Beat is a company offering taxi booking services through their own app. They started operations in Athens in 2011 before tackling the Latin American market in 2014 by establishing operations in Peru. Since then, the company has rapidly expanded from a small two-person company in Greece to 100 employees and 30,000 drivers in Latin America by 2017. Already, within the first half of 2018, Beat has expanded its driver pool to 40,000 drivers; it hopes to reach 75,000 drivers by the end of 2018. It also hopes to recreate its Peruvian success and reach into neighboring Chile.
With such unprecedented growth, Taxibeat realized that they needed a reliable and robust set of tools to meet their rapidly growing analytical and administrative needs. They wanted a cloud-based solution that was easy to use, yet versatile enough to allow growth to other countries. They needed features such as real-time visibility, as they had users in various time zones that needed access to information at all hours. They needed robust reporting—particularly to deal with stringent Latin American requirements. They wanted multi-currency standards, which would be necessary should they continue to increase their Latin American footprint. Eventually, after carefully evaluating their options, Beat decided on Oracle+NetSuite as their enterprise resource planner (ERP) of choice.
Oracle+NetSuite offers a comprehensive and powerful ERP system that can be adapted to any business, large or small, offering real-time Oracle Cloud services, robust internal and external reporting, as well as multiple currency management. Oracle+NetSuite ERP provided the ideal solution for Beat, allowing them to automate the growing volume of invoices and smoothly increase their number of drivers. NetSuite would allow them to expand their business while still adhering to local and global regulations.
However, as many new users do, Beat struggled to reconcile Latin American regulations with this brand new ERP system. This was further complicated by the fact that Beat, who operate in Peru, is owned by Daimler, a German company—while they also have their commercial system based in Greece. Not only did Beat need to comply with global regulations, they also had to comply with regulations in the Latin American countries they planned to operate in. Latin American regulations, particularly new ones around e-invoicing and tax reporting, are stringent and missed deadlines can lead to heavy fines and penalties. These regulations present a significant challenge to global, growing companies such as Beat, especially as they were using Oracle+NetSuite which is a US-based ERP system.
This is where LatamReady stepped in. As the number ONE Oracle+NetSuite solution provider for Latin America, they were uniquely placed to meet Beat’s needs and address their concerns and issues regarding the use of Oracle+NetSuite in Latin America. LatamReady has experience working with companies all over Latin America, helping them implement and localize their Oracle+NetSuite ERP system. As Oracle+NetSuite is an American ERP system, it doesn’t focus in local regulations and needs to get localization services to form a ‘NetSuite Peru’, or ‘NetSuite Chile’ or ‘NetSuite Latin America.’ This is done through the use of the LatamReady SuiteApp, which offers ERP localization support that meets specific Latin American requirements. The LatamReady SuiteApp is the only one of its kind that has been certified by Oracle and NetSuite to be used in Latin American countries, offering hassle-free localization.
LatamReady SuiteApp provided Beat with the interface they needed to issue invoices and receipts according to the local Peruvian authorities as well as the interface to comply with Peruvian tax authority, Sunat, regarding tax obligations. LatamReady was able to rapidly sort out any problems that Beat had with the implementation so Beat could meet all their required deadlines—despite the explosion of new drivers that happened during the implementation.
LatamReady has also focused on the expected growth of Beat, ensuring that no matter how many drivers are in the system, all the data crunching will be done accurately and on time, meeting local accounting regulations and keeping Beat on the right side of the law.
LatamReady ensures that the Peruvian localization of NetSuite is 100% accurate, and is updated regularly to implement any new regulations that may be passed. Beat is thus always compliant and up-to-date with the latest regulations when such changes happen. Many Beat Oracle+NetSuite users were pleasantly surprised at how comprehensive the LatamReady Suite App was during the implementation process. It allowed them to focus on the business rather than worrying about missing regulations or others issues that needed to be addressed.
Beat is currently eyeing Chile as its next market, which would make their ERP implementation much more complex. Chile has its own regulations, Beat’s Oracle+NetSuite ERP solution will need to be updated to meet these regulations as well. LatamReady will again be ready to step in and offer assistance with its Oracle+NetSuite Chile offerings and looks forward to its ongoing relationship with Beat—helping them grow and expand into more countries.