By : Rubén Alí Vallenilla Lugo.
May 15, 2024
On May 9, 2024, Acorde International had the honor of participating in the Odoo Roadshow Caracas 2024, an event that brought together companies and professionals interested in Odoo's business management software solutions
With an attendance of more than 500 people and with the support of nine Venezuelan official partners, the company of Belgian origin held the Odoo Roadshows event in Caracas as part of an agenda that is organized around the world after the launching of its new version, Oddo 17.
Image taken from:https://lalocura.com/2024/05/10/odoo-roadshow-2024-en-caracas-todo-un-exito/
Esteban Rodriguez in his role as Product Evangelist (Booster) was in charge of the presentation and described the solution, “as a powerful software and one of the most recommended when it comes to having a business management software”, highlighting the history and origins of the company born in 2004 with the name TinyERP, then renamed OpenERP and finally renamed to Odoo in 2014.
“Odoo has been able to take a niche in the market that has been heavily neglected within the Enterprise Management Systems industry and has been able to shore up its position as a market leader for all micro and medium-sized businesses,” he said.
He explained that Odoo is an Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP) integrated by business management modules and applications, the most used and required within any company (Finance, Marketing, Accounting, Purchasing, Sales, Inventory, Treasury, Manufacturing, among others) and that it also allows the integration of a website and online store that can be modified and adapted according to the needs and requirements of the client.
Esteban Rodriguez also commented that Odoo “is a tool that allows to digitize, plan and control the resources of a company. The possibilities it offers are therefore the guarantee of being able to organize and manage all the information and resources in an automated and fast way, thus avoiding data loss. It is very flexible and easy to use”.
He then showed the attendees the new features of its complete ERP solution, version 17, which offers highly functional features and which, according to its representatives, is currently considered the “best ERP for SMEs”, according to Esteban Rodríguez, Odoo Product Evangelist (promoter), based on a case where a service flow is traced from the creation of the customer (contact) and its quotation, sales order, assignment and follow-up of the work team to invoicing, payment to the bank and accounting.
Then came a round of questions and answers with a specialized panel formed by leaders of the official partners that endorsed the event, to explore the market vision, success stories, challenges that each of them has experienced as well as to receive from them any point of improvement or special requirement for the Venezuelan market, All the panelists agreed on the need to implement the specific localization for companies in Venezuela, understood as the information package to adapt and configure the modules and apps it contains to the Venezuelan legal, commercial, fiscal, accounting and labor regulatory framework.
In this sense, we collected several opinions from companies such as 3MIT, Odoo Gold Partner, who highlighted Odoo ERP, its ease of use, as well as a minimal change management barrier, almost null. He commented that “The differentiator with other ERP's is that anyone who enters Odoo, immediately and self-taught can use it, just like any application we have on the phone. The user will find the modules as applications and manage each one to do his job. The other ERP's have as a barrier to overcome change management, teaching the end user how to use the tool. We offer almost no change management, although the necessary training is provided. Anyone who knows or has used another ERP before can see that Odoo is easier to use and manage”.
They also commented that the installation of Odoo ERP in SMEs takes only a few weeks, if a standard implementation is used. “Some of our customers have been able to get Odoo up and running in as little as 4 weeks,” he said.
Image taken from:https://lalocura.com/2024/05/10/odoo-roadshow-2024-en-caracas-todo-un-exito/
Other new features of Odoo in its version 17
Besides the fact that the software stands out for having the ability to offer complete customization and full integration, which allows it to be modified and adapted specifically to the needs of each company, two new features standout such as the integration to Whatsapp for a closer and faster exchange of information with customers (contacts) and the integration with Chat GPT V3.5 to support routine tasks such as drafting proposals, documents or emails, among others.
Another official partner, Logiciel, told us that “Odoo 17 promises to be an even more powerful tool for business management. It showcases a revamped user interface to advanced workflow automation and improvements in human resources and project management, provides an enhanced user experience and a more comprehensive feature set to manage business operations more efficiently.”
Venezuelan and Latin American market.
For Odoo executives, the Venezuelan and Latin American software market “is extremely interesting and there is a niche that must continue to penetrate”.
Integrators in Venezuela have done very well because they have had a large market in the country and the need for a platform that helps businessmen on their way to Digital Transformation and to optimize their operational processes. As an important fact, they indicated that 80% of the current Venezuelan customer portfolio migrated because their ERP systems were already obsolete and/or not supported, they were not flexible and Odoo offers a versatile and flexible all-in-one solution. In the rest of Latin America this indicator is quite similar.
Our final impressions.
The event was an excellent opportunity to learn about the latest Odoo news, as well as to exchange experiences with other users and experts in the platform. In addition, we were able to share our own experience as a company learning and exploring Odoo, showing interest in working hand in hand with official partners through productive development alliances and of course aiming to be partners of the solution.
This roadshow was a completely enriching experience that allowed us to be up to date with the latest trends in business management software and to visualize ourselves, as we mentioned before, towards the goal of being an Odoo partner in Venezuela and Latin America. We are sure that the knowledge and contacts acquired in this event will consolidate this vision.
Acorde International is a company that provides software factory services Software Quality Assurance and UI/UX Design that has started a path to grow and diversify. We have a team of professionals ready to help implement Odoo-based solutions in companies with quality and efficiency.