Odoo or SAP: the right question for an SME or mid-sized company in the sub-region.

We have seen both mistakes. The industrial SME that bought a large-group ERP, configured a tenth of it and pays maintenance every year for modules nobody opens. And the subsidiary of a regional group that chose a lightweight solution, adapted it through development after development, then found itself unable to consolidate with its sister companies or meet its parent’s reporting requirements. In both cases, the decision was taken quickly, on a demonstration and a quote. In both cases, it cost years.

The criteria that really matter

The licence price is the most visible criterion and the least decisive. Here are the ones we put on the table, in this order.

• Size, but above all trajectory. The number of users, sites and transactions per day, today and at the horizon of the strategic plan. An ERP is chosen for the size the company will be, not the size it is.
• Process complexity. A trading company with simple purchasing, stock and sales does not have the same needs as a manufacturer with bills of materials, production orders, maintenance and lot traceability. Complexity is measured on real processes, not on the number of modules wanted.
• Multi-entity and multi-country. Several legal entities, several UEMOA States, intercompany flows to eliminate, a SYSCOHADA consolidation: this criterion weighs heavily and is often underestimated by a company that is still a single entity.
• Group or shareholder requirements. A subsidiary of an international group is often handed a solution, a reporting chart of accounts or closing deadlines. A company open to investors will have to produce statements and controls those investors recognise.
• The budget in foreign currency. Licences and hosting are often paid in euros or dollars, over several years. Total cost is read in CFA francs, over five years, including licences, implementation, hosting, support and evolutions.
• Skills available in Dakar. An ERP has to be kept alive after the project. The question is not “who can install it?” but “who will be able to maintain it, here, in three years?”, both in-house and among partners.
• Hosting. Public cloud, private cloud or your own servers: the answer depends on site connectivity, the location required for certain data, and the cost in foreign currency of each option. We devote a dedicated viewpoint to it.

Three solutions, three logics

SAP S/4HANA is the core business system of groups and large companies. Native multi-entity and multi-country, universal journal, functional depth in finance, supply chain, production and maintenance, and an ecosystem of extensions on SAP BTP. In return: a structuring project, an organisation that must accept the standard, and a total cost that is only justified if that depth is used. With RISE with SAP and GROW with SAP, access has widened to mid-sized companies, but the logic remains that of a group system.

SAP Business One is the SAP solution designed for SMEs and subsidiaries: a scope covering finance, sales, purchasing, stock and light production, a shorter implementation, and natural integration with a group already on SAP. It is often the right choice for the Senegalese subsidiary of a group that consolidates on SAP S/4HANA, or for an SME whose processes are standard and whose parent company speaks SAP.

Odoo is a modular open-source ERP, covering finance, sales, purchasing, stock, manufacturing, payroll and CRM, with a fast learning curve and a community of partners present in Dakar. It suits an SME or a mid-sized company that wants to start quickly, on a scope that will grow module by module, with a moderate licence cost. Its limits appear on the consolidation of complex groups, on certain controls required by international shareholders, and when adaptations pile up to the point of making upgrades difficult. SYSCOHADA localisation exists; it must be checked in detail on your scope before any commitment.

An ERP is not chosen on the licence price. It is chosen on what the company will be in five years, and on who will be able to keep it alive in Dakar.

The pitfalls we see most often

Undersizing. Choosing the lightest solution because it is the cheapest, then bending it out of shape through development after development to make it do what it was not designed for. The result is a system unique in the world, that only its original integrator understands, and that no longer follows versions.

Oversizing. Buying the depth of a group system for a single-entity company with simple processes. The project drags on, the team burns out, and configuration is limited to the bare minimum: you pay for potential that is never activated.

Deciding on the licence price alone. The licence is a fraction of the total cost. Implementation, data migration, training, hosting, support and evolutions weigh more, and are partly paid in foreign currency. An honest comparison covers five years and the full cost.

Deciding on a demonstration. Every demonstration is a success. It shows what the vendor wants to show, on clean data. What matters is a workshop on your processes, with your data and your exceptions, run by people who have already deployed the solution in a comparable context.

Deciding in a few weeks

The right decision does not require six months of tendering. It requires a few weeks of structured work. Week one: describe the company in five years, its entities, its countries, its volumes, its reporting requirements. Weeks two and three: map the real processes, with their exceptions, and classify them as standard, justified custom development or custom development to abandon. Week four: confront at most two solutions with these processes, in a workshop, on your cases. Then a five-year costing, in CFA francs, full cost, for each. The decision is then taken on facts, and it can be explained to a board of directors.

This short scoping is what we offer in our SAP · S/4HANA & ERP and Odoo for SMEs and mid-sized companies offerings, which cover SAP S/4HANA, SAP Business One and Odoo. Our interest is not in selling you a vendor. It is in seeing you still a client in five years, on a system that looks like you.