at a glance
Running on Xero and add-on systems, cycling-apparel retailer MAAP needed a more integrated, agile and global-ready solution to support growth.
- Xero
- Cin7
- Spreadsheets
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Eight subsidiaries across ANZ, Netherlands, Germany, UK, US, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan
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Global retail and eCommerce model
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Multiple integrations across commerce and supply chain
the client
About MAAP
MAAP is a Melbourne-based eCommerce and retail brand known for its cycling apparel and accessories tailored for road, gravel, off-road, and transit, plus a curated selection of casual wear.
Founded in 2014, high growth has been a constant for MAAP. But as global cycling interest soared during the pandemic, the pace intensified. This rapid expansion quickly outpaced many elements of their tech stack, particularly their back-end operational systems.
With a flagship store in Melbourne, MAAP recently expanded by opening a second store in the global cycling capital, Amsterdam. Today, the growing team of 70 manages eight subsidiaries, two bricks and mortar stores, multiple 3PLs worldwide and a robust wholesale partnership ecosystem.
“MAAP has experienced strong growth since its beginnings 10 years ago, but the pandemic created a massive surge across the cycling industry. That's when our systems were really put to the test and it was evident they couldn’t support our future growth plans.”Matthew NottChief Financial Officer, MAAP
the challenge
The tipping point for MAAP’s tech stack
Prior to upgrading to a full-featured NetSuite ERP solution, MAAP tracked its inventory, B2B and B2C sales in two standalone systems, with its financial data managed in Xero. As a high growth company, leadership knew its current processes weren’t keeping up with the business need for scale, speed and multiple entity expansion in Australia and across the globe. MAAP lacked a single source of truth for sales, financials, inventory, ordering and 3PL management. In addition, minimal integrations had created a significant burden of manual data transfer and manipulation. This not only proved highly inefficient but also led to a disconnect in accessing granular data for effective analysis.
MAAP required a versatile global system that would allow them to scale and spin up new stores, entities and channels while seamlessly managing multiple currencies and compliance requirements across borders.
the results
MAAP’s transformation from friction to flow
To centralise global operations in one place, the company worked with Annexa to implement NetSuite ERP and develop a single source of truth for sales, financials, inventory levels, ordering and 3PL management.
The result is a central platform providing comprehensive support for international growth initiatives. Capabilities include facilitating financial consolidation, enabling seamless multi-currency conversions and streamlining intercompany transactions.
For MAAP, NetSuite’s global inventory management capabilities have been a game-changer. With operations centralised across multiple third-party logistics providers (3PLs) and live fulfilment integrations, their real-time inventory remains consistently accurate.
NetSuite’s costing management delivers financial precision to provide MAAP with a more accurate picture of margins and inventory, to help grow its eCommerce global operations.
For their B2B customers, NetSuite’s out-of-the-box functionality has allowed the MAAP team to easily manage pricing levels across different currencies.
Talking about the previous tech stack, Matthew Nott noted:
“Our previous technology stack revolved around Xero for financials, which was my first experience with the platform. It’s a great system, but as soon as we started to scale and required multiple entity management and more complex integrations, it was clear that we had outgrown Xero. We also used a standalone inventory management system, which lacked integrations and didn’t sync well with Xero. As our operations grew quickly in scale and volume, the cracks in these systems broke apart and we found ourselves reverting back to far less efficient processes.”
A critical part of MAAPs NetSuite implementation involved multiple integrations leveraging integration platform Jitterbit. Today, MAAP enjoy smooth interoperability with Shopify Plus for online sales, Omneo for customer profiles and incentives, Loop for returns management and multiple 3PL providers. Together, these integrations have drastically improved data accessibility, removed manual processes and eliminated data duplication issues – even as MAAP’s data volumes increase.
"When you have a great partner, the ERP implementation itself is reasonably straightforward. But for integrations, the devil's in the detail. It’s the most challenging part of the entire process so it’s critically important to focus on the management of your integrations."Matthew NottChief Financial Officer, MAAP