Duration: 25:47
PART 1 — Analytical Summary 🚀
Context 💼
The session, delivered at Odoo Experience, features Luke Demink, Managing Partner at Moore Belgium (leading the advisory pillar), sharing the firm’s 10-year growth journey from roughly 80 employees to about 2,000. Framed as a candid playbook for professional services firms, his talk explains how buy & build—balanced with organic growth—helped Moore Belgium scale services, talent, and geographic reach. It also ties to technology enablement: as clients asked Moore to go deeper into digital transformation, the firm expanded into integration work (via SquareFlow) and analytics to create end-to-end value for the mid-market.
Core Ideas & Innovations 🧠
Moore Belgium’s story starts as a family accounting office, gains momentum with a 2008 consolidation (two 40-person firms becoming an 80-person practice), and pivots decisively in 2013 by adding business consulting capabilities to match clients’ needs for proactive advisory—beyond after-the-fact financial reporting. From there, the firm broadened its service stack: tax & legal, management consulting, corporate finance (including due diligence for Moore’s own deals), and early investment in data analytics via the recognized brand Element61—turning client data into managerial insight.
A pivotal governance shift in 2018 transformed Moore from a family-owned business to a partnership “with family values,” enabling broader equity participation and attracting entrepreneurial leaders. In 2020, Waterland joined as a private equity investor, removing earlier capital constraints and accelerating the buy & build pipeline—without changing Moore’s strategic focus on the mid-market. The firm now pairs organic initiatives with targeted acquisitions (roughly one-quarter organic, three-quarters M&A), guided by a disciplined “three Ps” filter: People, Plan, Price—in that order. Culture fit comes first; synergies must be concrete; and valuation should reflect the “future EBITDA” in the new, combined model.
Integration-wise, Moore chose a fleet model over a single-ship approach. Rather than force every acquisition into one brand and operating template, the company keeps strong brands when they create market value (e.g., Element61), connects them to a shared powerhouse, and synchronizes selectively. This preserves agility, allows fast decision-making, and manages economic volatility across a diverse set of boats grouped into one fleet. Internally, Moore doubled down on stakeholder value (not just shareholder value): becoming a “Best Workplace,” enabling employee ownership (thousands of eligible employees can invest; partners now number ~150), and aligning around a shared 2030 narrative—the “noble house”—focused on “healthy choices,” sustainability, positive mindset, and societal contribution through the More Foundation.
The European chapter is underway. With strong momentum in Belgium, Moore is replicating its model—local champions with a European layer—across the Netherlands, UK, Spain, and Germany, coordinated alongside Waterland. As customer needs expand cross-border, Moore aims to follow with consistent service quality and integrated expertise. In technology, client demand pulled Moore beyond consulting into implementation and integration—vetting “the right” platforms for the mid-market and building delivery capabilities through SquareFlow. At an Odoo event, the subtext is clear: integrated business platforms (including Odoo) are key to simplifying operations for mid-sized companies and making post-merger integration faster and more standardized.
Impact & Takeaways ⚙️
Moore’s journey shows that smart buy & build can be a growth accelerator when it is culture-led, plan-driven, and grounded in real client value. The partnership model unlocked leadership bandwidth; the PE partner unlocked deal velocity; and the fleet approach preserved agility without losing the benefits of scale. For clients, the expanded offering—analytics, advisory, tax/legal, and corporate finance—means more one-stop guidance, better data-to-decision workflows, and access to implementation capacity on integrated platforms. For employees, ownership, structured learning, and a shared purpose increased engagement and retention. For the business, European expansion and a disciplined M&A playbook tighten execution while allowing brand pragmatism where it adds market leverage. The net effect: a more automated, integrated, and resilient mid-market services powerhouse—built for speed, culture cohesion, and cross-border relevance. 💬
PART 2 — Viewpoint: Odoo Perspective
Disclaimer: AI-generated creative perspective inspired by Odoo's vision.
What resonates most is the insistence on simplicity with discipline: People, Plan, Price—always in that order. In a world of fragmented tools and complex integrations, the fleet model mirrors how modern software should work: modular, cohesive, and fast to adapt. That’s where integrated platforms shine—reducing the friction of post-merger IT and letting teams focus on outcomes, not plumbing.
Mid-market companies want the same coherence as big enterprises without the complexity tax. The Moore story shows how advisory, analytics, and implementation come together to create real-time visibility and better decisions. It’s the same principle behind our product philosophy: one tightly integrated suite, extended by a community, that stays accessible and keeps organizations agile.
PART 3 — Viewpoint: Competitors (SAP / Microsoft / Others)
Disclaimer: AI-generated fictional commentary. Not an official corporate statement.
The buy & build strategy is impressive, and the cultural emphasis is a legitimate differentiator. The question will be whether the fleet model can maintain consistent delivery, compliance rigor, and data governance as Moore scales across jurisdictions. Cross-border services introduce complex regulatory obligations—tax, audit, data privacy—that require robust controls and repeatable processes.
From a platform angle, the mid-market is increasingly choosing integrated suites, but enterprise buyers still expect depth in areas like advanced compliance, security, and multi-entity consolidation at scale. UX differentiation will matter less than proof of standardized, high-quality outcomes across the portfolio. If Moore can codify playbooks—both operationally and technologically—it will be well positioned; otherwise, overhead and fragmentation risk may creep in as growth accelerates.
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.