The Company
A predominantly services company, Jaxon Engineering is a leader in Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) hardening and survivability. Jaxon designs, builds, tests, and maintains EMP-hardened structures for government and commercial clients worldwide.
Jaxon implemented NetSuite with Caravel three years ago, and has seen tremendous success with their data, reporting, and overall financial management. Their modules include Financials, Record to Report, Procure to Pay, Design to Build, Project to Cash, NSPB, have several integrations, and are now integrating OpenAir.
The Challenge
As one of several challenges, Jaxon Engineering faced the issue of having a segregated tech stack, with the majority of the company unaware of an ERP system and the impact it could have on the organization. For accounting, QuickBooks was very limiting, and before that, they were using spreadsheets.
Another challenge Jaxon faced was that people relied on their Director of Finance, Calvin Lyons, for information and data, since he was the central user of all the disparate software they were using.
With their then-current software, QuickBooks, it was very difficult for multiple people to access the data, which was becoming unreliable because people would go in and make changes to historical information, rendering it inaccurate.
Reporting was another significant challenge in that the data was never truly current, hence making any reporting inaccurate as well. Jaxon had very little control over their data and urgently needed to do something about it.
The Solution
They began exploring a Material Resource Planning system after they were awarded a manufacturing contract, which ultimately led them to NetSuite. They soon realized that it was simply not going to satisfy their needs, and that they would need a robust ERP that would replace most of the software they were currently using. Alongside NetSuite, they use Briq, a project-based analytics platform.
They were debating between Sage Intacct and NetSuite, when it came down to the choices of ERPs. Because Calvin had spent time in a previous position as a software consultant and building government compliance systems, he knew there was only a handful of realistic, scalable platforms that would work for Jaxon. As they came closer to making a final decision, they realized that Sage was mostly a reporting platform that doesn’t focus on project management, timekeeping, or expenses – those needed to be integrated. Since they wanted to minimize systems, this was not the route they were going to take. “We thought we could do as much as possible within the NetSuite environment without bolting many other systems on,” expressed Calvin.
To continue reading about the incredible results Jaxon experienced with their NetSuite implementation, download the full case study with results below.
