Challenges of an Odoo Partner in a

Developing Country

Mustafa B. Hamad, PhD, MBA

CEO & Founder
IntelliSoft Software
 Topics
●
Brief About IntelliSoft
●
Challenges Typically Faced by Partners in
Developing Countries
●
What We Did
●
Conclusion
 Brief About IntelliSoft
●
Established in August 2015 and started with 1 employee with 1 project
●
Become an Odoo Ready partner in December 2016 with 3 employees
with 5 projects
●
Became an Odoo Silver partner in January 2018 with 12 employees
with 12 projects
●
Became an Odoo Gold partner in June 2018 with 17 employees and
over 20 projects
●
Nominated for Odoo Best Partner in the MEA for 2018
 Challenges Typically Faced by
Partners in Developing Countries
●
Unstable economy thus affecting demand
●
High inflation and in some cases, hyper-inflation as in Sudan
●
Incompetency due to poor skill-set
●
Lack of involvement from higher management
●
Very high resistance
●
Poor infrastructure
●
Corruption and dirty work
●
High employee turnover
●
Software companies belonging to the government
1. Unstable Economy Thus Affecting
Demand
●
Many developing countries
have unstable economies
●
The whole wheel slows
downs and when it moves
it is jittering
●
Making it very difficult to
plan and forecast
 2. High Inflation
●
Some projects take
time
●
By the time you
collect money it has
already lost value!!!
3. Incompetency Due to Poor Skill-
Set
●
From your side
●
From the client side
●
Results in projects
dragging on…In some
cases failure!
 4. Lack of Involvement from Higher
Management
●
They expect everything to run
on auto-pilot!
●
Will always use terms should
as “just do it in the standard
way”
●
Are always difficult to get hold
off and never solve issues,
throwing everything on you!
 5. Very High Resistance
●
You will always get
resistance
●
Comes in many different
forms
●
Many times due to lack
of high management
involvement
 6. Poor Infrastructure
●
Has a huge impact on
software projects
●
Can render a successful
implementation useless
●
One of the leading
causes of high
resistance
 7. Corruption and Dirty Work
●
A huge issue in developing
countries
●
Poor business and work ethics
●
Not only confined to
government sector, available
also in private sector and more
astonishing from other Odoo
partner(s) in your country!
 8. High Employee Turnover
●
Also huge issue in
developing countries
●
A root cause is unstable
economy and high-
inflation
●
Can seriously impact
projects
 9. Software Companies Belonging
to the Government
●
They come in many
forms
●
Directly and indirectly
related to the
government
●
A monopoly!
 What We Did
●
Enough with the problems
●
Lets look at the solutions
●
They worked for us
 Unstable Economy Thus Affecting
Demand Issue
●
Lower implementation costs and thus profit margin
●
You have to be different, e.g. offer free support for a duration
of time after warranty period with Odoo Enterprise
●
Remember it is only your Enterprise customers that count
towards your Odoo profile
●
Only charge for additional customization, never overcharge!
●
Remember you are providing a solution not building a vertical
 High Inflation Issue
●
Implement projects efficiently and quickly! Thus
avoiding drags and facilitating rapid money
collection!
– Use agile methodologies such as SCRUM
– Follow Odoo’s suggested implementation
methodology, it works!
●
For large projects > 90 days, quote in ($) and
make client pay the equivalent on payment day
 Incompetency Issue – Your Side
●
Train your staff on technical and project
management skills, Odoo’s functional course is
a good start
●
Have and document agile project management
procedures
●
Always perform appraisals, those who improve
keep on board, let go of others
●
Be agile, everybody has to know everything and
so replacement is easy
 Incompetency Issue – Client Side
●
Determine gaps by asking functional questions,
believe me it is clear when they don’t know
●
If huge then you have to do it yourself and just
give employee instructions on how to perform
specific tasks
●
Raise issue to management in a friendly way
●
Focus more on training, off-site as well as on-
job training
 Lack of Involvement From Higher
Management Issue
●
Get the feel when negotiating deal with client...
●
Assess the situation and decide whether to go
forward, raise the issue from the very beginning and
ask for a project coordinator from client’s side
●
Put clauses in contract
●
Provide regular progress reports that must be
approved by management and insist on regular
meetings
 Very High Resistance
●
Continuous management engagement
●
Conducting awareness sessions at start of projects
●
Allocate way more time for training and go-live support
●
Always be friendly to employees and try to win them
over
●
Remember, then can render your project a failure!
 Poor Infrastructure
●
Build a small data center and provide it for a low cost
●
Make use of odoo.sh
●
You can get good a good VPS for as little as $60 a
year!
●
Work with the IT department and put forward your h/w
and network requirements before hand
●
Remember, the infrastructure will host your solution.
You have to be involved!
 Corruption and Dirty Work
●
Can you really solve this one!
●
Just don’t do it yourself. What goes around, comes
around
●
Regarding Odoo partners who play dirty work, you
know the market better than Odoo does. Therefore,
keep Odoo informed and work closely with your
Partner Manager. They are there to help
 Software Companies Belonging to
the Government
●
Well, not much you can do about this one neither
●
Focus on the private sector as these companies
typically focus on the public sector as it is easy
business for them
●
Hang in there and prove yourself
●
Earn your respect when you grow and then you can
compete!
●
Remember, it is all about business, if possible partner
up
 High Employee Turnover
●
Well, we have more women than men
●
Give continuous training
●
Give out mystery bonuses
 Conclusion
●
There are big challenges and obstacles, tri-folding
effort needed by Odoo partners in developing
countries
●
But with perseverance and hard work, all is possible
●
If we can do it, do can you
Q&A