Founded in 1980 in the Atlanta area, C&S Chemicals began as a regional supplier of alum and related products for the water treatment and paper industries. Over the decades, C&S expanded its capabilities to include manufacturing, logistics, and technical services, becoming a vertically integrated provider to industrial and municipal customers across the Southeastern U.S. 

In 2022, a partnership with a private equity firm enabled C&S to pursue strategic acquisitions and consolidate operations under a unified platform. Today, the company operates across four business segments: chemical manufacturing and resale, animal health services, boiler and cooling tower treatment, and transportation logistics. 

Challenges to success 

As C&S Chemicals evolved from a regional supplier into a diversified, multi-segment enterprise, the systems that once supported its operations began to show their limitations. Each acquisition brought new teams, processes, and technologies into the fold. This created a patchwork of disconnected systems and reactive workarounds—such as manual spreadsheet reconciliations, duplicate data entry across platforms, and siloed reporting tools that delayed decision-making—that made it difficult to operate as a unified organization. Leadership recognized that to sustain growth and scale effectively, they needed a single, integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform that could bring cohesion to the business. 

"Gathering information from a single ERP system, as opposed to different ERPs for different parts of the business, was important,” said Alex Birnbaum, C&S’s Chief Transformation Officer. “We have a true commitment to integration and not just putting a bunch of companies under a single umbrella and then having them all operate independently, so we wanted to see the efficiencies from that." 

C&S needed a solution that could support not only current needs but also future acquisitions and business lines. The challenge wasn’t just technical – it was cultural. Teams across the company had grown accustomed to their own ways of working; aligning them around a new system required careful change management, clear communication, and a shared vision for the future. 

Action taken

For support in their technological transformation from a collection of independently operating entities into a unified, scalable enterprise, the company enlisted CohnReznick for a two-phase process. 

Discovery and ERP selection 

The engagement began with a deep discovery process to understand the operational nuances of a company that had grown through acquisition and was managing its business through a patchwork of spreadsheets and legacy tools. The goal was to choose an ERP that could harmonize financials, streamline operations, and create a single source of truth across all business units.  

CohnReznick worked closely with C&S Chemicals during this phase—not only to assess technical requirements, but to uncover the cultural and operational realities that would shape a successful implementation. Through workshops, stakeholder interviews, and process mapping, the team identified key friction points and future-state goals. This collaborative approach helped ground the ERP selection in both business strategy and day-to-day realities. NetSuite emerged as the best solution for C&S’s goals.  

ERP implementation and optimization 

In the implementation phase, the team focused on core financials, manufacturing, and distribution – laying the groundwork for visibility, control, and future scalability. 

CohnReznick worked closely with C&S to address the unique challenges of the chemical manufacturing industry. For example, the team needed to reconcile informal, analog practices – like measuring inventory by “scoops” or bulldozer loads – with the precision required by modern ERP systems. This meant not only configuring the system to handle complex units of measure and bill of materials logic but also guiding the organization through a cultural shift toward more standardized, data-driven processes. 

CohnReznick helped C&S meet its ERP goals by:  

• Developing custom reporting and dashboards to support cross-entity visibility and performance tracking 
• Designing a scalable architecture to support future phases, including field service integration 
• Provided training and resources to encourage users and help ensure long-term success 
• Systematizing highly customized invoicing formats to meet diverse customer requirements while maintaining compliance and operational efficiency 

By translating C&S’s business complexity into a structured, digital framework, CohnReznick helped the company move from reactive workarounds to proactive, strategic operations, positioning them for continued growth and acquisition readiness. 

About the implementation, Birnbaum notes, "ERP implementation is a process. You want to go through that process with a trusted partner who you can talk to and be open with, who responds well to your questions and concerns. With every relationship comes bumps, but the ability to work with a team that you trust to resolve those things is what I look for in an implementation partner. And Shawn and his team have done a wonderful job of responding to any concerns.”  

Seeing results 

Although it’s still early in their ERP journey, Birnbaum reports that C&S noticed NetSuite’s impact immediately. With the new platform, the company: 

• Gained real-time visibility into financial performance across all entities – eliminating the need for manual consolidation and guesswork 
• Replaced inconsistent, spreadsheet-driven workflows with standardized processes for accounting, procurement, and inventory management 
• Enabled faster month-end closes and more accurate reporting 
• Unified previously siloed teams under a shared system with clear data structures and role-based dashboards tailored to their needs 

"We're starting to see data normalization between companies,” Birnbaum states. “We're starting to see great improvements in the timeliness of transactions and data visibility. When you're aggregating data from multiple ERP systems, you don't necessarily have the visibility to see transactions or track inventory in real time. Now that we can do that, it gives us the ability to make business decisions at a faster pace." 

CohnReznick’s collaborative approach helped ensure that the system wasn’t just implemented – it was adopted. By tailoring the ERP system to C&S’s real-world operations, the solution felt intuitive from Day 1, Birnbaum said, freeing leadership to focus on strategic growth. 

The path forward 

Perhaps most importantly, NetSuite has laid the foundation for C&S’s next chapter. With a scalable, integrated system in place, the company is now positioned to onboard new acquisitions more seamlessly, expand into adjacent markets, and pursue its long-term vision with confidence. This tech transformation didn’t just address today’s problems – it created a launchpad for tomorrow’s opportunities. 
 
Looking ahead, C&S is planning future enhancements to its ERP system, with field service operations as a primary focus. The aim for the next phase is to enable better management of onsite activities and customer engagements. With improved data visibility and standardized workflows, leadership can make faster, more informed decisions, while teams can operate more efficiently. The company is also exploring additional integrations and automation to reduce manual work and enhance reporting. 

“Improved data visibility will enable us to really push the business out to the edge. Rather than just reporting on historicals from a financial perspective, now we're able to do more forecasting and be more efficient in the way we deploy our field teams as well,” Birnbaum says.  

As C&S continues to expand through acquisition and innovation, the ERP system will serve as the backbone for integrating new entities, aligning business processes, and maintaining financial clarity across all segments. Birnbaum states, “The beauty of NetSuite for us is the ability to implement it at the size we are and scale from here. We are now anticipating growth and have the system to support that growth all the way." 

Ultimately, by investing in a flexible, future-ready ERP platform, C&S has laid the groundwork for operational excellence, strategic expansion, and a more connected, data-driven enterprise. 

NetSuite support overview

• Intercompany management 
• New business unit integration
• Advanced financials 
• Banking
• Automations