CRM are the tools to help the sales department to keep their activities and information in check. They integrate with productivity software like email and calendar. In near future, Odoo believes that the best CRM will provide fully integrated services such as lead generation in a few clicks, lead scoring with AI, automate more tasks like phone qualification, integrate with other platforms to enrich data or track customers’ activities online and offline, marketing automation, etc. All these features will get consolidated in single software, instead of being implemented by different software or third-party apps, like today.
In conjunction with providing these extra services integrated into the CRM, the best CRM will be fully integrated with the operations of the company including accounting, after-sales services, and procurements. Today, most CRMs are currently focused on acquiring new customers. But with the emergence of subscription-based business, future CRMs will have to be as mature for Customer Success Team (renewal & upselling) as they are today for the classic sales team. For making this happen, companies like Odoo are easing the process by integrating the key features of independent ERP tools.
Odoo, Leaving No Stone Unturned In The Service Sector
Released initially in 2005 as Tiny ERP, Odoo is the largest suite of integrated business apps worldwide with 16.000 apps and 3.7M users. The core 35 apps in the Odoo suite cover all business needs from multi-channel sales (CRM, e-commerce, point of sale, etc.), to operations (manufacturing, inventory, project management, etc.) or others areas like marketing (marketing automation, SEO, mass mailing, events, survey) or human resources. These apps can be used standalone to start easily, but if several apps are activated, they fully integrate with each other (like an ERP).
Odoo is originally Open Source. The company has a vast community that continues to work along with them. They create new apps in order to fit specific needs of clients. Today, Odoo is available in two editions: the Community version that the company continues to maintain and improve and the Enterprise version, which is a licensed version fully featured and available On-premise and Online (SaaS).
Hurdles Along The Way
Odoo was established on the dream to bring the best of the two worlds: cover all companies’ needs in a single integrated application while being amazingly simple and affordable. According to Odoo CEO, Fabien Pinckaers, there were some hurdles to walk past while kicking off the start-up. For the first ten years, financial difficulties were a real setback. The lack of money to develop or start new ideas was creating more setbacks for the then novice company. After overcoming all the hurdles which along the way, Fabien thinks Odoo will sustain the current growth of 80% per year over the next 5 years and will become the world’s #1 management software, in terms of a number of users. At that time, he predicts Odoo will have more than 5000 employees and 500M$ revenues.
Proactive Leader Behind Odoo
Founder and Chief Visionary, Fabien Pinckaers is the driving force behind Odoo. He keeps his hands full by participating in the development of the software, marketing, and the Customer Experience strategies. In just a few years, he has helped Odoo build a user base of 3.7M users, and that’s just the beginning.
Living Up To The Clients’ Expectations
Odoo’s KPI (Key Performance Indicator) ratings, which define the overall performance of the company, are at all-time high. Even though the company works mostly with SMEs (who usually have a higher churn rate in the industry), the yearly up-sell on their user base is 15% higher than the yearly churn. So, even if the company stops all their sales activities and don’t accept new customers anymore, they will still have a 15% growth year over year, at least for 3 years. This makes sure that the company stays afloat in the market.
This success is primarily due to two factors. First, an amazingly high customer satisfaction rate and second, higher values provided by the software, as they manage all departments of the company (not just the sales department).
In terms of feedback on the product, users are the key. Whether they contact the company through the support channels or when a company engages with the community, there’s always room for improvements. And through these improvements, the company keeps its client satisfaction rate high enough to keep the ship sailing.
Distinct Features Of Odoo Setting It Apart
Odoo is the most complete and reachable Business Solution in the market. Compared to CRM competitors, Odoo is more advanced. It’s fully customizable for any kind of business in any industry because it not only manages the CRM, but everything that might be useful for a sales team such as marketing apps (lead generation, mass mailing, and website). As an example, most CRM tools track opportunities for the sales process (from the lead to the sale order). Because the software manages everything in the company, the full cycle of the visitor can be tracked, from an email send, a visit on the website, a lead, up to the manufacturing and the invoicing of the customer order.
Odoo is also reachable in two aspects. First, the price is fair. The customer can have a powerful business solution for the company for free if they choose to install one application only. And if a second application is used, it remains affordable (for example, 18€/month per user and 8€/month for the cheapest application). Second, Odoo is reachable for anyone and the interface is modern, clean, and simple, which gives excellent usability that allows anyone to be rapidly at ease with the software.
Employee Demographic That Define Company’s Face
The Odoo team is smart and young, with a strong focus on customer experience in the product. Working at Odoo means that people are not afraid to fail and to take initiative. Everyone has a little entrepreneurship voice in their head. One in two new employees is a young graduate. The company strongly believes that offering a great learning working environment is the key to success. On the other hand, based on the fact that community is essential, Odoo employees are not afraid to ask for help. This makes the employees work twice as hard.
To summarize, when a person arrives at Odoo, the company encourages them to be themselves, be flexible, be responsible and have fun!
