For growing businesses, rapid expansion often brings a familiar set of challenges: disconnected systems, time-consuming financial reporting, inventory management headaches, and employees spending too much time on repetitive tasks. Four consumer product companies are demonstrating how artificial intelligence and integrated business software can help address those problems, with some reporting substantial time and cost savings.
Oracle NetSuite highlighted the experiences of JonnyPops, Every Man Jack, Sol-ti, and Terlato in announcements released during SuiteWorld 2026. The companies are using NetSuite’s cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform and AI capabilities to automate workflows, improve access to business information, and support continued growth.
The reported results include approximately $1 million in cost savings at Every Man Jack, a nearly 50% reduction in monthly financial closing time at JonnyPops, and thousands of hours of potential annual labor savings through automation.
The announcements illustrate how businesses can apply AI to specific operational problems rather than simply adopting the technology for its own sake.
JonnyPops Uses AI to Support Rapid Expansion
JonnyPops, a Minnesota-based frozen novelty manufacturer, has grown more than tenfold while using NetSuite to support its operations.
Founded in 2012 by students at St. Olaf College, the company started selling frozen pops at farmers markets. Its products are now available in more than 80% of U.S. grocery stores, and the company employs more than 200 people.
That expansion introduced operational complexity. With around-the-clock production, seasonal employees, and growing distribution requirements, JonnyPops needed a system that could handle more than its previous QuickBooks setup.
By connecting financial management, inventory, orders, and fulfillment through NetSuite, the company improved operational visibility and reduced the time needed to close its monthly books by nearly half.
JonnyPops is also using NetSuite Next, including its Ask Oracle conversational AI capabilities, to help employees access information and complete tasks without requiring specialized technical assistance.
Through the NetSuite AI Connector Service, employees can ask questions about business performance in natural language and create dashboards suited to their responsibilities.
“We can quickly analyze large amounts of data and spend more time putting those insights to work for the business,” said Connor Wray, co-founder and CFO of JonnyPops.
For smaller manufacturers, the experience highlights the importance of integrating inventory, production, and accounting information before disconnected systems become a barrier to expansion.
Every Man Jack Reports $1 Million in Savings
Every Man Jack, a B Corp-certified men’s personal care brand founded in 2007, reports approximately $1 million in cost savings to date after connecting and automating critical business processes through NetSuite.
The company sells products through major retailers and online marketplaces, including Target, Walmart, and Amazon.
As the business expanded, disconnected systems slowed reporting and forced employees to spend significant time completing manual tasks.
By integrating finance, inventory, and order management, Every Man Jack reduced its financial close time by 50%.
The company has also introduced AI-powered workflows that address specific operational bottlenecks.
One example involves an AI order approval agent that analyzes fulfillment quantities, inventory availability, and forecasted demand before processing approvals. Sales representatives can also initiate product sample requests using natural language instead of navigating multiple forms, emails, and handoffs.
Every Man Jack estimates these automation initiatives will save more than 4,500 employee hours annually.
“By automating routine processes and making our data more accessible, we can give our teams more time to focus on higher-value work, and make better-informed decisions across the business,” said Steve Fox, CFO of Every Man Jack.
Although the company’s reported savings reflect a business operating at considerable scale, smaller companies face similar inefficiencies in order processing, customer requests, and financial reporting.
Even modest reductions in repetitive administrative work can create additional capacity without requiring proportional increases in staffing.
Sol-ti Uses AI to Analyze Costs and Inventory
Organic beverage manufacturer Sol-ti is taking a different approach by focusing on faster access to financial and operational information.
Founded in 2014, Sol-ti sells cold-pressed juices and beverages through retailers including Target, Whole Foods, Costco, and Starbucks.
The company uses NetSuite to manage financials, procurement, inventory, warehouse operations, and manufacturing.
With the AI Connector Service, employees can explore business data using everyday language. Instead of relying exclusively on manually prepared reports, teams can investigate profitability, monitor inventory, and identify factors affecting costs.
The company says this has reduced manual reporting work and allowed employees to devote more attention to analyzing business performance.
“It’s expanded what we can do with our data and made processes we wouldn’t have attempted before possible,” said Artie Trotter, vice president of finance and administration at Sol-ti.
The approach has implications for small businesses that lack dedicated data analysts. Giving authorized employees easier access to reliable financial and inventory information could help owners identify declining margins, purchasing inefficiencies, or potential shortages sooner.
Unlike the other examples, Sol-ti did not provide a specific dollar savings figure or annual hours saved.
Terlato Automates More Than 100,000 Order Updates
Wine and spirits distributor Terlato demonstrates how AI can expand the capabilities of a relatively small technology team.
The family-owned company, founded in 1938, used AI-assisted development to create 25 tools in approximately 18 weeks.
By combining those tools with NetSuite business data, Terlato has automated processes across sales, logistics, finance, and supply chain management.
Its reported improvements include:
- Automating more than 100,000 order status updates annually.
- Processing warehouse documents in a median of 40 seconds.
- Producing weekly risk assessments covering hundreds of open purchase orders.
- Achieving an estimated 1,000 hours in annual manual-work savings.
The company also uses live reporting to analyze distributor performance, replacing some analytical work that previously required months of manual effort.
“AI has fundamentally changed what our small IT team can accomplish,” said Kevin O’Toole, CIO of Terlato.
Terlato’s experience suggests that businesses do not necessarily need large development teams to build useful automation tools. However, the company already had an integrated business platform and technical staff capable of developing and maintaining those applications.
What Smaller Businesses Can Learn from These Results
Although the four companies operate in different markets, their experiences share a common theme: AI becomes more useful when it can access connected, reliable business information.
Rather than treating AI as a standalone chatbot, these businesses are integrating it with inventory management, financial reporting, order processing, and other everyday operations.
Oracle NetSuite says more than 13,000 customers now use its AI Connector Service to connect AI models with NetSuite data. The service works alongside the company’s embedded AI capabilities within its ERP software.
For small business owners evaluating similar technology, the reported experiences point toward several considerations.
Businesses can begin by identifying repetitive processes that consume employee time, such as reconciling transactions, updating order statuses, generating reports, or responding to internal information requests. Establishing the time and cost associated with those activities can help determine whether automation delivers meaningful returns.
Data quality is equally important. AI systems connected to incomplete or inconsistent inventory and financial records may produce unreliable recommendations. Businesses should also consider employee permissions, data security, and human oversight when allowing AI systems to initiate or approve transactions.
Implementation costs and complexity remain considerations. The announcements did not disclose subscription pricing, integration expenses, or the resources needed to deploy the reported solutions. The results are company-reported, and there is no guarantee that smaller organizations will achieve comparable savings.
Businesses moving from basic accounting software to an integrated ERP platform must also account for data migration, employee training, and changes to established workflows.
Still, the examples provide a practical view of where AI may deliver value. For JonnyPops, it means faster financial reporting and easier access to operational information. For Every Man Jack, it means fewer manual approvals and administrative steps. Sol-ti is using AI to deepen financial analysis, while Terlato is expanding its automation capabilities without dramatically increasing the size of its technology team.
The broader opportunity for smaller businesses is not necessarily to replicate these implementations, but to identify where connected data and targeted automation could help employees spend less time managing processes and more time serving customers and growing the business.
This article, “Four Companies Report Major Time Savings with NetSuite AI” was first published on Small Business Trends
