1. An Odoo partner in Sudan faced many challenges operating in a developing country, including an unstable economy, high inflation, incompetency due to poor skills, lack of management involvement, resistance to change, poor infrastructure, and corruption. 2. To address these challenges, the company focused on quick and efficient implementations, quoted prices in dollars to avoid inflation issues, conducted extensive training, ensured management buy-in for projects, and built their own small data center to address infrastructure problems. 3. By persevering and working hard despite the difficulties of the business environment, the company was able to grow successfully as an Odoo partner and be nominated for an award, demonstrating that obstacles can be overcome.

1. Challenges of an Odoo Partner in a
Developing Country
Mustafa B. Hamad, PhD, MBA
CEO & Founder
IntelliSoft Software

2. Topics
● Brief About IntelliSoft
● Challenges Typically Faced by Partners in
Developing Countries
● What We Did
● Conclusion

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 2. High Inflation
● Some projects take
time
● By the time you
collect money it has
already lost value!!!

7. 3. Incompetency Due to Poor Skill-
Set
● From your side
● From the client side
● Results in projects
dragging on…In
some cases failure!

8. 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!

9. 5. Very High Resistance
● You will always get
resistance
● Comes in many
different forms
● Many times due to lack
of high management
involvement

10. 6. Poor Infrastructure
● Has a huge impact on software
projects
●
Can render a successful
implementation useless
● One of the leading causes of
high resistance

11. 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!

12. 8. High Employee Turnover
● Also huge issue in
developing countries
● A root cause is unstable
economy and high-
inflation
● Can seriously impact
projects

13. 9. Software Companies Belonging
to the Government
● They come in many
forms
● Directly and indirectly
related to the
government
● A monopoly!

14. What We Did
● Enough with the problems
● Lets look at the solutions
● They worked for us

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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!

21. 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!

22. 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

23. 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

24. High Employee Turnover
● Well, we have more women than men
● Give continuous training
● Give out mystery bonuses

25. 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

26. Q & A