One of the most challenging tasks for an ERP system is managing rapid company growth and increasing process complexity. VanMoof, a Dutch startup, expanded from 90 to 900 employees over four years. During this time, we were entrusted with the growth and maintenance of their ERP system.
The number of internal users grew from approximately 90 to 900 across the globe. Even the access speed for users in Taiwan had to be considered. Odoo was tasked with automating orders for goods to supply European and U.S. warehouses with parts and assembled bicycles. It also handled production planning, tracking of bicycle and part serial numbers, and managing their relationships to the bicycles, as well as warranty handling for both the entire bicycle and individual parts.
A custom module developed by VanMoof managed all subscription bicycles, asset creation and calculation (related to subscription bicycles), customer payments, business-to-business subscriptions, and the bicycle-to-user relationship.
Another internally developed module managed all leased and subscription bicycles.
The company’s rapid growth created a need for a larger Odoo development team. At the beginning of our involvement, Odoo had just one internal and one external part-time member. By the end of the fourth year, Odoo had two teams of six developers, two first-line application support analysts, two product owners, and one manager.
During this period, one of the company’s largest projects was successfully delivered: the migration from Odoo 9 to Odoo 12. This included migrations from Odoo 9 to 10, 10 to 11, and 11 to 12—all at once. The project’s scale and team capacity, while maintaining speed expectations, presented significant challenges.
One of the biggest issues with most ERP implementations is code quality. For long-running projects, this can be the key factor in development speed. In some cases, poor code decisions can cause each new task to take three times longer than expected, resulting in a 200% cost increase per development team. That's why code quality and rigorous review were critical elements of our work. This hidden cost can make or break an Odoo system. Poor code quality leads to developer dissatisfaction and turnover, which in turn affects management's satisfaction with the system’s performance. Eventually, the discussion may shift to completely replacing the ERP system, diverting the company’s focus to ERP-related expenses. That’s why we emphasized code quality—so the company could run its business smoothly, without being bogged down by ERP issues. This was the guiding principle of our team.
One of our main resources is a network of some of the best developers in the Odoo community, with an average of 10 years of Odoo experience. With this resource, we could scale up teams relatively quickly with highly experienced developers.