Odoo Targets Chinese SMBs With ERP Software

Enterprise software company Odoo is expanding into the Chinese market to target small businesses (SMBs) in need of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

A press release on Monday (April 16) said Odoo has launched a joint venture with Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur to expand into the market. The firm noted it already services Chinese customers, but its current revenue from China is “nothing compared to the size of the market.”

“To reach the next level, we needed to partner with a leading company like Inspur,” said Fabien Pinckaers, Odoo’s founder.

“This is an excellent match,” the executive said in a statement about the partnership. “Inspur is growing on an expanding and colossal market, with a huge commercial strike force. We couldn’t find a better match.”

Odoo said it hopes to become China’s No. 1 cloud ERP player for small businesses and will focus on marketing and sales efforts to achieve growth in the market.

Last year, another ERP player, FloQast, announced its focus on helping businesses migrate their in-house systems to the cloud. The company launched Cloud Connect, a tool to offer businesses near-real-time access to financial data stored within ERP systems.

“On-premise ERP systems lack the connectivity of today’s modern, cloud-based applications,” said FloQast Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Michael Whitmire, CPA, last year. “As a result, organizations find they have islands of important business data that can only be accessed through highly manual, time-consuming processes. FloQast’s new Cloud Connect makes outmoded on-premise ERP systems more like today’s cloud applications, eliminating manual headaches and giving greater utility to organizations’ financial data.”

ERP solutions providers are embracing cloud and other technologies in an effort to address greater demand for real-time data. Research from eRequester published last year found professionals identified ERP shortcomings as a top challenger to their ability to gain greater visibility into procurement, particularly when it comes to ERPs’ inability to accurately classify and categorize procurement data, making it more difficult for businesses to track spend patterns.