For a long time, digital transformation in businesses mainly involved piling up tools. One piece of software for accounting, another for stock management, a separate CRM system, Excel spreadsheets to link all the systems together and, often, manual processes to fill in the gaps.
“We still have large-scale clients who use Excel because their systems aren’t integrated,” notes Julie Martin, a director at PwC Luxembourg, in a joint interview with Odoo’s founder and CEO, Fabien Pinckaers, which will be held at Nexus Luxembourg on Wednesday 10 and Thursday 11 June. “They’re struggling to capture data from various sources and are doing a huge amount of manual work.”
For both the consultancy firm and Odoo, the issue is no longer about the willingness to go digital. “Digital transformation has been underway in Luxembourg for several years now,” points out Julie Martin. “The real question today is how to use these technologies and which use cases are genuinely useful for the business.” This trend is particularly evident in the Luxembourg mid-market. “More and more companies are getting up to speed, but many are still lagging behind on the cloud and are discovering AI very quickly,” she explains. “Not having an integrated ERP system, even as an SME, means losing competitiveness.”
An educational issue, according to Fabien Pinckaerts
As for Fabien Pinckaers, his assessment is even more blunt. “There are a lot of companies that think it’s normal to operate like this,” says the founder and CEO of Odoo. “It’s normal to sign paper contracts, normal to spend weeks consolidating figures, normal to do double data entry. The real problem is one of education.” According to him, many companies are still using tools left over from the 2000s without really questioning their working methods. “Employees often suffer from having to do unnecessary work. Operations are inefficient and people don’t even realise it anymore.”
Odoo states that it aims to position itself not as an alternative to a specific ERP system, but “as an alternative to complexity”. Guillaume Castaigne, the Belgian software provider’s representative in Luxembourg, explains that the company has seen “an 80% increase in new customer acquisition” over the last three to four years in the country. The company particularly emphasises its integrated platform approach. “Our whole challenge is to make digital processes genuinely easy and user-friendly,” explains Mr Castaigne. “We often see companies that have set up a system in Excel alongside their ERP.”
We are more business integrators than purely technical integrators.
For PwC, this issue goes far beyond technology alone. Frédéric Chapelle, a partner at PwC Luxembourg, emphasises the importance of a business-led approach. “We are more business integrators than purely technical integrators,” he explains. “It’s much easier to get down to the technical level these days because clients are now asking the right questions: what are their real business needs, and which tools actually meet them?”
A rift in governance
The change is also affecting corporate governance. Julie Martin refers to “a divide between senior management and middle management”. “Top management sets out a vision, but operational teams are not always equipped or trained to implement it.” This difficulty in adoption may partly explain why silos have persisted for years within organisations. “Many companies drag their problems along,” says Fabien Pinckaers. “They complain about recruitment difficulties, problems with information sharing or a lack of leads, but they do nothing to address them.”
For Odoo, data quality and accessibility are now becoming central. “The real root cause is the structure of the database,” says Fabien Pinckaers. “If the data isn’t clean and easily accessible, you can add as many layers of dashboards or artificial intelligence as you like, but it will still be complicated.” The executive explains that at Odoo, users can access the data directly rather than waiting for manually produced reports. “If someone needs information, they’ll go and fetch the figures from the database themselves.”
Customers come because the product is better or more suitable, not because it’s European!
Artificial intelligence is also accelerating this transformation. Odoo says it is already integrating several AI components into its tools for both developers and end users. “A user can request a sales forecast, automate email processing or create purchase orders automatically,” explains Fabien Pinckaers.
The issue of technological sovereignty is also featuring more and more prominently in discussions, particularly in the current geopolitical climate. “We’re seeing a shift,” observes Frédéric Chapelle. “Institutions and certain industries are beginning to give more thought to the sovereignty of European technological solutions.” Julie Martin confirms that some Luxembourgish clients are now expressing “concerns about American solutions and the cloud”. However, Fabien Pinckaers refuses to make sovereignty Odoo’s main selling point. “Clients come to us because the product is better or more suitable, not because it is European,” he asserts. “Personally, I’d rather win because we’re better, not because we’re European.”
Electronic invoicing: the challenge
One of the next major initiatives will be electronic invoicing, which is set to become increasingly widespread in Luxembourg in line with European regulations. Here too, PwC notes that many companies remain wedded to paper. “Accounting teams still like to have something tangible in their hands,” observes Julie Martin.
Fabien Pinckaers, however, plays down these fears. “In every country where electronic invoicing has been introduced, businesses leave it until the last minute; everyone thinks it’s the end of the world, and then, a few weeks later, everything works perfectly well.” According to him, this development could even further accelerate the adoption of integrated ERP systems and digital platforms among European SMEs. “In Belgium, we’ve gone from 600 to 1,400 new customers a month” following the introduction of mandatory electronic invoicing, he says.
For PwC Luxembourg, the partnership with Odoo is intended to enable the firm to reach a wider segment of the Luxembourg market, including medium-sized companies that might not previously have considered working with a Big Four firm on these digital transformation issues. “Today, we no longer position Odoo as a minor alternative,” says Julie Martin. “The solution now competes directly with players such as SAP and Microsoft Dynamics.”
