Headquarters: Lancashire, UK
Partnership year: 2012
Number of employees: 25
Service offered: IT support, Network Support and IT Security
Number of Odoo implementations: 75+
The Journey to Odoo
Smart IT is Odoo’s largest implementation partner in the UK and has been a partner since 2012. Prior to joining Odoo as a partner, Smart IT had a long history of offering management services to its clients with their oldest client dating back to 1997. The company’s previous expertise revolved around CRM, Dynamics NAV and Microsoft.net.
Smart IT came across Odoo by accident whilst looking for a platform to develop a specialist product for the energy industry in the UK. After further assessment, Smart IT decided to join Odoo’s partnership program and found great success, growth and new customers. From there, the company has gained many customers and has continued to grow year on year since. Smart IT now has 3 offices in the UK and opened an office in Vancouver, Canada in 2019.
What sold Odoo to Smart IT? The integrated apps and ease of development. Smart IT found many clients have different needs and Odoo is easily adaptable and scalable suiting a wide range of client needs. Two stand out features Smart IT identified in Odoo were its low cost of ownership and the open platform that could be built on with custom modules.
The relationship between Smart IT and the Partnership Account Managers at Odoo has been a key element to the company’s success. They have regular dialogue; they support and promote them to potential customers assured of Smart IT’s excellent track record of successful implementations. What Smart IT has valued the most is being able to pick up the phone at any given moment and speak to someone at Odoo.
Currently, Smart IT has 12 functional consultants with Odoo certification. They aim to have all members of staff certified because they believe learning and understanding ensures that staff aren’t overselling or indeed not using all the features out of the box. Smart IT has clients across all sectors with clusters in manufacturing, energy, distribution, retail and professional services.
Implementation Methodology
For each client, Smart IT embarks on a process review where they investigate and map out all processes. They then create a gap analysis along with project documentation. With all clients, they try to keep architecture as close to the out of box solution as possible – thus minimising cost and maximising effectiveness and ROI of the product.
Once the gap analysis is complete, developments are defined and conducted in 2-3 weekly sprints. All activities are planned using Odoo Projects with colour codes to define different sprints. With Smart IT’s 10-strong in-house team of UK based developers ensuring that the platform is customised to the exact requirements of the client is straightforward. As the implementation proceeds, Smart IT ensures good feedback is attained. This is especially useful for future projects.
Nothing leaves the Smart IT office without a code review and QA testing. The company has a whole team that solely focuses on testing. When the solution finally goes to the client, a video demonstrating how to use their solution along with a thorough user guide is also sent along.
Smart IT not only offers Odoo as a solution to clients but also uses it internally. Apps like Project and Helpdesk are specifically used for the organisation’s ticketing system. The organisation has been using Odoo internally for the last four years.
Smart IT’s Greatest Successes
About Smart IT
Smart IT is a trusted IT support specialist with a key point of difference: we are the lead Gold Partner for Odoo based business process solutions in the UK and beyond. We know that intelligent use of IT services can be the key to the long-term development, growth and success of your business. Our objective is to help you increase your efficiency, productivity and profitability by giving you access to a suite of most innovative IT products and services on the market at a realistic price point. Learn more at: https://smart-ltd.co.uk/
