SAN MATEO, CALIFORNIA and MAKATI CITY, PHILIPPINES — Oracle NetSuite announced recently that Unilab, the largest pharmaceutical company in the Philippines, has implemented NetSuite OneWorld to help power its 21 distributors by setting them up as individual business partners.
Unilab upgraded from a 15-year-old locally developed application to a unified cloud ERP system, enabling its distributors to easily manage inventory and billing processes of around 10,000 trade accounts such as drug stores, clinics, and groceries. Unilab is also using OneWorld for sales and data consolidation and multi-subsidiary management. Since completing the NetSuite OneWorld implementation in January 2017, Unilab has streamlined operations for its distributors and has gained greater visibility into the channel, which accounts for a significant percentage of its US $1 billion annual revenue.
Unilab is the first in the industry to leverage cloud ERP to standardize and stabilize its distributor management program through its project called iSERV 2.0. While Oracle NetSuite is one of the world’s leading providers of cloud-based financials / ERP, HR, Professional Services Automation (PSA) and omnichannel commerce software suites.
Founded in 1945, Unilab manufactures over 350 brands of over-the-counter and prescription medications and personal health care products. The 4,000-person company, based in Mandaluyong in greater Manila, has maintained more than 20-percent market share in the Philippines for more than three decades.
To help support continued growth and keep up with the changing times, Unilab needed to modernize from an on-premise system used by distributors to a flexible and scalable cloud-based system. Previously, Unilab’s business leaders had to manually consolidate and track data from distributors. Unilab realized it would need a new modern system that did not need to rely on servers scattered across the corporate landscape.
As part of its business continuity plan, Unilab also wanted to transition to the cloud as a disaster-protection measure that would stabilize the entire system during unexpected events like typhoons.
After evaluating several software options, Unilab selected NetSuite OneWorld as an agile, scalable cloud platform ideal to improve efficiency, visibility and standardization in the distribution channel. NetSuite Solution Provider CloudTech played a key role, successfully and seamlessly implementing NetSuite at Unilab’s distributors.
With NetSuite OneWorld, Unilab has been able to realize its goals of real-time data visibility, streamlined distribution process, simplified data consolidation, and strengthened compliance while providing disaster protection through its cloud-based architecture.
NetSuite OneWorld supports 190 currencies, 20 languages, automated tax calculation and reporting in more than 100 countries, and transactions in more than 200 countries.
With NetSuite OneWorld, Unilab has also realized the following benefits:
Channel efficiency and visibility. Today, distributors use NetSuite for transactions with its trade accounts such as managing the inventory and billing process. Distributors are also able to monitor accounts receivable, inventory status, order status, and credit limits in NetSuite, while Unilab can better track vital data in real time.
Improved compliance. NetSuite gives Unilab better inventory management with lot-tracking capabilities to support compliance of distributors with the FEFO (first expiration, first out) distribution.
Multi-subsidiary management. With OneWorld, Unilab is able to centrally manage each of its 21 distributors.
