cross-department visibility across the business.
Oracle NetSuite helps growing SMEs operate more effectively, with a single, integrated suite for managing accounting, order processing, inventory management, production, supply chain and warehouse operations.
Implementation
Madi International decided to work with a local Oracle NetSuite partner on the implementation. An important step in this journey was the consultation – to map its objectives to critical processes required to run the business. This allowed Madi International to identify where it could add more structure and automation across its processes, and benefit from best practices built into Oracle NetSuite.
Moving forward, Madi International is using NetSuite Accounting and Financials. The finance team is now able to input transaction data faster, given greater visibility across its subsidiaries, given more structure to finances, and helped them to close the books faster.
NetSuite Planning and Budgeting helps Madi International plan for multiple scenarios and outcomes over the next one, three or five years, and helps us to see the business could make improvements to maintain its growth trajectory.
Madi International is also using NetSuite Demand Planning and Inventory Management, which helps to ensure that everything from nail polish to massage beds are where they need to be.
“As an omnichannel business, it is critical for us to correctly allocate inventory across our trade channels and different markets, and to see where there are gaps,” says Madi.
When the pandemic impacted regional businesses, and salons were forced to close, Madi International adopted NetSuite SuiteCommerce. This helped to quickly pivot into an online business.
To move in this direction, Madi International made small design changes to its website. They already had inventory data in NetSuite, including product images, descriptions and prices. So it was possible to open a new sales channel without having to integrate with additional third-party platforms or marketplaces.
“Having all of these departments running on one platform, from the same data, is critical. Oracle NetSuite does not make our shampoos better, but it makes us more efficient in delivering them to the market,” reflects Madi.
Moving forward
Madi International has been operating for over 30 years, and is continuously learning and improving. Change is the only constant. The business was not born a digital company, but the IT department is now called the DT or digital transformation department, which shows the mentality and the need to be at the forefront.
All new employees now go through Oracle NetSuite onboarding and this is a critical skill. Madi International has different training programmes for different functions. The finance team learns specific skills and features, as does the inventory and marketing teams. Madi International is also a deep user of the Oracle NetSuite Learning Center, which they refer to in order to deepen their knowledge and familiarise themselves with new feature updates.
Madi International wants to be a leader, not a follower. Fortunately, all the departments that use Oracle NetSuite realised the opportunity it could bring to be more productive and collaborative. Once a month Madi International runs an internal webinar for employees across different countries to highlight a particular feature or process in Oracle NetSuite that it want to be more productive with.
“Change management is tricky but essential. You must bring people outside of their comfort zone in order to improve and benefit from a more efficient way of doing things,” says Madi.
Expectations from Oracle NetSuite cloud suite
- With over 25,000 SKUs, having the right product, in the right place, at the right time is crucial for its business.
- As an omnichannel business, it is critical to allocate inventory across trade channels and to see where there are gaps.
- Prior to adopting Oracle NetSuite, Madi International was scaling operations fast.
- Madi International needed a cloud-based business management solution to keep up with its pace of change.
- Madi International needed to have real-time data and real-time insights across its operations.
- Madi International had objectives to become more efficient as an organisation, so it wanted to automate its manual tasks.
- Madi International did not want multiple pieces of software. It wanted a single system to connect its operations.
