Traffic, safety, and municipal signage. Quite possibly the most important (and ubiquitous) things for ensuring and maintaining safe travel and operations in the known world.
CPC Signs lives in the center of this wonderfully vibrant space. And while their manufactured products may be bold, reflective, and legally important, the back-office systems supporting them cannot afford to be quite so attention-seeking. This is an industry where details and accuracy matter and can be the difference between an uneventful drive to the office and four-car pileup (dramatic, but true).
And while it’s tempting to assume all it takes is a customer on CPC Signs’ website to say, “sounds great, one stop sign, please,” sourcing the right sign with the right pricing, the right fulfillment path, and the right data moving between disparate systems requires an adherence to precision, accuracy, and timeliness beyond what a manual workflow can do.
Before NetSuite, CPC Signs had learned this the hard way: through huge Excel spreadsheets, endless data cleanup, bad addresses, incomplete emails, and the realization that their existing ERP system was not so much supporting operations as it was requiring everyone to work around it. The internal team found themselves spending chunks of their time cleaning and re-uploading data, removing bad information, and doing the kind of operational housekeeping that makes people start whispering things like, “I can’t go on like this,” which is commonly how the ERP story begins.
So CPC Signs made the logical nextstep of moving to NetSuite and added other systems into the mix, including BigCommerce for eCommerce, Celigo to move data between platforms, and ShipHawk as part of the fulfillment ecosystem.
Simple, right?
When “on-paper” rarely reflects reality
Now on paper, this is exactly the kind of tech stack a growing traffic and municipal signage company should want: NetSuite at their operational core, BigCommerce powering the customer-facing experience, integrations keeping data moving, and enough customization potential to support the parts of the business that do not fit neatly into a default solution.
Of course, “on paper” is also where a lot of ERP implementations look their very best. When as CPC Signs got closer to go-live and then moved into the realities of post-launch operations, the team began running into the kind of problems that many NetSuite and BigCommerce power users recognize immediately: the standard setup was not quite enough, the business logic was more nuanced than expected, and the internal team did not have the scripting expertise to build every obscure-but-important customization themselves. So they called us.
The problem with rough go-lives is that it rarely ends at go-live
A rough ERP go-live is a little like moving into a new house before the punchlist is complete. Technically, you live there now. Technically, there is a sink. Technically, dinner could happen. But everyone knows there are a few drawers that do not close correctly, one light switch that controls something no one has identified, and a growing list of “things we need to deal with after move-in” items taped to the refrigerator.
For CPC Signs, the post-go-live reality was that they were trying to fit real, business-specific CPC workflows into an out-of-the-box system structure that wasn’t set up to handle them. This included:
- Customer-specific pricing between NetSuite and BigCommerce
- Approval logic that could not be handled cleanly with standard features
- Integrations that needed to be understood in context instead of treated like isolated technical tickets (more on this later)
Customer-specific pricing became one of the more complicated examples. CPC Signs had NetSuite, BigCommerce, and Celigo in the mix, which meant pricing data needed to move between the systems correctly and consistently without fail. While this may sound relatively simple to do, in reality, a feature like “customer-specific pricing” is one of those things that sounds easy on a project brief, but then immediately turns into an overtired three-year-old once you try to make it work across an ERP, an eCommerce platform, and an integration layer. In other words, to (loosely) quote the Scottish poet Robert Burns, sometimes even the best laid plans can go awry.
Our solution: Team approach
At Anchor Group, if a project hits a challenge that a single consultant alone cannot solve, we will escalate the issue internally through our project governance process. This is the process where client relationship health, project timeline health, and budget health are reviewed regularly, so problems do not silently ferment under the surface. When a project turns yellow (at risk) or red (immediate attention required), the team pulls in additional resources to get the project back on track and maintain momentum.
The problem with customer-specific pricing was making it work across the different system setups of CPC's tech stack. For example, NetSuite gives companies several different levers for assigning customer pricing: a customer can receive a certain price level across the board, a special price for a specific group of items, or even bespoke pricing on individual SKUs when the situation calls for it. CPC was using a combination of price levels and group pricing for its government customers, which worked well inside NetSuite. BigCommerce, on the other hand, only supports the first type of pricing: applying a specific price list to a customer. So, the challenge was getting NetSuite's multi-layered pricing to fit into BigCommerce's flatter pricing setup.
Instead of simply brute-forcing a solution, we brought Celigo into the mix, building a custom Celigo flow that could interpret CPC’s multi-layered NetSuite pricing logic, flatten it into a format BigCommerce could support, and keep customer-specific pricing accurate without creating a manual maintenance nightmare for the team.
Relationships rule
One of the most cumbersome parts of any big project is having to acclimate and re-explain all the nuances of your business challenge every time someone new joins the project, while also monitoring to ensure continuity challenges or knowledge gaps don’t arise.
CPC Signs had experienced that kind of revolving door support before: a main point of contact who understood the request at a surface level, followed by a rotating cast of technical resources who had to be brought up to speed before they could be useful. While this can work for certain types of simple support, it becomes Exhausting (with a capital E) when the work is highly specific to your organization, your NetSuite configuration, your eCommerce logic, and your integration architecture.
Biggest benefit
The biggest benefit for us is that we’re talking to the same people every single time. They know how our business operates.
Our approach to consulting looks a little different. CPC worked closely with our consultant Mitch, who stayed (and continues to stay) involved throughout CPC’s various projects with us and became familiar with how their business operates. This is the type of relationship continuity that matters, because optimization work is rarely just about writing a script or updating a field. And it’s definitely not a one-and-done process either. Rather, in our approach, consultants develop a fluent level of understanding in why the organization’s workflows exist, where the data comes from, who depends on it, what happens if it breaks, and which parts of the business will start sending alarmed emails if the system behaves unexpectedly.
This familiarity also makes the relationship easier. Or, as Tripp put it,
No knowledge gap
there wasn’t a knowledge gap. Mitch was able to understand what I was trying to accomplish, then explain back how we were going to do it in a way I could understand.
Here’s a good rule of thumb that we follow: NetSuite customization should not require the client to become a developer just to participate in their own project. And a good consultant should be able to meet the client where they are, understand the business need, and then bring the right technical solution back in plain language that feels useful rather than Greek. (Okay, that’s two rules of thumb.)
What happens when a process becomes too complex?
The challenge with complex processes
Another major area of work involved CPC’s sales order approval process. Upon initial implementation, the CPC team tried to use workflows, which makes sense because workflows are often the first tool people reach for when they want NetSuite to follow a defined approval path.
But CPC’s approval logic was more complex than a simple route from A to B. Their process needed to evaluate criteria in sequence: start here, check this condition, move to the next step if the first condition is not met, and continue through multiple approval rules until the right outcome is reached. As the criteria stacked up—eventually reaching six or seven decision points—the workflow approach became clunky and less reliable than the business needed.
When workflows tapped out, scripting stepped in
Now, before we go on, we’d like to say this: Scripting is not always the right answer. It’s not something we recommend willy nilly or when other tactics fall short. Scripts have maintenance implications, and any NetSuite partner pretending otherwise should be gently escorted away from the whiteboard. But in this case, scripting gave CPC a cleaner, more structured way to manage approval logic that had outgrown the tool originally being used to support it.
The key is understanding the difference between unnecessary customization and necessary customization. Unnecessary customization makes the system more fragile for no good reason, so it’s very important to assess what other out-of-the box possibilities exist to solve a problem first—even if it means tweaking legacy workflows. Necessary customization helps NetSuite reflect the actual rules of the unique business, especially when the alternative is forcing users into awkward manual workarounds or brittle workflows that become harder to maintain over time.
For CPC, the scripted sales order approval process helped create logic that better matched how approvals needed to happen in the real world. And while scripts can sometimes require future updates when business variables change, they are also often more stable than people think, when they are built thoughtfully and maintained with a clear understanding of the surrounding system.
Optimization is not a one-time cleanup
A note on optimization: Optimization to make a system actually fit the business isn’t a one and done exercise. It’s more useful to envision it as milestones on a map of everything the business could need to achieve their organizational growth and long-term goals. Holistically, we consider new and upcoming features, additional (and maybe related) products, software updates, additional use cases, edge cases, workflow best practices, and address the most commonly (and uncommonly) occurring challenges and questions. Now, back to the story:
One of the realities about NetSuite optimization is that it often begins after a company has already gone live. While that can feel discouraging for anyone expecting go-live to be the finish line, in practice, the post-go-live “hypercare” phase is one of the most important phases of the project. This is when the business finally has enough real-time usage to see what needs to be refined, and the time where adoption of the system across teams is most critical.
For CPC Signs, that reality included a few classic optimization pain points: NetSuite and BigCommerce needed to communicate in more sophisticated ways, customer-specific pricing needed a clearer path, approval logic needed scripting instead of workflows, and the growing number of customizations raised reasonable questions about performance, maintenance, and the risk of connected systems breaking when something changed.
The underlying truth (and silver lining) about these concerns are that they are signs of an organization moving past the basics and into a more mature operating model. But the key is having a really good partner who can help distinguish between normal optimization work and genuine risk, where said partner (they sound really great) can explain why something broke or slowed down, and who can help your internal team understand the rules of the game instead of leaving them with a pile of mysterious scripts and a vague sense of foreboding.
This is especially important for companies with demanding system requirements, where eCommerce, inventory, customer pricing, fulfillment, and purchasing expectations can overlap in ways that do not always fit neatly into out-of-the-box software (spoiler: they rarely do).
The outcome: A better fit, better data, and a system that communicates seamlessly
The work with CPC Signs did not end with one dramatic “ta-da.” moment, which is probably for the best because ERP optimization is not a magic show and nobody wants their inventory data appearing from behind someone’s ear. Instead, the value showed up in the practical places: a more thoughtfully designed approach to NetSuite and BigCommerce optimization, a clearer operational path for complex issues, a better-fit approval process, and a consulting relationship built around continuity and trust instead of an endless loop of reintroduction.
CPC had the advantage of a strong internal champion who understood the business, gathered the needs, and could help funnel priorities through one person rather than turning every question into detective work. Anchor Group paired that internal ownership with a consultant who learned the account, stayed close to the work, and brought in niche expertise when a problem called for it.
Of course, a large part of implementation recovery is fixing what went wrong during a rough go-live. But it’s also about helping the client gain confidence in the system and understand what is possible, which then allows them to make steady improvements without turning every optimization need into a drawn-out project.
For NetSuite and BigCommerce users in need of optimizing their system, CPC’s story is likely a familiar one. The original ERP pain was real, the go-live did not magically solve every operational wrinkle, and the eCommerce and integration needs became more complex than expected. But with the right partner (convenient example: our ERP project success rate stands at a 91% average), the work became manageable, collaborative, and much more drama-free.
And in the world of ERP, “drama-free” is a highly underrated business outcome.