Duration: 24:27
PART 1 — Analytical Summary 🚀
Context 💼
This session from Odoo Experience 2025 features the founder and CEO of 4ITEGO Group, sharing how the company moved “from operational silos to streamlined success” with Odoo. 4ITEGO operates through two primary brands—Inoptus and Infinite—across Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, and recently acquired CAT Services (Almere, NL). The group supports 1,000+ manufacturing and product-development customers, implements PTC (design/PLM) and Ansys (multiphysics simulation), and employs 117 people. The talk explains why Odoo was selected over SAP and Microsoft Dynamics, how implementation unfolded with partner SOMKO (Roeselare, BE), and what business outcomes the team achieved.
Core ideas & innovations 🧠
4ITEGO’s business is built on an “industrial innovation platform” that connects the entire lifecycle—from requirements and design to simulation, manufacturing, service, and spare parts. Internally, the company wanted the same principle: a single digital thread and a single source of truth from lead to long-term support. Before Odoo, the landscape was fragmented: different companies in the group used different CRMs (Microsoft CRM, SuperOffice) and even a custom Microsoft Access tool, plus countless spreadsheets. Mergers and fast growth amplified the complexity and risk of mistakes.
The selection process shortlisted SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, and Odoo. The team chose Odoo for its cost-efficiency, scalable architecture, and fully integrated CRM-to-ERP scope—avoiding “two buckets of data” and the friction of heavy integrations. Just as important as product fit was partner fit: SOMKO aligned with 4ITEGO’s pace and culture, brought domain knowledge, and consistently pushed a “standard-first” approach—customizing only when necessary.
A critical implementation theme was product and price-book agility. 4ITEGO sells software, subscriptions, and services (not stocked hardware), with frequent price changes driven by vendors like PTC and Ansys. They needed flexible product data structures and automation for price updates to avoid manually editing thousands of SKUs in the UI—especially as prices can shift quarterly. This product master became the backbone of the digital thread, connecting quotations, contracts, renewals, and invoicing for better analytics and control.
Implementation highlights ⚙️
The journey started in 2019 with a phased rollout in Belgium (the “guinea pig” company) and then expanded to the Netherlands and France:
- Phase 1 focused on Contacts/CRM, Sales, Project Execution and Timesheets, Events/Trainings, and the full Subscriptions and Renewals flow through to Invoicing.
- Subsequent phases added multi-company operations (multiple VAT numbers, suppliers), migrations from SuperOffice and Access, and a move to Odoo 16, with plans to upgrade to Odoo 19 for new features and regulatory needs.
- Hosting was set up in a “dedicated, flexible” manner (not just the basic online tier) to match the group’s customization and multi-company requirements.
Change management was less about resistance and more about capacity: in a high-growth context, the main challenge was creating focused time for key people to work on process optimization. Leadership intentionally paused parts of the growth engine to invest in long-term efficiency.
Impact & takeaways 💬
The most striking result is in renewals, which represent about 65% of the business (on roughly €40M). Previously, two people handled about one-tenth of today’s renewal value. Now, four people handle ten times that value—translating to roughly a 5x productivity gain per person on renewal revenue operations. The conclusion: the digital thread, clean product master, and end-to-end automation—from purchase to renewal to invoicing—enabled scale without linear headcount growth.
Strategically, 4ITEGO validated that:
- Odoo is a flexible, integrated platform that can keep up with acquisitive, fast-growing companies.
- The right partner is essential; SOMKO added value by pushing standard Odoo where possible and building selectively where needed.
- Phasing is critical—start with the core (CRM → Sales → Projects → Subscriptions → Invoicing), then expand into multi-company and new capabilities.
- Keep a long-term roadmap (“point on the horizon”), revisit yearly, and accept that it will evolve with acquisitions and market demands.
Next steps include onboarding the newly acquired CAT Services (currently on Exact), deepening marketing automation, exploring eCommerce, maturing planning and project management, and expanding HR/recruitment—all contributing to the same single-source-of-truth vision. In summary, 4ITEGO used Odoo to mirror the lifecycle integration they deliver to their customers, turning internal silos into a scalable, analytics-ready backbone. 🚀
PART 2 — Viewpoint: Odoo Perspective
Disclaimer: AI-generated creative perspective inspired by Odoo’s vision.
At Odoo, we’ve always believed that integration is the shortest path to simplicity. 4ITEGO’s journey shows how a single source of truth creates leverage: one coherent product master, one subscription flow, one invoicing backbone. The result isn’t just cleaner data—it’s the freedom to scale without multiplying processes and people.
I’m particularly proud of the partner ecosystem here. SOMKO’s standard-first approach exemplifies the Odoo way: keep things simple, use the platform’s breadth, and only customize where it truly adds value. When customers and partners share that mindset, the compounding effect is remarkable.
PART 3 — Viewpoint: Competitors (SAP / Microsoft / Others)
Disclaimer: AI-generated fictional commentary. Not an official corporate statement.
4ITEGO’s case underscores Odoo’s strengths: fast time-to-value, a cohesive UX from CRM to ERP, and a partner motion that can move at startup speed. For software- and subscription-heavy businesses, that integrated approach—and the ability to automate price and renewal cycles—is compelling.
At greater scale, the challenges shift: multi-country compliance, advanced controls (e.g., segregation of duties, audit trails), and industry-specific depth. Organizations should assess governance, long-term upgrade discipline, and the robustness of financial and compliance frameworks as complexity grows. The market is large enough for multiple approaches; Odoo’s momentum is real, and the competitive bar for usability and integration keeps rising.
Disclaimer: This article contains AI-generated summaries and fictionalized commentaries for illustrative purposes. Viewpoints labeled as "Odoo Perspective" or "Competitors" are simulated and do not represent any real statements or positions. All product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners.