at a glance
Life Cykel’s move to NetSuite transformed their ability to scale, giving them the operational visibility and control needed to confidently enter the competitive US retail market.
- Xero
- Excel spreadsheets
-
Reporting from hours to minutes
-
Pathway to scale into international markets
-
Manufacturing visibility from end-to-end
the client
About Life Cykel
Life Cykel is a global biotechnology company specialising in premium functional mushroom extracts. Founded in 2015, Life Cykel began by repurposing coffee waste to grow mushrooms, promoting sustainable, closed-loop production. Today, they are distributing to over 120 countries – including Australia, the US, and the UK – offering a range of mushroom-based products designed to enhance human and planetary health, from supplements to home-growing kits. As the company continues its rapid growth, they stay committed to their mission of connecting people with nature through innovative mushroom biotechnology.
Annexa's team is very knowledgeable, and up to speed with the latest industry developments. Through our implementation and now into our growth in the future, they have been a very open and transparent partner to work with. We're confident that we'll continue to work together to grow the business into 2025 and 2026.Jonathon Meredith-SmithCFO at Life Cykel
the challenge
Life Cykel’s system roadblocks
As Life Cykel’s global footprint expanded, so too did the complexity of operations. The need for real-time insights became critical as their product line and manufacturing scaled across multiple countries, pushing them to rethink how they managed their growing business.
Life Cykel needed a more powerful system to manage their supply chain, manufacturing, and quality control. Their existing tools lacked the visibility to track inventory effectively and couldn’t handle the intricate manufacturing demands for producing mushroom extracts in different regions. Financial consolidation across countries and currencies also became increasingly difficult. It was clear they needed a solution that could streamline operations and support their continued global growth while maintaining the quality and sustainability of their products.
With a history of success with businesses like True Protein, Life Space, and Aesop, Annexa was the natural NetSuite implementation partner for Life Cykel’s expansion.
the results
The transformation
Core business systems must not only align with strategic goals but also be able to flex and grow as the business evolves. As Life Cykel moved from startup to global player, this technology alignment became critical.
For starters, the adoption of NetSuite allowed Life Cykel to replace Xero and many spreadsheets with a unified, centralised, global-ready cloud ERP stack. And every corner of the business benefitted significantly.
NetSuite delivered immediate financial clarity for Life Cykel, transforming how the finance team handles budgeting, forecasting, and reporting. With the ability to consolidate financial data across multiple countries and currencies automatically, Life Cykel can now track its global financial health in real-time. Where it once took up to a month to reconcile accounts, the finance team can now close the books in just a few days.
Through integration of key systems like Shopify, Amazon marketplace, and ShipBob via Celigo iPaaS, Life Cykel has unified their tech stack. This has eliminated data silos and transformed the way teams communicate and collaborate. Real-time access to information fosters far more strategic discussions and allows teams – from manufacturing to sales – to remain aligned and in tune as the business scales. Perhaps most critically, the connected Celigo iPaaS platform has given Life Cykel a foundation for continued adoption of new sales channels, including the launch of Shopify B2B in both Australia and the US.
“It was clear we were deep in the weeds,” said Jonathon. “But with NetSuite, we are no longer busy with manual day-to-day processes. We’re having a lot more detailed, targeted, and strategic conversations across customer service, logistics, manufacturing, and sales teams because we’ve got all of our data at our fingertips.”
Digitising the entire manufacturing process was another game-changer. Life Cykel can now track and control every stage – from raw materials to work-in-progress and finished goods – across multiple regions. When production scaled tenfold, NetSuite supported them to grow without the usual headaches, keeping operations smooth across their growing global network.
“NetSuite is now doing the heavy lifting, with Shopify feeding into it, making NetSuite the new source of truth. Before, Shopify was where we relied on our inventory data, but now I can access detailed data directly from NetSuite and generate instant reports like gross profit by product or inventory turnover.”
- Jonathon Meredith-Smith, CFO at Life Cykel
Real-time visibility across multiple warehouses has given Life Cykel tighter control over inventory, allowing them to respond quickly to potential shortages or surpluses. Batch and serial number tracking ensures full traceability, making potential product recalls more manageable and mitigating the risk of delays. In fact, weekly inventory reports that took 6-8 hours now take just 10 minutes, freeing up staff for more critical tasks.
This enhanced control and traceability have been integral for Life Cykel’s expansion into the highly competitive US retail market. Entering big-box retailers demands stringent quality control, rapid product recall capabilities, and the ability to handle inventory at scale. With NetSuite, Life Cykel now has the infrastructure to manage large volumes of stock while ensuring the reliability and precision major retailers expect.
- Eliminated many spreadsheets across departments
- Inventory reports from 6-8 hours to 10 minutes
- Reconciling accounts from 1 month to days
- Transparent and efficient batch tracking
We're currently entering the retail market in the US, and a big driver behind implementing NetSuite was the need for a full recall process. NetSuite has given us the ability to track required information at every step through the manufacturing process from raw materials to finished product. Before we weren’t able to do this. NetSuite has really set us up for growth in the US retail market.Jonathon Meredith-SmithCFO at Life Cykel