About Arcadia Cold

Arcadia Cold is a third-party logistics company that provides cold storage and logistics solutions with over 1,500,000 square feet of facilities across the US, serving a $253.2bn industry. Equipped with the most advanced refrigeration and information technologies, Arcadia Cold strives for the highest efficiency in logistics and customer communication regarding inventory data. Nexla automates Arcadia Cold’s data consolidation process in real-time, creating cost savings in engineering and data tool purchases.

The Challenge

Managing many warehouse systems led to disjointed data collection and many disparate data integration tools – all of which limited client visibility into real-time inventory. Beyond that, Arcadia Cold was a new company with limited staff and imperative data demands, so they sought a tool that was easy to implement and could prove immediate ROI advantages without the need for extensive knowledge of programming languages.

The Solution

Nexla has native integration with Oracle NetSuite NSAW (NetSuite Analytics Warehouse), which provides single-source access to data from various warehouse systems. Nexla eliminated the need for multiple middleware integrators and provided a low-code environment, enabling even business users to create data flows.

The Impact

I believe that the savings that Nexla has given us by eliminating 3 to 4 other integration tools has reduced the integration budget by 50%-60% across all applications.” – Chris LaFaire, CIO, Arcadia Cold Storage & Logistics

• 50%-60% reduction in data integration spend 
• 67% reduction in time-to-market
• Real-time inventory data to power dashboards
• Self-service data access for clients and business users

The Central Data Hub

Consolidating data from different warehouses and enterprise systems was a major roadblock for Arcadia Cold to set a sound foundation for its data operations. To integrate inventory and operational data into NetSuite, Arcadia Cold faced the dilemma of either building data pipelines in-house or purchasing multiple middleware applications, both would be extremely costly.

“Nexla works natively with NetSuite and NetSuite Analytics Warehouse,” said Chris Lafaire, CIO of Arcadia Cold. “We learned that we could use Nexla as a central hub for our data strategy.” Nexla offered a comprehensive solution that enabled Arcadia Cold to integrate its 3rd party warehouse systems, HR payroll, and billing systems with NSAW and NetSuite ERP. With Nexla, the company could bypass the requirement of multiple middleware applications which saved not only on cost but also significantly reduced the time to market.

According to Chris, Nexla afforded a much faster implementation period of under three months, as compared to nine months via other approaches. This efficiency translated into a tangible impact on Arcadia Cold’s budget, with integration costs slashed by 50% to 60% across all applications.

Customer-Centric Data Access

Arcadia Cold utilizes Nexla to streamline the presentation of inventory information from all systems in one location, effortlessly generating accurate, real-time dashboards. This streamlined data access allows Arcadia Cold’s customers to efficiently analyze, predict, and optimize inventory logistics through self-service.

“When customers see the availability of our data in our portal supported by Nexla, they are surprised by how much they can access via self-service,” said Chris, “So I think that gives us a competitive advantage in providing the data for our customers.” Nexla has become a cornerstone in Arcadia Cold’s ability to provide accurate, real-time data to its customers, significantly enhancing customer satisfaction. In an industry where mitigating supply chain risks and optimizing fulfillment costs are imperative, the competitive advantage gained through Nexla is evident in the heightened visibility provided to customers.

Harnessing No/Low-Code Strategy

Nexla’s low-code approach has proven invaluable for a new company like Arcadia Cold, where a shortage of staff with expertise in various technologies presents a challenge. Nexla’s intuitive and accessible low/no-code design allows business users to actively contribute to the creation of dataflows without requiring specialized programming knowledge.

Being a new company, we didn’t have all of the staff and all of the expertise that knew all of the technologies. As we were using Nexla, we came to know how easy it was that our business users are now helping create data flows.” – Chris LaFaire, CIO, Arcadia Cold Storage & Logistics

Nexla takes away the burden of maintaining and monitoring data flows. Before, a data analyst at Arcadia Cold would spend about 50% to 60% of their time maintaining data flows, but this has now reduced to less than 5% — an incredible time saving. This situation has allowed for more time to be allocated towards generating valuable insights from the data versus maintaining the infrastructure itself. In Chris’ words, “Having that reliability and sustainability, truly partnering with us, making themselves available, getting errors fixed and corrected – those are the primary components that separated Nexla from other ETL tools.”

The platform simplifies the data movement process by providing a visual representation of how data can be transformed, offering examples and prompts to guide users through decisions on data import and transformation. This approach not only accelerates the creation of new data flows but also encourages collaboration between business and IT teams. As a result, business users are empowered to self-serve, reducing the need for extensive communication and easing the workload for engineers.

Proactive Data Management & Trustworthy Partnership

Nexla’s real-time alerts on source data changes, target unavailability, and potential issues ensure immediate problem identification and resolution. This capability is particularly vital for Arcadia Cold to prevent disruptions from making cascading impacts on logistics operations, enabling proactive data management to maintain efficiency and prevent downstream challenges.

I love that when the source data changes or the target is not available or when there is any type of hiccup, Nexla gives us proactive alerts even before anyone notices.” – Chris LaFaire, CIO, Arcadia Cold Storage & Logistics

Arcadia Cold’s partnership with Nexla has grown above a signed contract. “Whenever we have a question, such as how to implement something, we trust our partner to give us quick and helpful responses, going beyond simply closing the ticket,” said Chris. This reliability and responsiveness contribute significantly to Arcadia Cold’s operational success, making Nexla an essential component in the company’s data integration initiatives.

Summary

Arcadia Cold’s partnership with Nexla transformed the company’s approach towards data management and integration. In achieving a central data hub, it has not only enhanced its services but has also increased competitiveness in the cold storage industry. Nexla offers a unique, multi-integration platform that is agnostic and caters to various business needs while providing consistent, outstanding support.

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