NetSuite for Sports

BMW Oracle Racing Case Study

"NetSuite is our total financial package, and we use the real-time dashboards to have the numbers at our fingertips, and to prepare all of our monthly management reports at the line manager level, and our senior managers use it for overviews of the entire operation.” — Diana Puketapu, CFO BMW ORACLE Racing

At A Glance:

• Company: BMW ORACLE Racing
• Location: Auckland, New Zealand; Valencia, Spain
• Industry: Sports/Entertainment, Advertising/Marketing
• Challenge: - Manage a global business (New Zealand, Spain and U.S.) with minimal overhead - Meet the needs of budget, local tax requirements, statutory reporting and multi-currency management - Be flexible to the nuances of the unique industry of sailboat racing - Support international accounts management around the world and around the block
• Results: - Achieving reliable international accounting with limited staff - Reliable, low-cost operation protects sponsorship dollars for investment in race operations - Real-time dashboards and reporting allow company to work across geographic, currency and time zone barriers

The Results:

BMW ORACLE Racing uses NetSuite to manage all of its financial operations, including the complete team expenses leading up to the Louis Vuitton Cup and America's Cup races. With NetSuite, the team is able to easily coordinate its accounts and payables in each of its three locations — Anacortes, Washington, USA, where the hulls are built; Valencia, Spain, where most of the team is headquartered, and Auckland, New Zealand, where a small office is based.

NetSuite provides BMW ORACLE Racing sophisticated financial software to meet the needs of budget management, local tax requirements, statutory reporting and multi-currency management, allowing the business to operate in the New Zealand dollar, the US dollar and the Euro. Using NetSuite, BMW ORACLE Racing has been able to standardize business processes across its various operations improving efficiency while ensuring accurate financial reports are available in a timely fashion — something that is absolutely vital in a business that operates under tight budgetary constraints.

Additionally, the need for real-time financial reporting presented challenges for the team that were easily met with NetSuite's advanced dashboards. The NetSuite dashboard provides senior manager a bird's eye view of their entire business in real-time while the operations team can get specific and detailed accurate financial reporting at their fingertips at any time.

NetSuite helps BMW ORACLE Racing get the most out of its lean operational staff. "It makes life better that we can all see what's going on with the Web-based reporting," says Diana Puketapu, CFO of BMW ORACLE Racing. "NetSuite allows us to share information anytime around the globe."

The Challenges:

Although the business of BMW ORACLE Racing is different from many other companies, behind the scenes the outfit shares much in common with any other enterprise; vendors to pay, employees to manage and regular reports to its shareholder. "We are like any normal business in many ways — we have a business structure with entities in three countries, and like any other business we incur bills and they need to get paid," Puketapu says.

But because of the global nature of the company, along with the need for laser focus on building a winning race team, BMW ORACLE Racing is a much more complex business to manage than many operations of a similar size. In fact, its financial structure demands a degree of sophistication that can't be found in simple small-business solutions — to meet the needs of budget management, local tax requirements, statutory reporting and multicurrency management, including dealing in three currencies: the New Zealand dollar, the US dollar, and the Euro.

With globe-spanning ongoing operations, BMW ORACLE Racing required a solution without barriers.

The Solution:

The team adopted NetSuite to provide flexibility and global reach without the need for expensive servers or dedicated in-house support staff. "NetSuite is our total financial package, and we use the real-time dashboards to have the numbers at our fingertips, and to prepare all of our monthly management reports at the line manager level, and our senior managers use it for overviews of the entire operation," Puketapu says. "We worked very closely with NetSuite to get reporting out of it the way we wanted it, and that's been very worthwhile."

All of the team's income and invoices are processed through NetSuite, which serves as the single authority for financial analysis. "Different areas need to know what their spend has been, and for the few areas of the organization that generate income, what their income has been, and NetSuite totally captures our financial world for us."

"NetSuite being Internet-based has made things incredibly easy for us — I have done a lot of traveling between New Zealand and Spain, with trips to the US en route, and I can always stop somewhere, log in, and see what's happening," she says. "And with all our efforts gearing up for the next America's Cup and Louis Vuitton Cup, NetSuite is doing exactly what we want to help us get there."

For BMW ORACLE Racing, reliability and availability have been running straight and true with NetSuite.

For more information regarding NetSuite please visit www.netsuite.co.uk

About BMW ORACLE Racing:

BMW ORACLE Racing is the Challenger of Record for the 32nd America's Cup representing Golden Gate Yacht Club in San Francisco, and the only American entry in the contest for sailing's most prestigious prize and the oldest trophy in international sport. Team owner is American Larry Ellison, founder and CEO of Oracle. Partner of the team is German premium car manufacturer BMW. Sponsors include Allianz, leading global financial services provider; Girard-Perregaux, Swiss manufacturer of high-class mechanical timepieces; Henri Lloyd, Technology Partner and supplier of team clothing and Network Appliance, Inc. (NetApp), a world leader in unified storage solutions.