Adopting Odoo is a significant decision, and it needs the backing of the business's leadership. Building the business case is how that backing is won. This piece is about it.
Why a business case is needed
Adopting Odoo is a significant commitment of money and effort, and a commitment of that significance needs leadership's genuine backing. Leadership backs a significant commitment when there is a genuine case for it, a clear, honest argument that the commitment is worth making. Building the business case for Odoo is making that argument: setting out, for leadership, the honest case that adopting Odoo is genuinely worth it for the business.
The case is not just the cost
A business case for Odoo built only around the cost is incomplete and unconvincing. The cost is one side of the case, what adopting and running Odoo will genuinely cost, honestly, the whole picture, not just a licence figure. But a case that is only cost asks leadership to back a commitment with no argued return. The genuine business case has both sides: the cost, and what the business genuinely gets in return.
The return: what Odoo genuinely changes
The other side of the business case is the return: what adopting Odoo genuinely changes for the business. The genuine return of moving to a connected system is real, fewer of the problems of a disconnected, spreadsheet-bound operation, the stock-outs, the costs nobody trusts, the slow reconciliation, the dependence on a few people, and an operation that can be managed and can grow on a connected system. The business case should set out that genuine return, so leadership sees not just what Odoo costs but what it genuinely gives back.
The cost of the status quo
A crucial part of the business case, and one often left out, is the cost of the status quo. Adopting Odoo is being weighed against not adopting it, against continuing as the business is, and continuing as the business is has its own genuine cost, the hidden, continuous costs of the disconnected, spreadsheet-bound operation, paid every month. A business case that sets out the cost of the status quo honestly shows leadership that the comparison is not "the cost of Odoo against nothing" but "the cost of Odoo against the genuine cost of continuing as we are". Including the cost of the status quo is what makes the business case genuinely honest and genuinely compelling.
Build the case honestly
An honest note. The business case for Odoo should be built honestly: an honest account of the cost, the whole cost, an honest argument for the return, and an honest account of the cost of the status quo. A business case built honestly is one leadership can genuinely trust and act on, and it is one that, if the case is genuine, makes a genuine argument. A business case built by overstating the return or understating the cost is not genuinely a case; it is a sales pitch, and it serves the business badly if leadership backs a commitment on the basis of it. Build the business case honestly, and let the honest case make the argument.
The takeaway
Building the business case for Odoo to your leadership wins the backing a significant commitment needs. The case has two sides: the honest, whole cost of adopting and running Odoo, and the genuine return, what Odoo genuinely changes for the business by replacing a disconnected operation with a connected system. Crucially, the case should include the honest cost of the status quo, so the comparison is the cost of Odoo against the genuine cost of continuing as the business is. Build the business case honestly. For how we approach Odoo, see our ERP practice.