How Life Cykel’s new backend is fuelling its US expansion
Working with NetSuite provider Annexa, the biotechnology company has eliminated manual processes and gained real-time visibility.
Life Cykel is the quintessential Australian success story. The brand was started by friends and former fly-in fly-out mine workers Ryan Creed and Julian Mitchell in 2015 to solve the problem of coffee waste.
Life Cykel initially collected coffee waste from Australian cafes and restaurants and used it to grow gourmet mushrooms, which it then sold back to the community, creating a closed-loop production system.
Over the years, it transitioned to selling premium mushroom-based products online, from liquid mushroom extracts to at-home grow kits, while remaining committed to its health and sustainability core values.
“Life Cykel’s mission is to deliver the highest possible ethos attached to incredible, professional products to those that wish to upgrade their wellness and reach their true potential,” the brand states on its website.
But even as Life Cykel was growing rapidly, it couldn’t fully capture consumer demand due to its existing backend system, which was better suited to a startup than a business with international ambitions.
When the time came to choose an implementation partner to replace the old system, Life Cykel selected Annexa, a NetSuite ERP provider with a proven track record supporting global retailers.
TIME FOR AN UPGRADE
In the early days of the business, Life Cykel used Xero complemented by several spreadsheets to handle its backend operations, but as it began to enter new markets, it became clear the solution was no longer fit for purpose.
Life Cykel prided itself on its product quality and transparency, but it couldn’t track inventory effectively or handle the complex requirements of producing mushroom extracts in different regions with its existing tools.
“We needed an inventory platform,” Life Cykel’s CFO Jonathon Meredith-Smith explained. “Initially, the team looked at a system to integrate with Xero, but it quickly became clear that our manufacturing process was too complex. We were managing the entire end-to-end process, and we needed to track everything – including batch numbers, serial numbers.”
Another major challenge was financial consolidation across countries and currencies. With Xero, the process was manual and inefficient, hampering the brand’s ability to scale. Life Cykel also lacked real-time insights into the business.
Simply put, it needed a more robust solution to manage its growing international business.
Automation and real-time insights
When looking for a solution to replace Xero, Life Cykel knew it couldn’t just focus on its current needs; it needed an ERP system that would scale as it continued to grow in the future. NetSuite promised to do just that.
With NetSuite, Life Cykel was able to consolidate financial data across multiple countries and currencies automatically, eliminating spreadsheets and manual processes and giving the business access to real-time insights. It was also able to digitise the manufacturing process so it could scale up production as demand increased and maintain tighter control over its inventory.
Unifying its tech stack was another key objective for Life Cykel, and as an integration specialist, Annexa was able to integrate NetSuite with key systems like Shopify, Amazon Marketplace and ShipBob via Celigo iPaaS.
“NetSuite is now doing the heavy lifting, with Shopify feeding into it, making NetSuite the new source of truth,” Meredith-Smith said.
Before, Shopify was where we relied on our inventory data, but now I can access detailed data directly from NetSuite and generate instant reports like gross profit by product or inventory turnoverJonathon Meredith-Smith, CFO, Life Cykel
A TRANSPARENT PARTNER
Having the right partner is a major factor in the success of any implementation, and from the beginning, Life Cykel knew it wanted to work with Annexa.
The fact that Annexa had helped businesses like True Protein, Life Space and Aesop with their own NetSuite implementations made it the obvious choice.
“Annexa’s team is very knowledgeable, and up to speed with the latest industry developments,” Meredith-Smith said.
Through our implementation and now into our growth in the future, they have been a very open and transparent partner to work with. We’re confident that we’ll continue to work together to grow the business into 2025 and 2026.Jonathon Meredith-Smith, CFO, Life Cykel
Annexa has provided Life Cykel with a range of services, including designing the enterprise architecture, handling the implementation, developing solutions, integrating systems and delivering training and support.
NO MORE MANUAL PROCESSES
Life Cykel has gone from strength to strength since implementing NetSuite.
Perhaps the biggest change can be seen in the elimination of spreadsheets and manual processes across the business. Where it used to take the finance team up to a month to reconcile accounts, they can now do it in just a few days, and inventory reports that used to take six to eight hours to produce now take 10 minutes.
This has freed up staff for more critical tasks and changed the way the business operates.
“It was clear we were deep in the weeds,” said Meredith-Smith. “But with NetSuite, we are no longer busy with manual day-to-day processes. We’re having a lot more detailed, targeted, and strategic conversations across customer service, logistics, manufacturing, and sales teams because we’ve got all of our data at our fingertips.”
In terms of Life Cykel’s global expansion, the move to NetSuite has been a game-changer. With real-time visibility across warehouses in multiple markets, the brand is now able to respond quickly to potential shortages or surpluses, and with batch and serial number tracking, it can easily manage any potential product recalls.
“We’re currently entering the retail market in the US, and a big driver behind implementing NetSuite was the need for a full recall process. NetSuite has given us the ability to track required information at every step through the manufacturing process from raw materials to finished product. Before we weren’t able to do this,” Meredith-Smith explained.
“NetSuite has really set us up for growth in the US retail market.”
The right foundation for growth
Since 2015, Life Cykel has evolved significantly, adapting its product offering and expanding into new markets. But for many years, its backend system remained the same. As the business grew, it was clear this needed to change.
Working with Annexa, Life Cykel implemented NetSuite as its single source of truth, integrating it with other key systems to create a unified tech stack, automate processes and gain real-time visibility across the business. This has enabled the brand to keep pace with changing consumer demand and compete on the global stage.
Today, Life Cykel is a biotechnology company with 50-plus employees and distribution in over 120 countries, including Australia, the US and the UK. And now it has the right foundation for continued growth.
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