We went from daily fire drills to full trust in our data. Parabola helped us clean up the chaos—without ripping anything out.
The problem
Use case 1
Manual work, mismatched systems, and month-end surprises
Michael Villa, Director of Operations at Blenders, leads a lean team managing logistics, inventory, and planning. As the company scaled, they turned to Flexport to modernize their fulfillment operations. The physical operations ran smoothly and efficiently, but as they scaled, reconciling data across multiple platforms across their business became challenging.
“We’d get to the end of the month and find ourselves inexplicably misaligned by hundreds of units across dozens of SKUs,” Villa said. “And the more we tugged on the thread, the less sense things made.”
Blenders was managing inventory across NetSuite, Shopify, and Flexport, but aligning those systems proved tough. Time zone mismatches, internal transfers, and the limits of prebuilt reports created gaps that made it difficult to understand what was actually happening. Michael needed more visibility across Blenders’ full stack.
The solution
Use case 2
A flexible layer to make sense of it all
Instead of replacing what was already working, Michael brought in Parabola to help connect the dots. By pulling in data from NetSuite, Shopify, and Flexport, the team built daily flows that flagged exceptions, reconciled records, and gave them a clearer picture of what was happening.
“You don’t have to be a tech expert to use Parabola. I just rolled up my sleeves and started connecting the dots. It helped me make sense of all the data across our systems—without needing to be an engineer.”
One of the first breakthroughs came from normalizing time zone data across reporting platforms. That small detail was behind some of the biggest reporting gaps.
From there, the team kept building. They layered in logic, filtered down to just the data that mattered, and started surfacing issues before they snowballed. Instead of spending hours chasing down errors, Michael’s team now spots and resolves issues before they become problems.
Flexport stayed closely involved throughout.
“They were super supportive,” Michael said. “Once a few key folks were looped in, it really became a collaborative effort to make sure the right data was flowing and the workflows were working.”
The results
Use case 3
Less scrambling, more confidence, and a foundation for growth
Blenders now has a reconciliation process they can rely on, and time back to focus on higher-leverage work.
- Time savings: Inventory reconciliation dropped from 1–4 hours per day to just 1–2 hours per week
- Improved visibility: Reports that were previously reviewed weekly or monthly are now monitored daily
- New workflows: Parabola powers demand planning support, open order audits, and cross-system checks
- Stronger alignment: Finance and ops work from the same data, so surprises are rare
The real ROI isn’t just the hours we save—it’s the mindset change. What used to feel like an impossible mountain of data is now a daily routine. We drop it into Parabola, build a new flow, and let it flag what matters. Suddenly we’re tackling projects we never dreamed of doing every day, and the team feels unstoppable.”
Blenders can now plan faster, move with confidence, and turn once-daunting data challenges into everyday wins.
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This customer story is for informational purposes only. Parabola makes no warranties, express or implied, in this document.
