The Value of Combining Service and Product

We created NaN-tic because we believed that the open-source development model was better for companies.

For this reason, we began by working with TinyERP (which later changed its name to OpenERP and finally to Odoo), as it was the most open solution at the time.

However, we soon saw that the principal product vendor's model ultimately used open source as a marketing banner, without actually taking advantage of the benefits it could truly offer, such as a closer connection between customer needs and the product, and greater autonomy for both customers and implementers.

Our thinking at the time was that, if we were going to implement OpenERP solely for marketing purposes, we might as well sell Navision or SAP, which after all had larger budgets in this area and an already established brand...

But since that was never our intention, we began the transition to Tryton. It took us several years, but we have never looked back.

Product vendor and implementers

ERPs usually have a product vendor and a number of implementers.

This is because being both a manufacturer and a service provider at the same time is genuinely difficult: technological progress is rapid, and the costs of constantly adapting technology are hard to reconcile with the stability and service customers need.

I myself worked for several years at a company in Sabadell called Gadin (which, according to what they said, was Spain's first software exporter, many years ago!) and which eventually closed. But there are many more examples. Combining technological cutting edge with customer service is truly difficult.

Thanks to open source, Tryton allows us to work with a model that differs from the traditional ERP world.

The program's source code is free and available at no cost, but its maintenance and adaptation to new technological needs are shared among the companies that collaborate on it, which greatly reduces the cost for us. We also benefit from the richness of each other's ideas and needs to build a more robust core product. And because, by nature, we need to meet different requirements, the product ends up being flexible and highly adaptable.

Many companies use it as a general-purpose ERP which they later adapt to specific customer needs, while others have chosen to create products aimed at certain sectors, such as GNU/Health for the medical field or Coopengo, which has created a product for insurers.

This model is working very well for Tryton when we look at its ability to keep innovating and adapting to new technologies. For example, in recent years we have incorporated:

• The possibility of accessing the ERP through the web (how many ERPs have simply still not been able to make this change?)
• Adaptation to Python 3
• The possibility of displaying notifications to users
• The incorporation of a queue system to handle larger volumes of data and make the application more responsive for users
• Global search and accent-insensitive search, like Google
• The possibility of storing attachments in the cloud
• Support for two-factor authentication and SAML authentication
• Previewing attached documents

Stability and innovation

The open-source model has other advantages, but there is one in particular that I would like to highlight.

The fact that NaN-tic is also a product vendor and includes upgrading the software to new versions as part of maintenance means that our team—especially developers, but also consultants—does not focus solely on the needs of one particular project and customer, but thinks beyond them.

We think about how a change can be used to solve a more general need. About how an attempt to solve a small problem can avoid becoming an excessive burden on the product that would make its technological evolution more difficult.

Taking on a project for a customer normally means having little room to take risks. Developing and maintaining a product, by contrast, makes it possible to take riskier decisions.

It is essential that our professionals' experience also includes the responsibility of looking after a product and having to live with the long-term consequences of the decisions made. The advantage of developing a product and providing service at the same time allows us to experience firsthand how what we have designed at product level affects our customers.

If we did not develop a product, we would learn only a small part of what there is to learn from our decisions, and we would contribute only a small part of the value we can provide by taking responsibility for the long-term consequences.

Steve Jobs once said that being a consultant is like taking photographs of many different fruits (referring to the companies from different sectors we work with), but it is as if we had never tasted them because we do not have to take responsibility for or see the long-term results of our recommendations.

This is why the fact that NaN-tic is also a product owner and takes responsibility for upgrading the software to new versions—taking on these two roles at product and service level—is an essential and distinctive factor in our value.

We aspire to achieve the goal of developing bespoke software with the same efficiency as if we were developing standard software, precisely thanks to the opportunities offered by carrying out, within one company, what in most of the sector is done by different companies.

Is it a model for everyone?

The advantage of this working model is that it also continues to allow the usual vendor <-> implementer model. There are companies specialised in offering a close service to customers that require few or no software adaptations, for example. We have long worked with ICT service providers and implementers for whom we play the role of product vendor.

In this case, besides knowing that we will experience the problems firsthand because we have direct customers, our partners have added peace of mind: because the solution is 100% open source, they know they can take the reins of their projects at any time. Indeed, the main guarantee that NaN-tic will do everything possible to provide the best service is precisely that there is nothing forcing them to work with us.

Cheers!