On Friday 23 March 2018, the Tokyo Roadshow, the first Odoo event held in Japan took place as planned.
I spoke on the company's behalf, under the title "Getting Around Odoo — tips for implementing Odoo efficiently with open source", covering what we would like people to know about Odoo from the perspective of its ecosystem and of open source, along with the various things we do for users in Japan.
At an occasion like this it is usually good to demo an implementation matching some real business need, but as this was the first Odoo event, I deliberately made it a slide-led presentation, packing in the basic information that keeps people starting out with Odoo from losing their way — as the title "Getting Around Odoo" suggests. Happily it seems to have gone down well with those who came: of the three partners taking part, we were the one the largest number of attendees said they would like to talk to. The slides I used are posted here, so do please take a look.
Oikawa-san of Assist Co., Ltd., a customer of ours, also spoke, and generously gave comments that talked us up considerably. (Thank you, Oikawa-san!)
Assist's adoption of Odoo is not merely an ERP implementation but the building of a scheme that draws in other companies in the reuse industry, which makes it genuinely challenging. It left me resolved that we must keep supporting them properly.
My impression is that the attendees this time were about half companies using Odoo and half businesses that provide, or intend to provide, services around it. It would be good to make the most of what open source offers and build Odoo up together.
I do not know when the next roadshow event in Japan will be, but I expect we will end up holding something like it about once a year. Between now and then we will keep working on Odoo — enjoyably, and in earnest — so that we have plenty to talk about again!
Speaking at the Odoo Tokyo Roadshow about our work for users in Japan