🧨 Odoo Unlocked #002 — “Not a Word Doc”

Odoo marketing wants it both ways. They present it as “the Word of business management software” — easy, universal, lightweight.

But here's the issue: Word doesn’t require change management. Odoo does.

Framing Odoo as a simple plug-and-play app creates the illusion that you can “just install and go.” And that illusion? It’s costing you deals, reputations, and recoveries.

Let’s look at the actual field data:

🧯 Over 50% of partners say more than a quarter of their pipeline is now recovery projects.
That’s not normal. That’s a symptom.

Why the spike? Misaligned expectations at the top of the funnel:

• Clients expect “simple” but get “sophisticated”

• Sales promise “low setup” but delivery reveals “full transformation”

• Users expect “plug-and-play” but get “migrate, train, customize, test”

The result: 🚨 Panic, blame, scope creep, cancellations, and a growing secondary market of “rescue missions.”

Every time we let the “easy” story go unchallenged, here’s what happens:

• Projects underfunded and under-scoped from Day 1

• Implementation partners forced to overdeliver or walk

• Clients frustrated not because Odoo is bad — but because they were never told what it really is

This disconnect turns platform ambition into partner burnout.

If you want to avoid recovery missions, you need to start by resetting expectations:

1. 🛠 Frame Odoo as infrastructure
   Stop comparing it to Word. Clients planning on ERP should expect ERP-level effort.

2. 📋 Scope the transformation, not the tool
   Ask: What are we changing — systems, workflows, roles, habits?
   Price for business adoption, not app deployment.

3. 🚦Add a Go/No-Go gate before Phase 1
   Make the client commit to shared success criteria before kickoff. If they want “low-touch,” don’t greenlight the wrong deal.

4. 📢 Call out bad messaging when you see it
   Push back on brochures that oversimplify. Counter “easy ERP” with your own success criteria. Your delivery quality depends on it. Lead the truth-telling. That’s how trust — and margins — are won.

How many of your current projects started with mismatched expectations?
And how much margin are you burning to make them right?

See you next Monday at 08:00 CET.

Let’s make ‘recovery’ the exception, not the norm.

Got a recovery war story? Share it — we might feature it next week.

— Cath & Fred, Just Doers.