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What is Odoo?
Odoo is a suite of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software packages that embody flexibility, integration, and a customer-first approach. It is freely available for download. You can click here to download the Community Edition because Odoo ERP has an open-source code base. Odoo ERP nevertheless is available for paid subscribers for the enterprise version. It is also available from the same Download Link. The prominent packages in Odoo ERP include HR, Inventory, Reporting, CRM, Sales, and Accounting to name a few. Odoo has a wide range of IoT integrations which is meeting the ever-rising needs of its customers. The company is continuously striving to meet new ERP industry standards and customer requirements by releasing the latest version of the software package every year.
Odoo SA has always played with the fair rules of serving the customer. If the customer needed more integration, Odoo developed more integration with world-famous plugins. If a customer needed hardware integrations with their favorite Odoo ERP, Odoo developed IoT integration. It is the customer’s first and foremost company.
Who is the founder of Odoo ERP?
Odoo ERP was conceived, developed, and founded as a company by Fabien Pinckaers – a Belgian software developer, and enthusiast. Fabien Pinckaers completed his education at the bachelor’s and master’s levels in Computer Science from Université catholique de Louvain between 1997 and 2004. He had always been a keen software developer who loved coding. Even in his teenage, he had developed and successfully sold a piece of business management software called Les Transports Verts. Similarly, he developed the art piece auction website called Auction-in-Europe which went viral in Europe competing against the top eCommerce stores in the country such as eBay at the time.
Unlike many CEOs around the world who refrain from putting all eggs in one basket, Fabien certainly went against the tide. He not only has put his all eggs in one basket, but he also eats, sleeps, and works in that very basket. Fabien is not only the CEO of the world-famous ERP company, but he is also an author of more than 5 books written all around the idea of using Odoo for various businesses such as Manufacturing, Sales, Marketing, Logistics, and Accounting. You can buy the paperback of his books from This Link. He also includes the company name in his social media profile which shows that not only does he truly believes in the company and what it stands for, he actively ensures that he is known to be associated with the company.
Fabien Pinckaers leads the company with a self-driven, and focused vision with a deep insight into the emerging needs of customers. An example of his vision can be seen in the IoT integration options with ERP system that solves a major pain point of the enterprise customers in today’s world of wide connectivity.
How Did Odoo Develop?
Odoo ERP’s phenomenal success didn’t happen overnight. Fabien Pinckaers began the development of Odoo ERP in 2002. Initially, he named the software TinyERP. Since Opens source community and open-source code development have always been the centre of his attention, the core software has always been available to the public free of cost as a libre software. Also, inspired by the open-source movement, Fabien soon changed the name of the company from TinyERP to OpenERP. Odoo ERP has a core ERP module, and source code provided by the Odoo SA (Belgium), however, the community version does not include the proprietary features available to the enterprise customers.
At its core, the Odoo ERP SA is available as enterprise software as well as a SaaS-based environment ready for deployment according to the needs of your company. Odoo SA takes a modular approach. The bare structure of the Odoo ERP consists of almost 30 (official) modules. As a customer, you’re free to choose only the modules your business needs (and the modules which are a precursor to your required modules) and can include more modules as your business grows. However, make no mistake that you’re restricted to these 30 modules to solve your business issues. You can check out the complete list of Official Odoo Modules along with the pricing. In practice, the actual number of modules available to you individually, or to your business has no limits since not only the Odoo community has placed a large number of integrated modules on sale in the Odoo app store, but the customization also available via Odoo official partners has seen no bounds. So, your business is always taken care of no matter the peculiar needs you may have.
From its inception, Odoo ERP has seen many seasons of ups and downs and it has grown to become a multi-nation brand. Odoo serves customers in over 3 continents along with physical active office coverage. The company grew at such a pace in usage, adaptability, and identity, that the Trends Tendances magazine of Belgium named Fabien Pinckaers the new Bill Gates. The Odoo ERP has more than 5 million customers around the globe, who are putting ever more trust in the company’s growth. Not only Odoo has grabbed a major chunk of ERP market share, but it has also become synonymous with ERP software itself.
How many people work at Odoo?
Although originally Fabien began the company solo and ran it that way for quite some time, the growth of the company soon compelled him to hire more people to handle the ever-growing business needs. According to the official sources, Odoo SA currently employs more than 1700 people[1] to work on its flagship, in-house modules, and core software. However, the fresh statistics curated by Craft[2] and further validated by the company’s LinkedIn page[3], it is evident that with a 4% increase, the Odoo SA currently (2022) has more than 2000 employees. That is a considerable growth well-proportionate to the company’s growth around the world.
Where in the world Odoo is located?
Odoo was originally conceived and developed in Belgium. So, naturally, the CEO opted to keep the HQ in Belgium too. Currently, the company’s primary headquarter is in Louvain-la-Neuve, in the Wallonia region, some 30 km from the capital of Belgium, Brussels. However, due to the nature of the company and under the leadership of Fabien Pinckaers, the company has more than 3500+ partners located worldwide covering more than 3 continents. Having such a vast network of partners means your business is as close to the headquarters as it is away.
What makes Odoo different?
Odoo is built on open-source principles where flexibility, modularity, and integrability take the center stage. Your business may be evolving and bringing in complex and varying business needs, but Odoo does not skip a beat seeing these variations. Odoo can fulfil all your business needs without requiring any additional ERP integration. Odoo draws its phenomenal strength from the community of developers, and outstanding service providers commonly referred to within the community as the Odoo partners.
Deployment Flexibility
Odoo, unlike other ERPs, offers an On-Premises software as well as the Software as a Service Solution via cloud, available to its enterprise customers. This means you are not limited to a single mode of ERP deployment for your company. If your business needs are different than the typical Small and Mediums Enterprises (SMEs), you’ll find that the Odoo ERP has amazing plug-and-play support for various modules which integrate with other packages seamlessly. Odoo’s flawless integration flexibility translates into solving all major deployment issues for your company.
All in one
Odoo ERP provides for all your business needs. From Manufacturing to Inventory, Marketing to Sales, Accounting to Reporting, and even the e-commerce module is fully integrated with Odoo ERP. Odoo has more than 30 modules officially provided off the shelf. Hundreds of more modules and apps are provided via the community developers on the Odoo app store. If your business is still in need of a peculiar module, the Odoo partners are the experts who can provide the customized module(s) specifically tailored to your business needs. Ultimately, Odoo is an ERP and a friend of your business in all seasons and in thick and thin.
Simplicity and User Friendly
Odoo ERP has a wide variety of modules fully integrated with the foundational plan. These modules include website builder, e-commerce store, and inventory management. By the looks of it, the ERP is quite sophisticated which might give a wrong impression of being tough to use. Odoo has been developed in such a way that even a non-tech-savvy person in your company can easily whip out a website overnight. The company has made all the efforts to make sure that the modules are easy to understand, and the processes are thoroughly documented so that just by following the step-by-step guide, you can set up your ERP for your company. You can say that the Odoo ERP is the Ikea of ERPs.
Affordability
One of the most lucrative features of Odoo is its affordability. First off, being an open-source software, it is free for a small number of users (typically two). If you get past that, you must pay a small subscription fee. Since Odoo adopts a modular approach, you don’t have to pay large upfront costs for modules you might need in future which alone saves you thousands of bucks. Setting up Odoo ERP for the first time, you’ll get one module free for a lifetime. That must have sweetened the deal so far. Furthermore, modularity in Odoo not only allows you to opt-in with different modules as your needs arise but also allows you to opt-out of modules that may not be of much need at the time. Last but not the least, Odoo partners are always available to customize a module just for your business. This can save you costs if you must find another software, train people for it, and spend time integrating it with your ERP just for those few features that your business needs. These combined in one Odoo ERP makes it the best ERP to choose as an SME.
Which programming language does Odoo use?
Odoo ERP uses various programming languages for its core and modular applications. Since Odoo is not a static software, the various versions evolved with varying needs and therefore the languages used in each version kept evolving as well. It must be noted that the Odoo supports three LTS (Long Term Support) in parallel. Meaning the 5.0 TLS will be supported along with the 6.0 TLS and 7.0 TLS. However, one the release of 8.0 TLS, the 5.0 TLS is not supported anymore. Here we’ll talk about the latest version of that Odoo which is 15.0.
Odoo SA version 15.0 uses a multi-tier approach to develop its product. This means that there is a front end (this is the Presentation Layer), logic layer (this is the Business Layer), and backend (this is the Data Layer). Each layer uses a different tech stack and languages are used in each layer when building the Odoo platform.
For the Presentation Layer, Odoo uses HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS. HTML 5 offers better error handling, simplicity, and in-built multimedia support. JavaScript contributes to higher load speeds, interoperability, and decreased overhead. The CSS on the other hand provides platform independence, true to the soul of Odoo. This tech stack when combined provides a wide range of effective and efficient app and web performance for various operating systems alike.
For the Business Layer, Python is exclusively used. The language has gained exponential popularity and gets this: your company developer is going to love this language. Python is a basket that everybody seems to put their eggs in now a day. Plus, for your business, reducing the development cost would be easy as the developers for this language has become most common. If you develop an Odoo module, app, or theme, this product can then be easily audited, adopted, and shared across various consumers of all types.
Lastly for the Data Layer, Odoo uses PostGresSQL (which is used for the data storage objects) offers higher flexibility, data structure, and Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) which offers a wide range of data support needed for Odoo’s firm grip on integration set.
Other than major tech stack, Odoo uses various site elements such as external, embedded, and inline CSS, Open Graph Protocol which converts the webpage into a rich object, UTF-8 for character encoding, and a range of image formats such as PNG, JPEG, SVG, and GIF. Odoo also uses XML (Extensible Markup Language) for records definitions such as menu items, and user actions.
Overall, the core philosophy of Odoo SA revolves around businesses and common users. To facilitate the consumers and businesses to adopt Odoo easily, and deploy them company-wide, Odoo uses a tech stack that is common and easy to understand.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Odoo
Odoo is a platform where users can achieve their desired ERP needs under one roof. More than 5 million users use Odoo ERP, and it is one of the top platforms for supporting all sizes of enterprises. Odoo provides all facilities related to Finance, Sales, Customer Support, Inventory, MRP, Human Resources, Marketing, Services and Productivity. These applications are in the form of modules and are integrated with each other seamlessly to form a unified platform.
User interface
Although Odoo has a minimalistic design, the platform is incredibly user-friendly and is a comprehensive solution. It is packed with many features and functionalities which can service businesses of any size. Even novice users may operate the programme with ease thanks to the less crowded interface. It may seem complicated at first since it is a universal solution that handles several tasks from a single location, but due to its simplified design, it performs better than its competitors in the market.
Finance Support
Odoo efficiently solves the finance problems such as ineffective reporting, not paying bills on time, and poor marketing strategies. Similarly, it integrates business and personal finances by providing the facility of reminders, bank synchronization, invoicing, clear statements, and generating expense reports by analyzing the data. It encompasses all these facilities under a simple one-location software.
Sales Support
As discussed above, Odoo provides all solutions on one platform, so, it also helps users and businesses to improve sales. It improves sales by mitigating problems such as wastage of time on unqualified prospects, no calls from leads, and bad website leads. Many times, the task is delayed because leaders have no authority to make purchasing decisions. Therefore, Odoo provides relief in such scenarios. It has several capabilities that may be used to improve a business’s sales operations by leveraging electronic signatures in correspondence, documents, and growing sales. Businesses may customize dashboard designs to improve business performance and receive aid from its integrated CRM (Customer Relationship Management) for accurate sales projections and actionable data. Odoo has stable, well-integrated, user-friendly, and simple to set up tools such as CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and POS (Point of Sale) which aid significantly in achieving effective sales support.
Customer Support
Customer Support is the backbone of any business. If your business is not approachable to customers, then it can never achieve nationwide or country-wide recognition. Therefore, Odoo’s Customer Support makes sure that your business is easily approachable by your loyal as well as your potential customers. Odoo helps businesses gain favor through your customer service. Odoo provides several simple and approachable customer care channels such as the Live Chat, and customer support tickets. For within the company support system, Odoo offers Live Chat where one does not have to leave the module and refer to the relevant departmental personnel.
Customization Flexibility and a Complete Tool
One of the best features of Odoo is that it can be customized to a higher extent to meet the specific requirements of your company by working with an Odoo partner. Therefore, a partner can provide the functionality for your business even if your unique requirement extends beyond Odoo’s app store or isn’t appropriately covered there. This is quite helpful because the implementation of a company-wide ERP frequently necessitates significant behavioral adjustments on the part of your team. The less you need to alter existing company procedures, and the more effective your installation project will be, the more you can customize the software to meet your demands.
Actions for security
Odoo places a high premium on security issues because it cares deeply about the security of Odoo systems and not only because we use it internally. Odoo is a company that works hard to shield Odoo users from known security concerns and appreciates any reports of security flaws that our users or contributors may find. For safety purposes, independent businesses that are contracted by Odoo and potential clients are encouraged to conduct audits and penetration testing frequently. When required, the Odoo security team implements the necessary remedial actions after receiving the findings.
The following are the disadvantage of Odoo ERP
Odoo has various shortcomings and is not a perfect system. However, a major number of merchants like it because its advantages outweigh its drawbacks. Let’s briefly examine these drawbacks of Odoo SA:
Complex structure
Due to its complex structure, Odoo may seem difficult to create or apply in accordance with your company’s specific needs. Because of the complex structure, companies face trouble with delivering their desired requirements. Even though it is straightforward, it is fairly difficult to deploy and requires an internal IT professional for training the common employees and deploying the product company-wide. The good thing however is, that the company has extensive documentation to ease the traversal of Odoo deployment in your company.
Pricing
Odoo SA does not provide any fixed estimating feature that would enable Odoo management to provide clients with precise lead times and pricing. High prices are one of the most frequent criticisms about Odoo deployment. Since modules must be purchased separately, pricing is complicated in Odoo SA. In addition to the $20 per month for a single user, switching to even one more application after utilizing a single module would result in additional fees. The total continues to grow as a result. However, Odoo has offered price options to choose the apps in advance to address this pricing issue.
Lack of comprehensive solution
Due to open source, the software lacks a comprehensive and unified approach, resulting in varying quality depending upon the company environment, and company needs. Open-source software is not compiled to machine code. This means users cannot run it without having to translate it and after translation, it may eat unresolved bugs.
Security risk
In any software that is as widely deployed as Odoo SA, security risk can at most be minimized but can’t be eliminated altogether. Odoo presents a security risk for online apps such as errors in web injection programmers frequently experience injection issues, notably SQL injection. When the interpreter gets user-specified data for a query or command, inserts take place.
What is Odoo used for?
Odoo Prominent Modules:
Odoo ERP aims at a completely inclusive, all-in-one ERP system for its Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) customers. This effectively translates into Odoo having an extensive range of official apps in the form of ERP software, as well as functionalities that meet most SMEs’ business needs. In this section, we introduce you to the top, most prominent Odoo apps that are disrupting the ERP world by their popularity based on their usability, flexibility, and intractability.
CRM
Customers are the reason for a business to exist, and therefore customer relations are the top priority of business operations. You cannot just build customer relations by intensively ‘thinking’ about it. Instead, you develop, sustain, and enhance customer relations by deploying well-thought-out solutions such as Odoo’s CRM module. With the Odoo CRM module, you can effectively manage the opportunities, leads, issues, and customers by establishing a direct communication line with internal employees and external customers. All these components can be established by using well-implemented communication methods in Odoo CRM.
Odoo CRM has great, intuitive mobile support for selling your products and services on the go. Its intelligent data extraction module creates leads directly from emails & VoIP calls and enables you to send RFQs directly by drag & drop method. Similarly, lead generation is super easy via the Live Chat feature that is pre-integrated with all the official modules. Lastly, a call-to-action Lead is a super convenient way to ‘get things done in Odoo CRM.
Since businesses need assessments for every action taken at every step of the way, you can generate extensive reports, dashboards, and deep analyses can be produced via Reporting in Odoo CRM. These reports can then be shared with relevant authorities immediately without leaving the Odoo ecosystem. Such close and seamless integration enables your business to make the right decisions at the right time.
Point of Sale (POS) Module
It is a well-known fact in the business community that the most painful point in any buying activity is the payment time. To ease the situation and make it more comfortable for customers, various companies implement smooth payment operations to make sure that the customers are not startled at this last step in their buying activity. Odoo fully comprehends this scenario and offers Odoo POS software. Odoo POS is a comprehensive solution for your products as well as a services business. You can set up the software in minutes because as is the case with other Odoo modules, Odoo POS is compatible with all industry hardware used for this purpose. These include desktop computers, laptops, tablets, or dedicated POS hardware.
Since Odoo POS is fully integrated with the Inventory module, you can track the product stock in real-time even if you’re running multiple shops of your business. Odoo POS has a great functionality of working offline as well as in online mode. This effectively means your business continues to operate irrespective of bad network conditions. Every sale is synchronized across the accounting, manufacturing, and inventory modules. This real-time synchronization translates into increased cross-departmental readiness and support for the business’s overall operations.
Odoo POS, help you keep track of your customers feedback via registration and loyalty programs. You can set up the rewards such as gifts, discounts, or other complementary products for your loyal customers, and include them in your marketing research for buying behavior research. This data can, later on, be integrated with the Odoo Mailing module.
Since Odoo is fully integrated with IoT products as well, you can set up the IoT devices for your Odoo POS. For example, integrate the bar code scanner with Odoo ERP to speed up the inventory addition, removal, and refund management. Such an extensive integration only means that you have now fewer things to worry about and can focus on the business.
Manufacturing Module
In a manufacturing business, Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) is of the highest priority. Odoo realized this factor long ago and made significant efforts to support SMEs in the manufacturing business. The result is a stunning Manufacturing module included in the official off-the-shelf modules of Odoo. The module consists of Product Lifecycle Management, Quality Assurance, and Maintenance sub-modules. These sub-modules are fully integrated with the main module and work collectively as one. In a manufacturing business, an accurate timeline matters a lot and for that real-time communication, and procurement act as the backbone of the system, Odoo brings in the worksheets, alerts, engineering, and supply chain all under one roof to ensure the smooth operations and timely delivery in manufacturing.
The Manufacturing module of Odoo is fully integrated with Purchase, Quality, PLM, and Maintenance modules leaving no space for the time or other precious resources wastage. With Odoo’s intelligent system the procurement and shop floor can be automated by integrating the equipment and setting up the minimum stock rules.
Warehouse Management Module
Warehousing in Odoo is managed by its Inventory module. The inventory module is fully integrated with official Sales, Purchase and Accounting modules to generate efficient, real-time, and accurate reports for review in the accounting, and warehouse departments. The Odoo Inventory module makes sure that your warehouse efficiency is increased b intelligently detecting and stabilizing the pendulum between no stock to over stock. Odoo Inventory enables simple drop shipping, cross-docking and multi-warehouse routines with ease and flexibility.
The complete, end-to-end trackability offers greater control of the inventory than typical manual upstream and downstream inventory management. The inventory module in Odoo has a big role in assured customer service and satisfaction and being a business professional, you do not want to get tangled in manual inventory management with terrible consequences of customer dissatisfaction.
Odoo Deployment
Odoo has easy-to-use and user-friendly front-end and back-end interfaces. Odoo also offers a clean and straightforward mechanism for set-up in either of its three editions (Cloud, Enterprise, Community). Since Odoo is an evolving software, it consists of multiple versions, and you can adopt any of the versions according to your needs. However, the latest version provides the most comprehensive and complete features set for obvious reasons. The interesting thing about Odoo versions is, that where Odoo engineers truly shine is the extensive documentation for each version with complete information about each module and setup mechanisms shown with amazing clarity and consistency. With such thorough and clean documentation, it has become even easier to set up and understand the Odoo implementation for your own business. With an intermediate technical understanding, you might even want to set up the Odoo ERP yourself.
Communication Tools
Odoo offers a great communication mechanism on internal surfaces (employees, executives, supervisors), external partners (merchants, suppliers, and customers), and between these two. Odoo has great live chat support as well that makes cross-departmental communication possible for companies of all sizes. With the powerful and seamless support of communication tools the employees or customer support agents can communicate with people of different departments and seniority levels without even leaving the Odoo module they are currently working on. Such seamless integration has made communication not only faster but also a medium of achieving excellence by reducing communication friction.
Integration
Odoo has the best integration strategy of all. Of the 30 modules that it offers officially, all of them are fully integrated with each other. With such extensive integration, the hurdles, and losses of time and money that may incur due to the 3rd party software integration can be significantly eradicated. Besides Odoo’s official modules, the apps and modules offered by 3rd part module developers on the Odoo app store make sure that the apps are fully functional and integrative to a reasonable degree of inter-communication. When both the internal modules, and 3rd party apps are unable to solve that particular problem in your business, Odoo’s worldwide, silver gold and platinum partners are available to make on-demand customization for your business. It is never a dead end when working and deploying Odoo ERP for your business.
Enterprise, Cloud, and IoT
Unlike many competitor ERPs, Odoo offers a diverse range of ERP software for everyone. Being an individual, you can choose the community edition for free and get the higher benefits. For deployment on the cloud, Odoo ERP offers a solution for you as well. In the case of a company that closely works with IoT products, Odoo offers a reasonable range of in-house, smooth IoT integration options. The diversity of Odoo ERP in terms of customer target is unmatched within its competitor’s range. Odoo is not just a single CRM, HR, or accounting software. It is a complete solution for your business needs. For example, you can have a full-blown website ready via Odoo’s website builder. You can set up your e-commerce store via Odoo ERP and connect the Shopify, or Woo commerce plugins fairly easily. Such a range of integration makes Odoo the one-stop-shop for your ERP needs.
Community
Odoo has one of the fastest-growing, vibrant, and established communities of app developers for ERP systems who contribute a great range of integration and flexibility of Odoo ERP. The community is strengthened by more than 5 million users and hundreds of partners worldwide. Such a broad community enables Odoo to boast a strong foothold within the ERPS enthusiasts.
Comfortable Learning Curve
Odoo has a very comfortable learning curve which means it is flexible, and effortless to deploy Odoo for your business. Version-wide extensive documentation enables step by step process to deploy, implement, and customize the modular solution for your own specific business needs.
How is Odoo compared to others?
Odoo is one of the best ERP systems by popularity, adoption, and deployment in the world. But by no means it is the only ERP software in the world. Odoo faces fierce competition in the market where giants like Microsoft (Microsoft Dynamics), SAP Business One, and Oracle (NetSuite) are making their places. We’ll take a look at Odoo’s competitor offering and compare it with Odoo whether Odoo comes out conqueror or not.
Odoo vs SAP, MS Dynamics, NetSuite, and Sage
Number of Users
In terms of the number of customers, Odoo has over 2+ million users compared to the SAP setting at 50,000 customers. Microsoft Dynamics stands above Odoo in terms of the number of users with over 3.8 million users, and NetSuite has the least number of users setting at 40,000 client organizations. Overall, MS Dynamics stands at the top, NetSuite at the bottom and Odoo stand in the middle of the number of users.
Country-Wide Spread
In terms of nationwide coverage, Odoo has less spread with 120 countries compared to a wider spread of SAP with 190 countries. The NetSuite has coverage in around 160 countries where its roots are strong. On the other hand, MS Dynamics has ERP services covered in over 165 countries. In the country’s coverage, SAP is taking the lead, whereas Odoo is lagging significantly.
Partners
In terms of official partners, Odoo has over 950 partners compared to SAP with less than 700 partners. Microsoft Dynamics trusts its distribution and servicing and therefore has no official partners. The same goes with the NetSuite with no official partner’s information available. Overall, Odoo takes the lead and rightly so because of its huge focus on customization.
Customer Satisfaction
When considering the user ratings published at G2Crowd, GetApp rating, and Capterra rating, Odoo and SAP remain in head-to-head competition without anyone having a clear loss. NetSuite takes the second place in customer satisfaction, whereas strangely MS Dynamics took the last place. Probably the wider spread takes a toll on customer satisfaction.
Pricing
Finally, the most important factor of pricing and conditions. Odoo offers $75,000 a year for 50 users with optional to have annual or monthly billing compared to the SAP which staggering $282,625 a year. Compared to SAP, Odoo has a better try-out policy which offers a free trial. Comparing with NetSuite, Odoo costs $25/user/month whereas NetSuite costs $125/user/month 5 times more per user/month cost. while MS Dynamics costs $113/user a month, Odoo has a better package with $25/user/month. The NetSuite and MS Dynamics both offer only annual billing compared to Odoo which has monthly billing options indicating stronger confidence in its product. Similarly, neither NetSuite nor MS Dynamics offers a free trial. All of which is offered by Odoo quite comfortably.
Productivity and Usability
Usability is one of the top factors where Odoo clean bolds the SAP Business one with major take over in Ease of Use, and Mobile Apps. However, unlike SAP, both MS Dynamics and NetSuite offer the Mobile Apps.
Implementation
Odoo SA has the best approach in terms of ERP deployment and integrating the evolved needs of the company with the existing infrastructure deployed via Odoo. This effectively means that you do not need to add all the modules at once for smoother integration. Instead, you can begin with the very basic modules, and keep adding the new ones as your company needs to evolve. This approach translates to faster implementation, reduced billable IT costs, smart and comfortable learning curve, and most of all, significantly reduced initial investment.
Compared to Odoo, NetSuite has severe limitations in company-wide ERP implementation. Compared to NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics has easier implementation. However, MS Dynamics comes with its own set of issues in the form of inefficient software configurations. SAP is the closest competitor to Odoo in terms of implementation; however, it comes with its own set of scaling when implementation needs to evolve in the company.
Target Customer Segment
Odoo ERP is aimed at all types of customers be it individuals, companies, medium enterprises, or big corporations. Odoo is a fit for all sizes. The secret sauce that enables Odoo to serve all types of customers, is its modular approach. Odoo does not require customers to buy the whole package (30 official modules), instead, it encourages customers to even begin with a trial, move to a paid version if satisfied, and then add only those modules which your company needs. This way, not only do customers save big bucks, but they also save time that they may otherwise need to spend on deploying bigger software.
Compared to Odoo, NetSuite does not offer much flexibility in deployment. Effectively, the customers need to adapt the company processes according to the software. This approach requires customers to invest a big chunk of time, consent, and money to be able to deploy ERP in their organization. Therefore, the target segment by NetSuite skews due to these constraints.
The SAP ERP is aimed at medium-sized organizations via their simpler version, and at large organizations via their full version. Although their offering I closely the same as Odoo, their simpler version will lack some functionalities avail to full version users. In contrast to SAP, Odoo has a single version that fits all the consumers alike with all the functionalities available to every paid customer.
Microsoft Dynamics offer wide flexibility in customization aiming at all types of organizations much like Odoo but requires a significant level of coding understanding to implement such customization. On the contrary, most Odoo customizations can be done without significant knowledge of Odoo. Therefore, Odoo’s deployment is significantly simpler and can be adopted by small organizations than the MS Dynamics’ difficult customization and hence applicable to big organizations mostly.
Updates and Versions
Odoo continuously releases various versions for not only its modules but also overhauls the Odoo package every year. Since its inception, Odoo has released 15 versions so far. Each version includes new features and functionalities which are added and integrated into the existing modules. Odoo’s core developers team also makes effort in analyzing the industry needs and adopts the modules and functionalities according to the new trends. The team successfully differentiates between what can be done and what needs to be done and adds functionalities and features that the customers are asking for. The competitors, on the other hand, lack these rapid updates and overhaul programs significantly
Odoo Application Statistics 2022
The Odoo App statistics are internally collected and presented by Odoo SA. You can Check the Latest App Statistics Here. Here, we talk briefly about the statistics to get an insight into various apps’ growth and how they correspond to overall Odoo’s success factor.
Let’s first take a look at the sales summary for the last most recent on-year (between July’21 – June 22). The total sales during this period exceeded €3,074,383 of which the highest sale was recorded in March 2022 (€ 326,944) and the lowest sale was recorded in July 2021 with the sale amount exceeding €210,781. The overall average for the one year stands at €200,000 per month which was recorded since the available data from July’21. Overall, the year 2022 has seen a significant increase in sales where the average is has increased to €269,691/month with no month recording sales less than €200,000/monthcompared to the previous 5-month average (of 2021)set at €249090/month. If previous data is any indication, the trend of a significant increase in apps sale is expected to continue in the coming months. This significant growth indicates that Odoo apps’ sales are shooting high compared to the previous year and a significant net increase is expected to happen in the last two quarters of 2022 (Q3’22, Q4’22).
Odoo SA is a community-oriented, open-source software that takes pride in being open to audits and contributions from all over the world. In the last 30 days, The Odoo Community Associate had over 134,96 downloads. The Cybrosys Techno Solutions had 12612 downloads, Odoo SA had 4523 downloads, Technativa had 3745 downloads and Odoo Mates had over 3000 downloads. In total the top 5 contributors had over 37,376 downloads in the last 30 days only. The total downloads in the past 30 days exceeded 46,448 downloads. The top 5 contributors had contributions exceeding 80% of total contributions. These numbers indicate a strong and hardworking contributor burning the midnight oil to bring better, faster, and more efficient apps to the Odoo community of customers and developers.
In the apps seller’s category, the top 5 app sellers for the last 30 days produced a total of €111,574 in Odoo Apps sales, 72.5% of all the app sales in the last 30 days. These top sellers included Ksolves India (€285,84), BrowseInfo (€225,35), Empiro Technologies Pvt Ltd (€21,848), Webkul Software Pvt Ltd. (€20,132), and Softhealer Technologies (€ 18,475). The combined sales produced by all the sellers were €139,193 in the last 30 days.
In the past 30 days, Dashboard Ninja has been the top-selling app in the Odoo app store with a cumulative sale of €12,251. The second and third top-selling apps were Shopify Odoo Connector, and Dashboard Ninja Advance with cumulative sales of €10,294 and €7231 respectively. The 4th and 5th place was won by Odoo WooCommerce Connector with €5965, and Report Designer (XLS XLSM) with €3588. Of the top 10 apps sold in the past 30 days (Total cumulative sales: €51,923) the top 5 apps accumulated €39239,a total of 75% of the app sales in the past 30 days. The consistent app sales and the cumulative increase in in-app sales indicate a greater push for higher overall sales of Odoo SA.
In the last 30 days, the AUTO POS Rounding module has seen 299900% salesgrowthwhereas the POS Kitchen receipt and Sales transport Management has seen the 239900% and 119900% salesgrowth. Overall, the AUTO POS Rounding module has seen the most growth (299900%), whereas the Deferred Expense has seen the least growth (1100%). The average growth is recorded to be 72,036% growth which matches closely with the growth of Show product internal reference in POS | POS Product Internal Reference – POS Product Code module (49900%).
Although the Dashboard Ninja has seen the most growth among the apps, the Sales Transport Management module has seen the most evolution in the last 30 days going from €21 to €600 within 30 days. The POS Kitchen Screen (€35 to €240), and Deferred Expenses (€29.99 to €179.98) app modules have seen the most evolution in the last 30 days. The least growth was observed in Show Product Internal reference in POS (€5), and Auto POS Rounding (Auto UP and DOWN rounding) (€0 to €15).
Odoo Usage Statistics
Odoo has reported a wide customer as well as user base. As for the usage statistics, Slintel reports over 5196 customers receiving services from Odoo ERP[4] occupying over 6% of the market share. A vast majority of these customers have between 20 and 49 employees. The top 3 regions where Odoo is being used are USA, India, and France with 717, 455, and 20 customers respectively.
Enlyft reported that over 9000 companies use Odoo with most of them being located in the USA and Information Technology and Services industry [5]. According to enlyft, Odoo has a stronghold on over 2.4% market share in enterprise applications.
Odoo market shares
Market share is defined as the percentage or portion of the customers (or market) controlled or provided by a specific product or company. In general, the market share is calculated by the total sales made by the company in a particular sector for a specific time period, divided by the total sales made in that particular sector in the same specific time period. Consider an example of 100 ERP software licenses sold to a particular customer segment, and 30 of those software licenses were sold by Microsoft, then Microsoft has a 30% market share in that particular customer segment.
Overall, around 9141 businesses are using Odoo ERP. In the US (particularly in the IT and services category), most businesses are utilizing Odoo ERP. Most of the Odoo customers (64%) are small enterprise businesses that form around a $50 million market for Odoo. In large Enterprises, the market shrinks for Odoo to form only 9% yielding more than $1000 million and the medium-sized enterprises form the medium business yield of up to 18% for Odoo.
Odoo’s market share is volatile based on the competitors and the market demand for the product. Odoo’s top competitors include NetSuite by Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics by Microsoft, SAGE, and SAP ERPs.
Odoo forms almost 12% of the market share in the performance management market segment. The top Odoo users’ countries include the USA, Belgium, India, Middle Eastern countries, Germany, Mexico, and Vietnam.
United States market shares
The United States market predominantly uses Odoo for performance management. If we focus on statistics and surveys of the Odoo customers, most customers belong to the United States. According to slintel.com, 13.77 % of customers belong to the United States alone. Approximately 20967 websites were using Odoo. Breaking down Odoo customers by industry, we discover that the computer software industry percentage is 5% and the information technology and services industry makes up 12%, forming the majority of the market.
CA market shares
Odoo ERP is a well-known software package in the Canadian market. Odoo has roughly 7% clients from Canada. Almost 686 websites use Odoo ERP.
European Market Share
In the European market, there are almost 17371 websites which were running with the help of Odoo ERP.
Asian Market
The Asian market possesses a good potential for the Odoo ERP. These countries include India, Iran, China, Taiwan, and many other Asian countries that are also providing their efforts. There are 16 websites in central Asia, 844 websites used in East Asia, and 933 websites in south Asia which are using Odoo ERP.
Odoo valuation
Odoo has been showing continuous growth and profits from year to year. The consistent growth has instilled the trust of investors who continually add their investment to Odoo’s basket. In 2022, Odoo is valued at $3.2 billion. Odoo was able to achieve this milestone when Summit Partners (USA) pumped capital into Odoo. Right now, Summit Partners control around a 25% stake in the company making it a new unicorn merging from Belgium[6]. Odoo was able to reach this place by completing its Series A for $4.76 million in 2010 by Sofinnova Partners, Series B for $10 million in 2014 by SRIW Sofinnova Partners and 1 other, Series C for $90 million in 2019 by SRIW, Summit Partners, and 1 other, Series D for $215 million by Summit Partners (Secondary investment).
Odoo’s revenue
Founded in 2005, Odoo reported $31.2 million in revenue in 2018. Due to continuous support and funding received from various companies, Odoo was able to up its game in 2022 and hence reported an astonishing $178 million in revenue.
Companies like Odoo have revenues in varying figures. In worldwide statistics, Odoo stood at 7th position in terms of revenue generated by B2B SaaS CRM companies as reported by Statista[7]. The revenue of Odoo reported by Statista is $178 million. The survey was performed in 2022 and is reported for CRM-only B2B SaaS companies. It is worth noting that, overall Odoo is not just a CRM company and therefore the revenue generated in total may be quite higher than reported in this survey[8].
Odoo’s investors
Odoo is world known ERP software. It has attracted many investors’ attention since its beginning. As reported by Crunchbase[9], Odoo has 2 lead investors named Summit Partners, and Sofinnova Partners. Overall Odoo had had a total of 5 investors as are named before:
- Summit Partners
- Sofinnova Partners
- XAnge
- SRIW
- Meusinvest (Noshaq)
Odoo SA had a Series A and Series B funding raised for $3M, and $10M from a European VC firm Sofinnova Partners. The raised money was intended to be spent on recruiting the Engineering and Growth talent.
In 2021, Odoo received around $215 million in investment from Summit Partners. The investment had put the company (Odoo SA) to be valued at $2 Billion. Such a valuation had put the company in unicorn status coming out of the Wallonia region of Belgium. The Summit Partners had made a secondary investment (that is, purchasing shares from the already existing investors instead of buying fresh shares from the company directly) by purchasing from Sofinnova Partners and XAnge.
Sofinnova Partners and XAnge had invested in Odoo SA in 2010 and 2015 respectively. It is also worth noting that the investment transactions by XAnge and Summit Partners, are both their first investment in Belgium. Such investments not only increased the valuation of Odoo SA but also opened doors for the IT industry in Belgium. Due to Summit Partners’ secondary investment, the transaction emerged as the exit for Sofinnova Partners and XAnge. The fact that this was a secondary investment, indicates the strength of the company’s business and year-on-year profits. The company’s CEO Pinckaers described the event as an indication of the company’s success since it didn’t have to give away any more equity to acquire the new investment. The Managing Director of Summit Partners described the Odoo ERP as delivering sustained, strong, and profitable growth over the past several years.
It is worth noting, and it weighs to the success of Odoo ERP, that Summit Partners had already made a minor investment of $90 million in Odoo SA in 2019, two years before their major secondary investment of $215 million in 2021. The continued investment support of Summit Partners has shown a great deal of trust in not only the company’s growth but also in the policymaking of CEO Fabien Pinckaers.
Reported by Tech Eu, Summit Partners made a surprising move by making another trust bet on Odoo’s continued growth by upping their stake to 25% by investing an additional $118 million in 2022. The most recent investment by Summit Partners had increased the Odoo SA valuation to $3.2 billion raising the company’s valuation from $2 billion just a year ago.
Odoo experience 2022: Why you need to attend it.
Odoo SA formally changed its name from OpenERP to Odoo in 2014, and hence also changed the name of its 3-day annual conference to Odoo Experience which was previously called Open Days. In this versatile and vibrant event, people from all over the world come together at the world’s number of ERP software conferences, deliver amazing talks, and kick-start their network’s exponential growth. The following chart indicates the success and trust of various developers and exhibitors in Odoo’s growth and developer networking potential.
The Odoo Experience 2022 will be a 3-day annual event that is organized in Brussels – The Capital of Belgium and the Home of Odoo SA. The typical Odoo experience consists of stunning networking events such as developer talks, workshops, training sessions, keynotes and most important of all, the unveiling of the next version of Odoo ERP. All these events are beside the exhibitors who present their products in great numbers at the Odoo Experience. Since Odoo has a wide, extensive, and vibrant community of end-users, businesses, partners, and developers, the Odoo experience is a great place to see how Odoo itself is ‘manufactured’ and how various community members use Odoo for their business needs with their unique business complexities and use cases.
The number of attendees at the Odoo Experience events is always overwhelming and includes a wide diversity with people coming from literally tens of different countries. Such a large diversity group can significantly enhance the networking, and business opportunities for people of all segments including partners, developers, businesses, exhibitors, and end-users.
Odoo experience is your one-stop shop to know all about the Odoo, especially an ideal event of a new version unveiling. Having firsthand experience and listening directly from the developers of a new version is an experience that no documentation, tutorial, or workshop can match. It is also your chance to learn the new features, their use cases, and how the company intends to provide support for these new features and products.
Almost none of the developers in the whole Odoo community have experience with all the features that Odoo ERP – which consists of more than 30 official modules and countless developer-presented apps, contains. Therefore, learning new things is the least that you can expect when participating in Odoo Experience. The Odoo experience typically includes talks – the theory of what can be done in Odoo, as well as the workshops and training sessions – the practice of how certain things are done in Odoo. You can always join the relevant session and you’re guaranteed to learn new things in any session that you join.
Other than expert talks, training sessions, and workshops offered by various partners, developers, and experts around the world, there are 2-days long, advanced, practical, and hands-on training sessions led by Odoo’s experts termed ‘SmartClass’. These classes are available for different modules of Odoo which in Odoo Experience 2022 would include:
- Website and Ecommerce (Level: Introductory) where you’ll learn how to optimize the website with great UI/UX, and product configuration and import it into the store
- Accounting (Level: Advanced): Where you’ll learn the Odoo Accounting module’s advanced features and the power of BI integration with Odoo Accounting among other popular techniques.
- Inventory (Level: Advanced): In this class, the overview of advanced features of Odoo Inventory 16 will be presented along with the case studies, best practices, and practical and theoretical knowledge of the supply chain framework
Other than these off-the-shelf official modules classes, the SmartClass includes the practical training on the Development of different common useful features in Odoo, and a detailed understanding of the models, interactions between models, and fields. There are also some intermediate courses scheduled as well such as the Odoo JS Framework for UI customization in Odoo and Adding new features to the Odoo web client. For this course, however, prior experience with Odoo development and JavaScript is required.
Conculsion
The Odoo ERP will probably outlive the competition when it keeps growing, and keep making profits each year, again and again for the past 17 years. The Summit Partners is a well-known name in investment community. Summit Partners’ continued investment trust in Odoo’s growth is highly indicative of the fact. Similarly, Odoo has continued its internal and external growth alike. Odoo has nicely placed itself in the market suitable equally for Small and Medium Enterprises. Due to this fact, the number of employees and Odoo’s growth is continuously and proportionally pacing over years. Odoo is predicted to grow as it adds more functionalities and modules in its arsenal. One such example is the addition of IoT integration that resolves many issues that the customer may face in manufacturing, shipping, and inventory.
[1] https://www.odoo.com/page/about-us
[2] https://craft.co/odoo
[3] https://www.linkedin.com/company/odoo
[4] https://www.slintel.com/tech/enterprise-resource-planning-erp/odoo-market-share
[5] https://enlyft.com/tech/products/odoo
[6] https://tech.eu/2022/06/08/odoo-a-leader-in-open-source-business-software
[7] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1239096/saas-crm-companies/
[8] https://www.crunchbase.com/search/principal.investors/field/organizations/num_lead_investors/odoo