Mekhala Living’s Secret Sauce to Success With Odoo

Company: Mekhala Living

Location: Singapore

Industry: F&B, retail, eCommerce

Apps implemented: Manufacturing, Inventory, Sales, CRM, Invoicing, Project, Accounting

Company Size: 25

Hosting: Odoo SaaS

The Company


Founded in 2012, Mekhala Living is a Singapore-based whole foods brand that produces organic, vegan, gluten- and nut-free condiments catering to Asian cuisine. Daphne Hedley and Jang Bauerle started Mekhala after they struggled to find healthy Asian food seasonings that were free of artificial additives and preservatives. The team of two turned three with Diane Wong on board (Daphne’s sister and the Sauceress of Mekhala), and the trio kickstarted the production at their farm and warehouse in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Not only did they aim for every product to be healthy and easy-to-use, but also ethically-sourced and hand-packaged with care. Mekhala debunked the myth of “unnatural” Asian condiments which changed the face of its industry and eventually captured the hearts and taste buds of customers across Asia — Singapore, Thailand, and Hong Kong. 



With fast-growing market demands, the company was prospering with greater opportunities but faced challenges in scaling its business with its former ERP software. It was only when Mekhala discovered Odoo that it was able to break geographical barriers, and unleash its business potential throughout Australia, Canada, and the US.


Outgrowing a Local ERP


Prior to Odoo, Mekhala Living used Excel spreadsheets and Fact, a Singaporean-based ERP software, to run its business. The company found that its experience with Fact had hit its limit as new business opportunities became a burden rather than an asset. Mekhala implemented a client-server database system that had a traditional and unfriendly user interface. As the company grew, it encountered numerous anomalies. The more data was stored, the more the system suffered from network traffic congestion and slowed down the overall operational speed and efficiency. Things got worse when additional time and costs arose every time the database capacity was upgraded. The co-owners soon came to terms that they had outgrown the former ERP and it was time to move onto a better solution.


Relishing the Start of a Long-running Expansion


To break free from the vicious cycle, Daphne was on the search for a cloud-based database system. She explored Odoo's trial database and YouTube videos and decided she had found the perfect ERP to scale their business. The Mekhala team was highly impressed that the implementation process only took a few weeks to complete. They were also relieved to learn that Odoo's diverse business applications and annual software version upgrades were far more sustainable than their previous system.

Centralizing Global Operations


Mekhala runs its administration and management in Singapore while overseeing manufacturing and inventory in Thailand. Once it centralized all its operations with Odoo, its business enjoyed greater productivity and coordination. Above all, the major transformations that Odoo brought to the company were in manufacturing, sales, CRM, and accounting processes.

Manufacturing is the first and most crucial process in Mekhala, as the production line determines whether freshly packaged goods will be created and delivered on time. Thanks to Odoo’s extensive and easily-customizable manufacturing app features, the company can now save time and costs through automated manufacturing orders, quality control, cost analysis, and traceability reports.
 
Odoo’s multi-language feature relieves the management team from having a communication gap between their English and Thai-speaking employees. The real-time integration with the inventory app also allows the employees to spend minimal time on manual tasks such as scanning, recording, and evaluating stocks.




The Mekhala team is spread out across several locations around the globe and we love how Odoo helps us stay on track no matter where we are. My team and I have found Odoo to be very efficient and use it daily in the A to Z of our business. We have been using Odoo for several years now and are very pleased with it.

Daphne Hedley • CEO of Mekhala Living

Running eCommerce & Retail With Ease


Since Mekhala sells its goods on eCommerce and retail markets, monitoring and tracking overall sales and online customer activity used to be tedious and time-consuming. Coordinating a large number of global retailers and distributors was no different, but Mekhala conquered all of these challenges with Odoo. The employees now work on eCommerce and retail activities with clarity and ease, under two separate accounts in their multi-company setup. The revenue-generating apps, Odoo Sales and CRM, also help in assigning daily tasks for employees to access customers’ activity history and create sales reports in just a few clicks. On the other hand, the performance analytics function helps them track their company’s growth and make smarter business decisions.

Last but most interestingly, Mekhala quit its past software (an accounting-centric ERP) after Odoo’s accounting app proved to be much more proficient in the database trial. The company’s accountant figured out that Odoo’s accounting features were far more advanced and modern, especially with the automated journal balancing, intuitive reporting, and multi-currency function. The accounting app boosted the company's confidence in financial management as never before.

Odoo has been a real asset and has allowed us to vastly improve our accounting practices, documentation processes, and much more. We are very pleased with the apps that we work with at the moment and look forward to achieving even better efficiencies with the help of additional Odoo functions.

Diana Wong • COO of Mekhala Living

On Top of The Game With Odoo


Over the past few years of using Odoo, the Mekhala team has become experts in handling central operations. They now focus on being at the top of their game in customer and partner relations, which explains how they are flourishing in marketing and social media campaigns. Diane and Daphne rate their experience with Odoo 5 out of 5 under comprehensiveness, user-friendliness, flexibility, and data optimization. They accredit Odoo for empowering them to dream big and look forward to greater business accomplishments.



 
 


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