All information in one system – with Odoo, Setera Communications has gained efficiency for its international business needs.
In this video, Marko Lahnala, the company’s ERP project manager, explains the background to the project and why Setera Communications chose Odoo. In addition, company’s CEO Tuomo Kiesvaaraa and CFO Tina Hietalahti explain what benefits Odoo has brought to Setera Communications’ day-to-day operations and management, as well as to their own work.
Using Odoo to get rid of several separate systems
Setera Communications is a provider of international voice and telecommunications solutions. Setera specialises in providing and maintaining global communications solutions for multinational companies. Setera manages all corporate communications through a network of partners, providing companies with a seamless customer experience, allowing customers to focus on their business and core competencies.
The need to upgrade the ERP system arose when the company realised that the systems in place were cumbersome and outdated. Setera had several separate systems that did not communicate with each other and it was very difficult to see the big picture. The same information was recorded in several different systems and the information was not necessarily consistent and had gaps.
“We had several different systems in place to run our operations and numerous ways of transferring information between systems. Often the same information was entered manually into different systems. The same customer could be in different systems under a different name. It was difficult to see the big picture,” says Marko Lahnala, ERP project manager, describing the initial situation.
The choice was influenced by the suitability for international business needs
Setera chose Odoo ERP because it could provide a solution for the company’s international business needs. From the very beginning of the ERP project, the company realised that just by describing and outlining business processes, it was possible to identify existing bottlenecks and improve processes. This served as a good basis for the implementation of the ERP system.
Marko describes that the company saw a clear need for operational improvement and started by mapping and improving the business processes. All staff were involved in the process right from the start, as understanding the many different nationalities and cultural differences is not a given. By simply going through and describing the processes, Setera was able to achieve a number of improvements.
The cooperation with Avoin.Systems has gone very well, they have been very interested in our business and offered solutions on how we could develop it with the help of Odoo.
Marko Lahnala, ERP & Billing manager Setera Communications
ERP system provides information to support business development
With the implementation of Odoo, Setera has been able to more easily obtain accurate information to support business development, such as lead times, product margins and resources used. From a financial management perspective in particular, Odoo has brought efficiencies to operations. As an international company, it is important to be able to see what is happening in different locations and what the big picture is – with Odoo, Setera is able to see the big picture easily and up-to-date from a single system.
Using one system has also reduced costs, as there is no need for separate accounting software for each country. Tina Hietalahti, Setera’s CFO, says that with Odoo, she can easily monitor what is happening in the different locations from a single system and all the information is available in a defined format and is always up-to-date. Especially now during the interest rate pandemic, even though the employees are physically separated, the Odoo ERP system allows them to work in the same environment all the time, which has made day-to-day work much easier.
To operate efficiently on a global scale, we needed one system that could meet all our needs – and that’s why we chose Odoo.
Tuomo Kiesvaara, CEO Setera Communications
Tailored solutions to meet the needs of complex business
Setera provides its customers with international voice and data communications solutions, involving a number of different services, billed on different bases. In addition, there are many industry-specific features, such as management of telephone numbers, equipment and licenses, which the ERP system must be able to handle.
The aim of the ERP project was to ensure that this complexity could be managed by Odoo and that all functions were linked to it. For this reason, Setera’s Odoo system was also subject to carefully considered customisation and integration with specialised systems relevant to the industry. One important aspect of this was the creation of a dedicated portal and limited views for Setera’s partners. This allows partners to create orders directly in the same system and see only their own data.
In our day-to-day work, Odoo helped us a lot because we can see and find things that we didn’t know existed before, because we didn’t have the same kind of good data to put all the different pieces together.
Marko Lahnala, ERP & Billing manager Setera Communications
Setera is an international company that is expanding rapidly. Setera started with 20 Odoo users, but that number has grown to almost 70 as the company’s business has grown. Odoo has served as a good platform for Setera’s business development and growth. Currently, Setera is expanding to the United States, where Avoin.Systems has helped find a local Odoo partner who understands the intricacies of the country’s tax laws.