SuiteCommerce’s B2B capabilities allow WHSmith to provide a robust, secure and easy-to-use commerce system where the retailer’s franchise partners and wholesale partners across the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia can efficiently make purchases, manage payments, review order history and account details, and request refunds and returns from a secure, password-protected online environment. WHSmith has also eliminated manual processes from its previous systems such as faxing and emailing orders. SuiteCommerce has helped position WHSmith to more rapidly secure additional franchisees, improve operational efficiencies and deliver rich self-service capabilities and exceptional customer service. “WHSmith sells its own brand and selected branded merchandise to over 200 franchise stores and various wholesale customers throughout the world. To meet the needs of our customers we needed to develop a world-class business-to-business commerce capability. NetSuite SuiteCommerce offers an ideal combination of rapid time to market and rich functionality that will help us support the growth of our franchise and wholesale business,” said David McGrath, Head of Shared IT Services at WHSmith. “It’s a win-win for both WHSmith and our franchise partners that will streamline operations, help us future-proof our business and open the door to strategic opportunities for continued growth.”
WHSmith selected SuiteCommerce based on its depth of functionality and speed of implementation versus the complex and protracted option to extend its legacy, on-premise systems. Accenture’s alliance relationship with NetSuite and broad experience implementing complex digital commerce projects made it an obvious choice for the project. Accenture integrated SuiteCommerce with WHSmith’s on-premise system. Accenture and NetSuite helped the global retailer launch its new self-service commerce system and speed time to value.
SuiteCommerce provides the flexibility and agility WHSmith needs to drive superior customer experiences, increase efficiencies and future proof its business. With SuiteCommerce, ecommerce is seamlessly integrated with back-end operational systems, including order and inventory management, marketing, customer support and financials. Businesses that run SuiteCommerce are empowered to deliver innovative and seamless brand experiences across multiple touchpoints – all from a single, unified, cloud-based commerce platform that provides unprecedented visibility into business and customer data.
