Integrated Systems for Entrepreneurial Leaders Ordo Administrative Services is an integrated administrative services engine in development by Sparrow Capital. When complete, Ordo will deliver core financial, software, and data management functions for entrepreneurial leaders in the Edmonton Region. Ordo currently operates as an internal division of Sparrow Capital, providing administrative and accounting services for more than 20 companies and partnerships in the Sparrow portfolio. Ordo is using this opportunity to develop its data architecture and a full suite of tools and protocols based on first principles and best practices. These solutions are currently being integrated by our software & systems development team into a full-scale Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system on the Odoo Open Source ERP Framework. All of Ordo’s services and systems are being designed from the ground up to be adaptable to the needs of all kinds of entrepreneurial leaders; from cowork members, startups, and community organizations to growing businesses in complex industries. Ordo Services Administrative Management Financial Administration Software & Systems Management Documentation & Data Management Analysis & Reporting Ubi non est ordo, ibi est confusio.Luca Pacioli, father of double entry accounting – Summa de arithmetica, 1494“Where there is no order, there is confusion.” Open Source ERP FrameworkSolving the Infernal Software & Systems Integration Problem Enterprise homeostasis requires a healthy nervous system. Healthy administrative systems are essential to provide timely financial and operational feedback for the coordination of any business. These feedback and coordination systems are like the nervous system of an organism, enabling the component parts of each business to work together as a whole. The organs and limbs need to be able to feel each other in order for the organism to be sustained. As entrepreneurial leaders, we all share the same core administrative needs. We also have specialized needs that must be administered in an integrated manner. We witness so many entrepreneurs suffering from the learning curves and complexity of the infernal enterprise software and systems integration problem, as well as the risks and consequences of trying to operate with inadequate administrative systems. Best-in-class SaaS results in kludgy stacks of apps and hacks. The infernal software and systems integration problem is especially evident for startups and small businesses that can only afford piecemeal SaaS software options. First, we have literally millions of apps to choose from. Just identifying relevant industry verbiage to query search engines for potential solutions is its own academic project. And the landscape is constantly changing, with new SaaS services proliferating and incumbent providers becoming insolvent on a weekly basis. Then, weeks can be consumed browsing through app stores and third-party app marketplaces to figure out what combination of disparate modules we could possibly cobble together into a coherent framework. These searches are also severely limited by the fact that the only basis they provide to evaluate candidate applications are opaque feature lists and time-consuming youtube videos that tend to exaggerate functionalities and integrations while glossing over data architecture constraints and incompatible interfaces. Once we’ve culled the herd of candidate apps to some kind of shortlist, then more weeks go by as we attend live demos and engage sales reps and technicians in elaborate discussions to assess functionality and compatibility. And it is only after months of work have been invested to actually deploy this patchwork of apps and hacks operationally that we can know with confidence which of these apps will work, where integration compatibilities will break down, and where systems will be vulnerable to failure. We then have to cobble this SaaS patchwork together with redundant manual data entry and data syncing processes; csv exports and spreadsheet-based data processing hacks; and tenuous stacks of fragile API connections through so-called ‘automation’ services like Zapier and Workato. These patchwork systems tend to suffer operational failures and data losses from relatively insignificant events such as when some plug-in goes through a version update. To maintain the integrity of patchwork systems requires constant technical vigilance and tinkering to keep things secure, like a life raft made of popsicle sticks and rubber bands. Best-in-class SaaS results in kludgy stacks of apps and hacks After all of this, if we finally land on a suite of tools that can somehow be cobbled together, we end up with a library of subscriptions to disparate SaaS apps on per-user pricing, which becomes quite expensive as our business begins to scale. Our reward for all of this effort is an expensive kludgy patchwork of apps and hacks. The limitations of the systems begin to expose themselves at our most vulnerable moments as our business begins to scale and our need to depend on the systems we’ve built is highest. But when our business is accelerating, we can’t afford the distraction of having to rethink our systems architecture. Once systems are implemented, it is often prohibitively expensive to retrofit alternative solutions; especially given the high probability that a renewed attempt at the same patchwork approach will lead to just another constellation of suboptimal results. Incumbent ERP verticals result in legacy inertia and exploitive pricing. But the infernal software and systems integration problem is not exclusive to startups and small businesses. Even full-scale enterprises who have invested in proprietary systems suffer from the incoherence and legacy inertia of traditional “integrated” enterprise verticals such as Oracle and SAP. These are advertised as integrated solutions but they are not actually coherently integrated. Of course, there are armies of consultants who can configure these legacy platforms to resemble something like an integrated system. But these consultants are even more expensive than programmers. Excessive implementation and licensing costs trap the enterprise into a proprietary development environment with opaque data architecture and APIs. In practice, the incumbent legacy platforms are so rigid and expensive to build on that even full-scale enterprises end up bridging legacy ERP functions with stacks of manual processes and spreadsheets. One way or another, whether at startup or at enterprise scale, we end up with expensive fragile patchworks of apps and hacks that just don’t do the job. This is the infernal software and systems integration problem. Odoo Market Positioning Chart The Odoo Open Source ERP Framework Odoo is basically WordPress for ERP frameworks. In 2023, Sparrow established a dedicated team to coordinate the integration of all Sparrow administrative and operational systems into a portfolio-wide enterprise resource planning (ERP) framework; and to utilize this opportunity to develop a comprehensive solution to the infernal enterprise software and systems integration problem. After completing an extensive market scan of available ERP platforms and similar services, our development team was delighted to discover a surprisingly promising ERP framework built entirely on an open source platform. Odoo was established in Belgium with an initial release in 2005. As of early 2024, the company is 19 years old and has over 12 million users and 2800 employees worldwide. Odoo is basically WordPress for ERPs. The platform comprises more than 40 fully integrated applications for every core administrative function, including enterprise-grade CRM, eCommerce, accounting, inventory, point of sale, project management, etc. And the open source development community has contributed more than 16,000 additional apps to the platform to meet a broad variety of business needs. The Odoo platform provides exactly the kind of open adaptive data architecture and software development environment that a community can use to build an affordable comprehensive integrated suite of administrative and operational modules to properly equip entrepreneurial leaders. The time is ripe for cloud ERP infrastructure. The software world is still in its infancy and things are changing rapidly. What is feasible today was not possible 10 years ago. Odoo is demonstrating that the current capacities of cloud infrastructure and personal computing devices make it feasible for a community of open source developers to build a full-fledged enterprise ERP platform in the cloud. Data storage has moved to the cloud. The data storage paradigm has decisively moved to the cloud. Historically, data and software were bound to desktop hard-disks or local servers. But with larger datasets and higher internet speeds, the cloud has become more attractive, offering affordability, scalability, remote access, compatibility with a wide range of devices, automated security updates, and integrated data architecture. In 2010, 10% of corporate data was stored in the cloud. In 2023, 60% of corporate data is stored in the cloud. 94% of enterprises use cloud services. By 2025, 200 ZB of data will be stored in the cloud. Computing power has become exponentially more affordable. Business applications require computing power. Only in the last 10 years have personal computers and mobile devices become powerful enough to effectively run a full suite of business applications on a cloud-based ERP system. In the past 10 years computing costs in all categories have decreased dramatically. Microchips: from $40 to $10 per 100M transistors Memory: from $5.50 to $2.50 per gigabyte Data Storage: from 10¢ to 2¢ per gigabyte Cloud Computing: from 12¢ to 9.6¢ per hour Supercomputing: from $1.30 to $0.03 per gigaflop Mobile network speeds have increased 20x. 5G represents a quantum leap from the earlier network technologies. Where 3G brought basic internet to mobile phones, and 4G multiplied speeds tenfold, 5G accelerated download speeds, enabled a boom in mobile media consumption, and expedited the transition from desktops to mobile devices In the past 10 years, networks have achieved unprecedented speed and connectivity. Network Speed: from 1 to 20 Gbps Latency: from 50 to 1 millisecond Network: from 100,000 to 1 million devices per km2 Bandwidth: from 5 to 100 MHz. An open source cloud ERP platform is just what we need right now. With the cloud and mobile infrastructure now in place, it is feasible to build a full-fledged enterprise ERP platform in the cloud that can serve the shared needs of a community of entrepreneurs. The transparency and collaborative culture of the open source environment provide an excellent platform to develop a truly comprehensive solution that can offer a full suite of robust enterprise applications while remaining highly customizable. Unfettered Customization Odoo’s open source platform is highly customizable. There will always be a need for custom applications to meet specialized business needs. Easy customization is therefore an essential feature of a comprehensive integrated business architecture. With direct access to Odoo’s base code, there is effectively no obstacle for a competent development team to easily build custom modules that can meet any specialized business need and integrate seamlessly with the core applications. This is a game-changing advantage of the Odoo platform over proprietary SaaS and legacy ERP solutions. Dedicated Development Community Odoo’s open source code base is developed and actively maintained by a large community of developers who share an interest in the evolution of the platform. The Odoo developer community is constantly contributing to new functions and has integrated more than 16,000 custom apps on the platform to meet a broad variety of specialized business needs. Accountability & Peer Review New modules are introduced to the Odoo platform under the scrutiny of the developer community. This creates a strong incentive for developers contributing new code to achieve a high standard of quality and compatibility; no one wants to put rubbish code in front of their peers. Marketplace of Shared Solutions The Odoo developer community produces a marketplace of shared custom solutions to meet specialized business needs. The marketplace allows modules to be hosted and served to the Odoo instance of any business. This is a powerful advantage that allows businesses to develop custom modules in collaboration with other groups. Fair Pricing & Data Freedom Odoo’s pricing model is straightforward, offering a single, all-inclusive price per user. There are no hidden fees, feature up-sales, long-term contracts, or hosting limits. Odoo is also a champion of data ownership and software freedom. Odoo uses PostgreSQL to avoid proprietary data formats and provides direct access to the source code and GitHub and the flexibility for clients to host their data on their own infrastructure. We can just do it right the first time. With an affordable and properly integrated solution available, we can start our businesses off on the right foot. Instead of launching with compromised solutions and waiting until later to invest in enterprise systems, startups and small businesses in our community can deploy their businesses on enterprise-grade software and systems infrastructure from day one. We can build on systems that scale with us as we grow and focus our attention on delivering value in the ways that are unique to our businesses. Implementing a fully integrated solution like Odoo does involve complexity and systems development expertise that is not necessarily available to every small business. Ordo’s work to prototype Odoo integrations and establish system configurations across the Sparrow portfolio is a trailblazing exercise. Once complete, Ordo intends to be able to offer a clear path for entrepreneurial leaders in the Sparrow community to easily implement enterprise-grade ERP tools and protocols as early as possible in the deployment of their business operations.