Dialogue with Hesham Elmahdy, Part 1.

First of all, We are pleased to have this dialogue with you.
Welcome.

We would like to know when OdooTec started as a supplier of business management systems.
The history of OdooTec dates back to 2007 before this name was given to it. As we started 2007, our activity in the field of ERP and we were marketing the Desktop Application Client-Server system, and it was a very good and very rich system in terms of functionality, but the technology has evolved as it is in In 2014, cloud applications spread and the demand for mobile applications increased. Despite the quality of the application that we were selling, it was the right time to search for new technology, so we turned to the field of open source.

Did you start supporting Odoo systems from the beginning, or did you use other systems?
In fact, it is a long story, as Odoo was not our first choice, but it was the second choice. In 2014, we spent eight months in comparison, and at that time, we decided to move to the Open Source system, but we did not select a specific open-source system, so our direction was not clear. At that time, the choice of the Odoo system was also not clear at that time, as is the case now in 2023, when we compared all the open source programs that we have reached. These programs were within the limits of 15 programs, as I remember, and from a technical point of view, the ERP 5 application was in the first place in terms of comparison, and it was an application for a French company, and indeed we spent three weeks with them in several negotiations to send technicians to train in France and how the partnership between us will be, but after three weeks of negotiation, we concluded that their vision for global expansion was not clear. We did not want to be a field of experiments, and they did not have any partners at the time, as we would have been their first partner if the matter was completed, so we then moved to second place in terms of comparison.
Although ERP 5 was a wonderful trend, it was superior and the best at the time, but the lack of a clear vision to plan for the future was something very annoying to us, as it was a great investment of our time. Odoo was the second choice, and they were ready; although it was not as mature at the time as it is now, their vision was clear from the beginning, as they were going to create a program that competes with SAP but without huge investments in the part of the client, so we went for option number two, which is Odoo, and thank Allah it was a choice Good luck, it is good luck from Allah. As for the rest of the applications, they did not gain the same acceptance, as we were making comparisons during the evaluation for several reasons, the most important of which is from my point of view as a person with a background in programming language technology, as the programming languages used in those programs we did not prefer, it is smart that the language used in ERP5 and Odoo It is in the Python language, and although most of the other applications, which are among the oldest, maybe the most ancient and rich in terms of features and their use, they were based on the Java language, a language that was famous because of the market conditions at the time, not because of its quality. This is what is happening now, as Google itself has offered alternatives to the Java language due to some problems in productivity, so the Python language was the right choice, and days have proven that our assessment of the matter was correct, which is to choose an open source application and specifically on the Python language.

Wasn't it better to develop a special system for the company bearing its name and promote it?
This is an excellent question. This was one of the suggestions raised at the beginning, which prevented us from completing the discussion of this matter, which is that we create our own program, which is the continuous development of the open source market. In fact, we could not ignore open-source software because it provides a very advanced starting point. Instead of starting design and development work and making a lot of huge investments, there is a start from it. Although this program was not in the name of our company, but the services provided through it will be in the name of the company, and this is what happened, as we do not sell Odoo applications themselves, but rather we sell application services, support and software modifications of Odoo.
In fact, the product that we are marketing is the Spot and Go method, and we have more than one method for implementing the application, which is one of the most used methods and is used in medium and large projects. There is another implementation method, which is UTO, which is for small or medium projects that do not have unique requests. In fact, The product that we market is the services that we provide to the customer, and this is what matters to the customer, and this is consistent with the famous report of Gartner that the success factors for ERP projects depend on only 18% of the type of technology used and 82% on other factors, the most important of which are the human factor, leadership, operations or procedures, so it was completed Injecting SPOT and GO and UTO as application upgrades with expertise, through which we were able to dispense with a large part of the need for personal skills of the participants in this subject. Of course, the soft skills of the participants on both sides are very important, but their impact has been greatly reduced by application upgrades such as Spot and Go and UTO. The product we sell is the service, not the product itself.

To what extent has OdooTec succeeded in being an effective partner of Odoo?
We decided to go to Odoo in December 2014. In March 2015, we made the first project, and it was with a group of companies, they are eight companies, and we finished it within three months, which is a record time for an application that you are working on for the first time, and it is still in use to this day In the year 2023. During all those years, from 2015 to this day, we went through many stages with Odoo and saw many signs on the way. We were nominated in 2018 for the best Odoo partner in the Middle East and North Africa, and we already won the award in 2019. We have been nominated Twice after that as well, and we seek to nominate us in the coming years, and we hope to obtain it again.
Odotec has become famous for large and complex projects. Perhaps not with the number of projects, but with the extent of their complexity and difficulty with large companies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, so I think it is a successful march with many important and bright points. We are currently expanding in North America after the success in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Kingdom’s market is the main market for us, as we are the sons of This market is expanding in North America through our presence in Canada, and there will be other expansions in the future, Allah willing.

You can run the following video to listen to the first part of the dialogue.