The first call: from referral to opportunity
Oracle NetSuite’s sales ops team didn’t stumble onto Born West through a vendor directory. They were referred by Social Imprints, a long‑time merch partner who knew we could untangle messy workflows. Within one 30‑minute discovery call the NetSuite leads revealed their pain: sending a single client gift felt like juggling three tabs, two spreadsheets, and a prayer. They needed fresh thinking more than they needed headcount.
Voices from the field
“We weren’t looking for more fingers on keyboards. We needed brains that could see the shortcut.” — Oracle NetSuite stakeholder.
Here’s the high‑stakes twist we learned that same afternoon. Oracle’s sales teams were pushing roughly five to six million dollars in swag a year through a single‑page tool Social Imprints had slapped together five years earlier. If we couldn’t prove a better path fast, leadership was ready to scrap custom software entirely and switch to an off‑the‑shelf SaaS like Salesforce Commerce. In other words, we weren’t up against other agencies, we were up against the shortcut of buying a licence and calling it a day.
The fallout from the old flow was real. Reps stockpiled unspent budget until quarter‑end; clients waited weeks for brownies; operations had no visibility into who sent what. NetSuite asked if we could slash the send time without expanding headcount.
Why they picked us (and why it stuck)
Solution speed > delivery speed
Most agencies brag about sprint speed. We brag about tech-driven quick thinking. When stakeholders dropped problems mid-Zoom, we delivered working solutions on the spot. That live problem-solving built trust from
day one.
Total Ownership
Our team treated the portal like our own P&L. If Shopify’s API hiccupped at 2 A.M., we were on Slack before NetSuite’s IT ticket system fired. That level of care signalled partner, not vendor.
Curiosity before keyboards
Instead of accepting feature requests as gospel, we kept digging for the why. When a PM asked for a “gift tracker,” we realised they really needed confidence—so a lightweight status dashboard replaced a heavyweight report builder.
Stakeholder quote
“You don’t just say yes. You ask better questions until the real problem shows.”
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Building the relationship in six weeks
Week 1: Clickable user‑flow outline → Confidence we “got it”.
Week 2: Address checker demo → Early proof we solved returns pain.
Week 3: Admin snapshot with allocations → Showed we cared about leadership optics.
Week 4: Integration demo with Shopify + SSO → IT risk shrinks to near‑zero.
Week 5: User‑testing sessions → Sales reps validate in real voice.
Week 6: Portal live before quarter close → budget redeemed, brownies shipped.
Every weekly review felt like a miniature product launch. Quick wins were celebrated; next week's priorities locked in under 30 minutes.
Business outcomes
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Lessons for revenue leaders
Speed earns trust. Stakeholders commit more when they see progress happen live.
Ownership beats scope documents. Acting like co‑founders earns faster “yeses.”
Daily triage tames requirement churn. Respond quickly to mixed manager feedback or watch timelines explode.
Ask the second‑layer why. The feature you skip may be the headache you save.
Partnership dynamics & next opportunity
Social Imprints brought deep merch expertise and controlled the physical-goods budget, while Oracle supplied the funding for the software layer. Because SI isn’t a tech shop, we stepped in to translate feature ideas into clear cost-and-timeline options that worked for both teams. Every request moved smoothly through procurement and sales leadership because we framed decisions in terms everyone could act on in the same week. That bridge-building role turned us into the go-to partner trusted to keep momentum high on both sides.
The three‑way setup also surfaced a wider play. If the portal can handle NetSuite’s volume, it can power gifting for Oracle corporate or even SI’s other enterprise clients like Adobe and Dropbox. The blocker is appetite for compliance overhead, not code. We keep the case study warm so Social Imprints has a ready proof‑point the moment they decide to scale. The runway is still there, and we’re ready to co‑sell the proven engine when Social Imprints is.
Lesson: partnerships aren’t just about shared wins, they’re about shared appetite for risk. Our job is to keep the door open and the case study sharp so collaborators can step through when they’re ready.
Future together
Success bred new ideas: deeper CRM hooks, smart allocation pooling, and AI‑powered gift suggestions that skip duplicate brownies. We’ll reconnect this quarter to map the next sprint.
Born West isn’t just a vendor, we're the team NetSuite calls when the whiteboard is still blank.
