Adopt new technologies for growth, firm urges SMEs
The Managing Director of Matt O’Beil, Dare Ojo-Bello, has said that for the Small and Medium-scale Enterprises to be more efficient in their operations, they urgently need to adopt new technologies.
Ojo-Bello stated this while unveiling an Enterprise Resource Planning solution called OdooSMEs.
He said that the SMEs would have a net positive impact if they moved to online or improved their digital presence, saying, “OdooSME is a business application that allows SMEs to run their businesses more transparently, efficiently and ultimately helping them improve productivity and profitability.”
OdooSME is used in countries like the United States of America, Belgium, Luxembourg, India and Hong Kong, and is a module delivered as a Subscription-as-a-Service solution to the SMEs.
Ojo-Bello said the solution was used in about 80 countries and had over two million users globally.
According to him, Odoo SME comes with several modules, which include accounting, budgeting, fixed assets, account receivable, account payable, general ledger, sales, purchase, inventory, Human Resource/payroll, project management, manufacturing, e-commerce, website builder, document management, instant messaging, among others.
Speaking on how the solution could help SMEs in Nigeria, Ojo-Bello said, “The SME business is not different from the business of large organisations and even multinationals. If big companies leverage on technology for efficiency and profitability, the SMEs should not be different.
“Most SMEs don’t keep records and the few that do only record accounting transactions. Some don’t even have an accountant or accounting team to process their daily transactions. This has left a huge hole in compliance and access to information that is key for decision-making. Cost and complexity of available solutions were huge limiting factors, but OdooSME has eliminated all of those.”
He said, “Imagine a solution that provides sufficient safeguards, controls and oversight over processes and activities carried out in the organisation. Take the supply chain for example. A company needs an intelligent solution to guide what to buy, when to buy, who to buy from, how much to pay and when to pay.
“Who is approving what and how are processes and even policies enforced in the system? How do you maintain control over inventory including managing outages? How do you report the transactions in the accounts real time? How much debts are you owed and how much do you owe your suppliers? How do you fulfill sales orders?
“In this example, you can see the interplay of at least four modules namely procurement, warehousing, sales and accounting.”
He added, “OdooSME cuts out paperwork, helps to avoid re-encoding of transactions and allows units, departments and entities share information that can help better decision making. All of these put together will no doubt translate into improved productivity and profitability for the organisation.”