Odoo Success Story: Award Emblem’s Ecommerce Order Portal
Award Emblem is a leading manufacturer and seller of award and recognition items for all occasions. The company operates an ecommerce storefront, which enables customers to design custom trophies, medals, and other products.
For materials requirements planning (MRP), Award Emblem relied on proprietary AS/400 software developed in the late 1990s. Over time, that software was paired with off-the-shelf accounting solutions and various customizations that enabled those systems to communicate.
The Problem: Replacing Proprietary Legacy Software with a Modern ERP
While Award Emblem’s legacy systems were functional, their team saw opportunities for improvement:
- The legacy systems were designed around a specific type of product. There wasn’t much support for other product lines, which limited Award Emblem’s ability to expand their focus.
- The legacy systems required some manual data entry, which could be easily automated with a modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution.
- The legacy MRP was self-built software, so adding new features wasn’t practically realistic. A modern ERP would allow for greater flexibility, more accurate reporting, and better workflows.
The goal of the project was to develop a new MRP backend with an ecommerce frontend. These systems would need to be fully integrated.
The Solution: Switching to Odoo 17 for ERP & Ecommerce
While Award Emblem considered several options for ecommerce frontends, they ultimately chose Odoo, an open-source ERP/CRM/ecommerce solution.
Considering the age of the company’s legacy software, Odoo was a major step up. It’s endlessly flexible thanks to its open-source approach, and with help from experienced developers, Odoo can be customized for an optimal workflow — without extraneous features, which can slow down adoption and frustrate users.
Blue Stingray and Award Emblem agreed on a phased approach for the project:
- In Phase 1, the company would be able to accept orders through a new ecommerce portal.
- Advanced features would be added through Phase 2 and 3. More in-depth ERP configurations (such as purchasing, manufacturing, and inventory) would be added during these later phases.
- Blue Stingray would continue to provide support, collecting feedback to ensure that the new Odoo implementation is appropriate for Award Emblem’s workflow.
Blue Stingray immediately began planning for the initial launch requirements. while ensuring that the setup/configuration/customizations all worked towards the Award Emblem’s long-term goal outcomes.
During this stage, the project encountered several challenges. The initial plan was to utilize Odoo 16, but Odoo 17 was released during Phase 1. Blue Stingray and Award Emblem made the decision to use Odoo 17 to take advantage of the new features.
Additionally, Blue Stingray had to manage changing requirements — a mainstay of every ERP project — while maintaining the original project timeline.
The Results: More Flexibility and Tools for Future Growth
In about four months, Blue Stingray was able to complete Phase 1 of the Odoo implementation project. Award Emblem now has a fully functional order portal, built upon an integrated ERP and ecommerce foundation.
With Odoo, Award Emblem has been able to grow their business by easily introducing new ecommerce websites and product types. They acquired a major client midway through the project, which would have been difficult to manage via their legacy software.
In future phases, Blue Stingray will continue to expand the functionality of Award Emblem’s Odoo implementation. For the time being, the Award Emblem team is satisfied with the results — and excited to keep building on their success.
