Being an Odoo consultant has become a much bigger challenge in recent years. The number of apps and modules has increased a lot and Odoo is doing one major release per year.

So how do you keep up with this fast-paced evolution and what will the future of Odoo consulting look like? I have been working as an Odoo consultant since 2014 and I will share my insights with you.

The Evolution

Five years ago, the Odoo universe was very different in terms of features and apps. Looking at the apps for Manufacturing and Accounting, we can understand the magnitude of this evolution.

Manufacturing in Odoo 8 was covering basic needs of manufacturing companies. But it didn’t include the apps Product-Lifecycle-Management (PLM), Quality and IoT-Integration, to just name a few. Accounting in Odoo 8 didn’t have dynamic drill-down reports, powerful dashboards or the possibility to create your own financial reports from the user interface. In addition to that, there are many features that have been drastically improved like reconciliation in bank statements, country localizations, follow-up of overdue payments, bank integration etc.

So, in summary, Odoo 8 and Odoo 12 may be distant relatives, but they don’t look alike. What does all that mean for Odoo consulting?

Actually, it’s really simple: With every additional app and feature, it becomes more difficult to be competent in all of them. I would argue that we have already reached a point where it is impossible to cover everything. Let us pretend we are doing an Odoo project and we are looking for an Odoo consultant with experience in just three specific areas. We need someone who has proven project experience with:

1. Point-of-Sale with integrated hardware scale and coupons
2. Stock valuation in multi-company environment
3. Document-Management-System (DMS): train Odoo to create supplier invoices from received PDFs.

How many consultants would bring real project experience for all three requirements? Not many, if any at all. I am insisting on “real project experience”, because reading the documentation and clicking around in the user interface for a couple of minutes doesn’t make you a consultant.

What can we learn from other disciplines?

Keeping all this in mind, what does the future of Odoo consulting look like? It is instructive to look at two disciplines that are already past this point in their evolution: SAP consulting and medicine.

SAP is obviously still an important ERP solution in the global market. And in the SAP world, we can see that specialisation has occurred. If you are browsing through SAP job offerings, it is very common to see offerings for consultants in SAP FI/CO, SAP HCM, SAP MM or similar. “FI/CO”, “HCM” and “MM” all refer to specific SAP modules; they are basically the equivalent of Odoo’s modules Accounting, HR and Inventory. So, will we see job listings like “Odoo POS consultant” or “Odoo MRP consultant” in the future? It’s quite likely. But does this mean you should specialize?

On the other hand, what does the evolution of medicine teach us? Today, pretty much every part of the human body has it’s own specialised doctor. Got a problem with your eye? Go see your ophthalmologist. Got a rash on your skin? Go check with your dermatologist. And of course we have specialised brain surgeons, heart surgeons, hand surgeons — you name it. But modern medicine is also relying heavily on general practitioners. When you have something common like the flu, hypertension, or a small cut in your arm, you don’t need a specialist. The general practitioner can take care of that.

The Future

At the Odoo Experience 2018, Fabien Pinckaers announced that more industries will be covered by Odoo. In Odoo 13, there will be an app for Field Services management, to name just one example. With more apps and features, there will also be a need for specialised Odoo consultants. This will start with larger, complex apps such as Accounting and Manufacturing. For customers with complex business requirements, basic knowledge in those apps is not enough for a successful Odoo implementation. They need a consultant who has done several similar projects in those specific areas and who knows viable solutions, common pitfalls and best-practices from experience.

So, since there is a need for specialised knowledge, we will see more specialised Odoo consultants in the future. If you get the chance to specialise in a major app, this can be an interesting career path. Don’t specialise in small apps just now, as it is unlikely there will be enough demand for e.g. Odoo Lunch consultants.

If you do not have the opportunity or the inclination to specialise, don’t worry. A lot of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) need Odoo consultants that are competent all-rounders. Just make sure that you know your limits and get support from specialists if the project or customer requires it.