Chances are it escaped your notice that 10,000 interested attendees turned up for the Odoo Experience in Brussels last month. This is because the organiser of the Experience - Belgian software developer Odoo – prefers to invest in product development rather than increasing its brand awareness. And that approach is paying off according to Peter Dijkstra and Rachel Talsma, who visited the fair on behalf of Cravit. "We have been visiting this fair since 2015 and the fact that people from more than 100 countries are now visiting this fair is something we never could have foreseen back then. You get very excited about the product. At Cravit, we are working on it every day, but to see that people from all over the world are using it, makes you even more enthusiastic!"
10 times faster
Central to the exhibition - as at previous editions - are the enhancements to the new version of the open-source software package for enterprise resource planning, says Cravit founder Peter. "This year was the 16th time the fair was organised. What was particularly remarkable this year was the new speed of the system. For example, creating a purchase invoice with Odoo only takes five seconds, whereas other software systems can take up to 10 times longer." In addition, there has been a lot of further development in the areas of accounting and interactive dashboards, said Rachel Talsma, Cravit's project management officer. Although it was these three points in particular that stood out during the exhibition, the new version has been improved in more than 6,000 areas, Rachel said. "Care is always taken to keep Odoo completely up to date and the system always looks very modern."
More than just an ERP
Originally, Odoo is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), says Rachel, "But what was made clear at this trade fair is that Odoo is actually much more than an ERP. Everything is integrated in one system, which means that companies don't have to make any extra costs to buy other packages. In addition, Odoo is also very modern; the entire system can be viewed on a laptop, but also on a mobile device. Finally, it is also seen as a user-friendly software: it is not a black screen with yellow letters, which occasionally happens with other software".
"We recommend Odoo for the upper end of medium-sized companies and the lower end of large companies," Peter says. "Odoo is not suitable for the big multinationals or for self-employed people." For sole traders, the software has to be made very company-specific, so the outcomes often don’t outweigh the investment of the installation. For suitable companies, Odoo is very economical. "It's a very nice price setting," says Peter. Cravit has all the expertise and extensive international experience, making it easy to implement Odoo within your business.
Staying up to date
Cravit makes sure their customers are up to date with the latest version of Odoo. Rachel: "We put out the updates via social media, but we always inform our customers personally about these updates as well." This is because Cravit believes it is important that their customers know exactly what has changed in new versions, so that they can continue using this software in the same smooth way. Because of our years of experience with Odoo, we know that these changes can take time and energy. That's why it can be beneficial to have a partner like Cravit.