CASE STUDY

P.W. Gillibrand Replaces a Failing Legacy ERP With NetSuite Across Eight Subsidiaries 

September 21, 2026

P.W. Gillibrand is a sand mining company that extracts, sorts, washes, and blends sand to precise specifications for customers ranging from playgrounds to horse arenas. Headquartered in the Simi Valley area of California with plants across California and Texas, the company employs about 200 people across eight subsidiaries and a parent organization. Marie-Laure Leglise, Chief Financial Officer at P.W. Gillibrand, has held the role for ten years and served as executive sponsor of the company’s NetSuite implementation with Caravel.  

Challenge  

  • A Failing Legacy System: P.W. Gillibrand had run Microsoft Dynamics AX on premises for roughly ten years, and the aging system was showing signs of failure while Microsoft no longer supported it, forcing the company to move despite having delayed the switch as long as possible.  
  • Slow, Manual Reporting: extracting consolidated financial information across the company’s eight subsidiaries and one parent entity out of AX could take two to three days of manual work in Excel rather than delivering timely, live data.  
  • A Complex, Multi-Entity Footprint: P.W. Gillibrand needed a system that could support multiple entities and sites along with finance, procurement, inventory, work order assembly, warehouse management, planning, and order administration, all with significant integration requirements.  
  • A High-Stakes Vendor Decision: as executive sponsor, Leglise was concerned about carrying the bulk of the implementation burden herself and needed a system and partner combination that would not put daily operations at risk.  

Solution  

P.W. Gillibrand ran a thorough, team-driven selection process, initially reviewing Microsoft Dynamics 365, Oracle, NetSuite, SAP, and Epicor before narrowing the field to Oracle, NetSuite, and Microsoft Dynamics. The company quickly ruled out heavy investment in evaluating Dynamics, given its similarity to the legacy AX system, and ultimately eliminated Oracle after determining its cost and functionality were comparable to Microsoft’s offering.   When P.W. Gillibrand reached out to NetSuite for implementation partner recommendations, Caravel was one of two firms suggested.

Despite the outreach landing just days before Christmas in 2022, Caravel responded quickly, and its clearly defined implementation methodology gave Leglise confidence that the company would not be left to shoulder the project largely on her own.  “Caravel has a very, very strong implementation process. For me, that had a lot of value because, as the executive sponsor, I was afraid that I was going to have to carry a lot of the weight of the implementation,” Leglise said.  Caravel and NetSuite spent two to three days on-site with P.W.

Gillibrand conducting an extensive, department-by-department demo, giving both sides a clear view of how NetSuite would work across the company’s operations. NetSuite ultimately proved the clear preference on functionality, and the business case was reinforced by cost: the NetSuite implementation came in roughly 60 percent cheaper than the competing option, a difference of more than a million dollars.  Rather than rush to meet an original January go-live target, P.W. Gillibrand delayed its launch by five months after Leglise determined that end users were not yet ready.

The team ran extensive department-by-department testing, retrained users, and introduced a friendly competition requiring two transactions per day, with weekly participation reports shared across the company to build adoption ahead of go-live.  “If anyone does not feel very comfortable, if you feel you are not ready to go live, do not do it. Although delayed by five months, it was very smooth. There was absolutely no business interruption,” Leglise said.  

Outcome  

P.W. Gillibrand went live on NetSuite on June 1 with no disruption to daily operations, having loaded three years of financial and sales history into the new system. Leglise attributes the smooth transition to disciplined testing, thorough user training, and a decision not to rush the timeline despite earlier deadline pressure.  Consolidated reporting across the company’s eight subsidiaries, once a multi-day manual exercise in AX, is now available instantly, and P.W. Gillibrand has since brought in a consultant to build out further custom reporting and key performance indicators.  

“There is not a day when I am not happy about NetSuite. To get a consolidated income statement out of AX was a couple of days worth of work downloading to Excel. In NetSuite, it is just a button. For me, it is night and day,” Leglise said.  Beyond reporting speed, P.W. Gillibrand found NetSuite to be intuitive and flexible enough to accommodate the complexity of its operations, even as integrations with its sales tax and scale systems required extra attention during the project.  

About Caravel  

Caravel has served more than 1,000 clients over the past decade, providing a comprehensive range of services, including accounting, strategy, business process, and technology selection. Caravel is proud to be part of the technology services group of BPM LLP, a top 40 accounting and advisory firm.  

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