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Odoo’s Multi-Company Approach Simplifies ABL’s Complex Business Environment

Country: Luxembourg
Industry: Biotechnology
Number of Users: 27
Apps Implemented: CRM, Sales, Purchase, Inventory, Invoicing, Project, Accounting, Appraisal, Expenses, Fleet, Email Marketing, Timesheet, Subscription, Survey, Leaves
Implementation Time: 3 Months in Production + 50 Hours with a Consultant

Advanced Biological Laboratories SA, or ABL SA, is a biotechnology company that was created in Luxembourg in the year 2000. Since then it has undergone several significant changes, but their vision remains the same; to transform disease management. They aim to improve the quality of healthcare for people living with potentially life-threatening chronic diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis and liver diseases, cancer, and diabetes. They do this by providing healthcare professionals with decision support software that supplies them with sophisticated medical record systems that use the most recent high tech medical research and expertise.



Complexity Gets the Better of ABL

Throughout the years, since 2000, the company expanded rapidly, and after spin-offs and mergers, the company was developing and implementing a large selection of products and services. Their main products were; TherapyEdge, ViroScore, DeepChek, HepatiC, TherapyEval, TherapyEdge Box, and VisibleChek, and in addition to these they were also offering several specialized services. With expertise in IT infrastructure, hardware, cloud-based solutions, integration with other systems, and diagnostics, ABL was capable of providing a complete solution to their clients. In addition to offering a large product portfolio, they’d also increased their presence with offices spread around the world. Their headquarters remain in Luxembourg, but they’ve got additional entities in Belgium, Spain, and South Africa. Being a complex multi-company without an integrated system that could effectively handle the scope of their business, they realized it was time to reorganize the company. Some of the issues they were faced with included;

  • Each entity has a sales department, which made it a challenge to keep track of the different kinds of invoices, as well as figuring out which entity they belonged to.

  • The company didn’t have a software to manage their accounting, but instead it was managed by a single person using Excel, which increased the likelihood of mistakes being made and wrong entities getting charged.

  • Invoicing was neither automatic nor integrated, which caused issues such as people not knowing which invoice was meant for which company and which chart of accounts.

  • They did have a CRM system in place, but as it was not integrated with the rest of the company’s business flow. This meant that keeping track of information from different departments and entities, and following all processes was a hassle.


ABL Finds Inspiration in Odoo

After 15 successful years the time had come to reorganize the company’s business flow the decision was made to implement Odoo. In some ways ABL is comparable to Odoo since the company develops integrated clinical software solutions for personalized medicine, which is comparable to Odoo’s solution but with a more specialized industrial focus. Therefore the CFO of ABL found Odoo inspiring as a solution, and decided to use Odoo as a model and extrapolate the way Odoo itself manages its multi-cultural environment. The applications that ABL is currently working with are; Odoo CRM, Sales, Purchase, Inventory, Invoicing, Project, Timesheet, Accounting, Appraisal, Expenses, Fleet, Invoicing, Email Marketing, Website, Subscription, Survey, and Leaves.

  • Odoo implemented an ideal multi-company business solution that was crucial for ABL, allowing them to have an integrated solution that could collaborate easily within the different entities. They needed a flexible solution that if needed, could be adaptable to the specific needs of each entity.

    • Odoo’s multi-company approach also allowed them to have a clear view of which entity each document was related to.

    • Working with Odoo Accounting under the multi-company solution, managing the accounting became a lot more precise and simple. Each entity in each country could now have a separate chart of accounts, and each invoice could be generated in different entities to avoid mistakes in revenue allocation.

    • Odoo Invoicing could now be automated so that there was no confusion which invoice belonged to which entity and client. With the multi-company function now only accountants and vendors from the correct entity could validate invoices from the entity they were granted access to.

  • Working with Odoo Project they could centralize their projects and billing, which was done in Excel before, but now all billing could be done with Odoo Timesheet. In addition they could now put in place a ticket support system, whereas before customers had to send an email to a standard account if they had any issues.


ABL Emerges as a Full-Fledged Multi-Company

ABL had done well for the 15 years since its creation without a complete management solution, but Implementing Odoo provided them relief as it simplified their work processes and made their lives easier. They went from being a complex multi-company without any pertinent solution, to a fully functioning multi-company with a solution that created a business environment that worked as though it had been created specifically for them. At the time of implementation, ABL already had a functioning CRM solution in place but they decided to switch to Odoo CRM and Sales in order to take full advantage of the integration and the possibilities that come with it.

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About Advanced Biological Laboratories: 

Advanced Biological Laboratories (ABL) S.A. is a biotechnology company which was founded in Luxembourg in 2000, as a spin-off from the European Academic Research Center. In 2004, the company merged with TherapyEdge, which had been spun off from Triangle Pharmaceuticals in 2000. ABL is currently based in Europe (Luxembourg, Belgium & Spain) and South Africa, with its headquarters in Luxembourg.

The company specializes in infectious diseases, specifically in the molecular biology and clinical outcome predictors of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis and tuberculosis. ABL’s products offer excellent and efficient IT solutions, including powerful fully integrated databases and analysis systems. The clinical and biological results help generate clinically meaningful genotyping reports for personalized healthcare. The ABL team consists of industry-leading experts in medical practices, software development, information technology, commercial operations, and regulatory and business development, who are committed to developing integrated clinical software solutions for personalized medicine.

ABL’s mission is to revolutionizing modern healthcare management. They provide healthcare workers with the patient management systems and IT tools needed to make more informed choices when it comes to the healthcare of people with potentially life-threatening chronic diseases.

More info on https://www.ablsa.com/

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