Company Name: The Workspace Company

Location: Belgium, Europe

Industry: Services 

Established: 2024

Company Size: <50

Odoo Users: <50

Hosting Type: Odoo.sh

Apps: CRM, Sales, Purchase, Invoicing, Accounting, Website, eCommerce, Project, Studio, Logistics, Documents
Implementing partner: Endare for initial implementation - Dear Digital for current support

The Workspace Company operates at the intersection of e-commerce, SaaS, and logistics, with a unique value proposition: a custom-built digital platform that serves as a centralized purchasing hub. The interface simplifies order processing through closed B2B webshops & automates dropshipping to end-users — significantly reducing administrative overhead for clients. The company is particularly strong in markets such as employee benefits, group purchasing, and centralized procurement solutions.

Struggling with scattered data and operations and a lack of connection between departments, The Workspace Company found in Odoo an all-in-one management system offering the flexibility, insights and efficiency the team was looking for.

As the owner of Buro International, an office furniture company, Jeroen Van Den Bossche (CEO) expanded this traditional business by launching an innovative hybrid software services platform: The Workspace Company.

Covering Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, The Workspace Company provides companies with multimedia and home office products for the cafeteria plan or salary package of their employees. Through a personalized webshop, the employees can log in and order the available items wanted through flexible compensation systems. 

Relying on a patchwork of standalone tools, The Workspace Company faced fragmented data, with each department working in silos and struggling to communicate effectively. The team needed an efficient management solution paired with a powerful e-commerce website, and most importantly, tools that allowed for workflow automation and centralization.

“Over the past decade, the market has been constantly evolving. I need to invest in innovation and digitization if I want to stay competitive on the market. So if the system I use is not able to move as fast as my business is growing, either I have to slow down, or I have to change the system. And I don’t want to slow down.” - Jeroen Van Den Bossche - CEO of The Workspace Company.

When the decision was made to go from disconnected tools to a unified solution, Jeroen started to gather information about solutions such as SAP, Exact and Dynamics 365 Business Central but found them quite old school and too costly. He talked to many other entrepreneurs to have feedback on the softwares they were using themselves, which was that those tools are very expensive, too rigid, and not flexible enough. 

With a clear desire to find modern open-source software offering a lot of flexibility, Jeroen took the advice of an external accountant, reviewed Odoo’s fully integrated management system and listened to the experiences of some customers.

“The image I have of an ERP package is like a sunny archipelago of islands, where you need to be able to travel from one place to another easily, smoothly, and happily. Every island represents one division of the company, with connections in between the departments, and the sun is supposed to be shining. However, I was standing on a rainy island, as I had no clear overview on the sales, on the accounting figures, etc. I knew we were doing well, but with no direct access to data to see it for myself. Today, thanks to Odoo, I have a clear day-to-day overview on pretty much everything that is happening in the business.” - Jeroen Van Den Bossche - CEO of The Workspace Company. 

The Workspace Company chose Odoo as their partner for growth, driven by several key advantages that stood out, including: 

• Centralization of data, operations and departments: Odoo is a fully integrated management system, which was exactly what The Workspace needed to gather all information in one single platform.
• Deployment speed: Implementing a new company management software can be long and cause an operational turnaround. But with Odoo, the deployment could be quick, with a system set up in just a few months. 
• Flexibility in terms of configuration: From standard to open source modules, Odoo provides flexibility in the configuration of the package in order to accommodate specific needs.
• Extensive apps options: The Workspace Company wanted to start with the basic business apps the teams needed, but also desired to have the possibility to add other modules depending on the company’s growth.
• Global and clear overview on all operations: As CEO of the company, Jeroen wanted to benefit from an extensive overview of everything, to make sure things are constantly on track. 
• Easy-to-use interface: Jeroen needed an easy-to-use interface that employees could master in no time and integrate quickly on a daily basis.

The Workspace Company worked together with Endare, an Odoo implementation partner, to make the switch to this new tool a success. The process was conducted step by step, keeping the previous tools active until the migration was fully completed and operational in about 6 months. 

“We got rolled into the Odoo family by the experience of Odoo users. And I realized this tool was exactly what I needed: an open source platform, with a very user-friendly interface integrating all departments in a single entity. Software like Odoo is basically at the core of our business to make it a SaaS model.” - Jeroen Van Den Bossche - CEO of The Workspace Company.

Having applications interconnected between each other as well as improving processes thanks to simple and targeted automations means that today, orders can be processed cleanly, with minimal manual entries, reducing significantly the risk of error. 

The Workspace Company saw order intake skyrocket from just 2 to 25 orders per day, and noticed the turnover triple. With the previous standalone systems, this would not have been possible without expanding the team tenfold. But thanks to Odoo, achieving this revenue growth without further investment has been doable. 

As The Workspace Company continues its journey, it appears clearly that the future is bright, defined by seamless integration, exceptional customer experiences and a relentless drive for innovation.