SOKO Gains Company-Wide Real-Time Visibility

SOKO Brings Artisan Craftsmanship to a Global Market

SOKO is an artisan-crafted jewelry brand that is pioneering ethical fast fashion, connecting local jewelry artisans in Nairobi to global retailers. Launching in 2012, SOKO created a mobile marketplace for artisans that supports a demand-responsive virtual factory. Through these efforts, artisan income has increased five times and SOKO is able to fill large wholesale orders for major retailers.

Company

SOKO

Location

Nairobi, Kenya and San Francisco, Calif.

Industry

Apparel/Footwear/Accessories, Retail, Wholesale/Distribution

EMPLOYEES

50-100

REVENUE

Under $500K

NUMBER OF SUBSIDIARIES

2 (SOKO and Sasa)

NUMBER OF COUNTRIES

2 (U.S. and Kenya)

SYSTEM REPLACED

QuickBooks Online

NETSUITE PRODUCTS IMPLEMENTED

ERP/Financials
CRM
Work Orders and Assemblies

“We wanted a system we could trust so we could focus on growth, instead of constantly trying to keep the boat afloat.” Mirelle Guy, Sales Operations Manager, SOKO

New Lines of Business Introduce Complexity

Adding four major initiatives in seven years: SOKO began as a jewelry distributor in 2012 with more straightforward operational needs. The supply chain technology supporting the mobile marketplace took off, followed by wholesale orders to large brands and direct-to-consumer sales. In 2019, SOKO offered its supply chain technology to other brands.

Disparate data sources create silos: SOKO sought to scale its financial planning to support its artisan networks, but the QuickBooks accounting software didn’t connect with the mobile marketplace, the wholesale order platform or CRM. Staff were tracking tradeshow costs via spreadsheets and email.

Operational seeds change with expansion: SOKO needed centralised access to operations data in order to view customer history, build out projections and align expenses with performance reporting. It selected NetSuite for its customisation, accessibility and ease-of-use, first launching financials followed by CRM about six months later.

Customisation delivers company-wide visibility: SOKO is now able to perform sales forecasting with real-time visibility, improving cash flow projections for finance. Staff can look at conversion rates from leads to customers, segment wholesale customers by category and territory, and slice and dice reporting on a number of attributes like sales channels, SKUs and territories.

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