Taking Theory to Practice in the Classroom

Bill Ritchie: 0:00

The person they were interviewing with about fell off their chair when the student said that they had put their hands on an ERP software. Yeah, they never heard that from a candidate before. Most of the ERP platforms are so complex, and they have so many moving parts that it's not only difficult to unpack the content of what they're made of, but also, it's cost prohibitive to even open the door to some of those packages. And I think that maybe that's in part because Odoo came out of an open source background. There's just there's just a lot of content out there.

Emilia Navarrete: 0:31

Welcome back to Planet Odoo. If you're just joining us for the first time, we are happy to have you. And if you're tuning in, well, you already know we're happy to have you back. Whether you're a business owner, entrepreneur, customer, partner, or someone interested in Odoo, this podcast is for you. I'm your host, Emilia, and we are back in the Buffalo office with Bill Ritchie, except Bill is actually joining us from James Madison University, which is in Virginia, where he teaches supply chain management and strategic management. I've had the pleasure of working with him to figure out how we can get Odoo into the classroom and used by students on a macro level. So let's jump in. Let's hear what he has to say, and let's see how you can bring Odoo to the classroom. So thank you so much for joining us today. Bill, it's great to have you.

Bill Ritchie: 1:18

Hey, thanks. It's a pleasure to be here.

Emilia Navarrete: 1:21

So how is it down in Virginia?

Bill Ritchie: 1:23

Oh, it's wonderful. We're we're you mean as far as weather today or as far as the actual institution?

Emilia Navarrete: 1:32

I guess both.

Bill Ritchie: 1:35

Well, we just finished an ice storm which kept some of the students back home during exam week here. But overall, things are going really well. It's been a fantastic semester. My classes have had some amazing visits from folks like you with Odoo, and we've had Target and Chick-fil-A, and a number of other companies stop in and talk about their supply chain issues with my students. We've also had a lot of fun working with inventory and packing this most recent container we sent out to to Ukraine to help some of the hospitals there. So overall, it's been a great semester.

Emilia Navarrete: 2:18

Yes. Oh, my gosh, that's wonderful. What age group are you guys working with for these projects? Is this undergraduate level or graduate?

Bill Ritchie: 2:24

Yeah, this is undergrad, and most of the students are juniors or seniors. And it's part of a interdisciplinary supply chain minor at the school. So actually, there are three required classes. I teach one of the first classes among those three, and then the students fill out the minor with a few other electives. And it's really a cross platform. It's designed to include students from engineering and other majors within the College of Business. So it's a lot of fun to get these different perspectives from the students. But also we try to cross pollinate with a multiple majors and the the concept of supply chain.

Emilia Navarrete: 3:08

Wow. Where do some of your students end up after kind of a minor like that?

Bill Ritchie: 3:13

Well, we've got. Actually, I had a kind of end of semester dinner with some of the ASME club. The president of the club just took a job with IBM. We've got another student that's working for a company, Deacon, down here in Virginia. Some go into warehouse management. Amazon is one of them. And as you might imagine, we're just we're within about 2 hours of most of the activity within Northern Virginia. So some end up in Department of Defense, you know, entry level positions as well in other areas of consulting, like with Deloitte.

Emilia Navarrete: 3:53

Wow. So are there any other professors at the university kind of doing what you're doing and introducing Odoo in their classrooms?

Bill Ritchie: 4:01

Well, at current, I'm the only one that that I'm aware of in the College of Business. We have about 5500 students and with more than 140 faculty. So I've I've just introduced Odoo a couple of years ago, and no, I don't know of any others. I'm working currently with a professor in the engineering department to expand our reach now to include the PLM app. And another professor actually in the Information Systems department heard about what I'm doing in my class, and he's looking at my current publication about how to integrate this in a class. So we'll probably shortly have at least two or three more professors in the next calendar year.

Emilia Navarrete: 4:47

Wow. That's awesome. So you mentioned this a little bit, but the way that you introduced Odoo in the classroom. So I know there's something that you kind of use as a teaching aide, and it's kind of like our scale up business game. Could you explain that a little bit? I think that's a really cool resource that you guys use.

Bill Ritchie: 5:05

Yeah, well, I used scale up for at least three semesters, and just kind of cherry picking certain Odoo apps out of the box. And that was going so well. And the students were so familiar with the logical process that Odoo scale up works through, I thought I would take that, that same basic concept of having a kind of a real life exercise for the students where they have a task and then they have to respond to to people that have like an image built up within the card deck. And I'm doing that same thing with the local business here. So it's been a lot of fun. I use I use kind of the same format of scale up so that the students, once they've gone through scale up, there's no big surprises, but it's just another level of detail, and maybe real life where we have a client actually come in the classroom and then they, you know, to introduce the need for ERP, and then they come back later for the student presentations. So it's kind of a live version of scale up. That's the best way I could describe it.

Emilia Navarrete: 6:15

Yeah. And how long does this project usually last with the students?

Bill Ritchie: 6:18

It's about three weeks. I have an introduction to the client in the first week of application, and then the students go to task on it for two weeks. And then in the third week there's a presentation, and it's almost like a competitive presentation where the client kind of scores what he saw in the presentations from the students. And then he says, which one of those presentations, you know, he thought was the most compelling. And all around, all the teams are winners because they get good feedback from the process.

Emilia Navarrete: 6:53

Oh, wow. So they're they're kind of managing a lot of different things with the customer relationship, building out and doing all the technical stuff and then, you know, designing the system specifically to the customer too, which is a lot of what we do here at Odoo. So that's that's really awesome. Do any of your students want to come work for Odoo?

Bill Ritchie: 7:12

Yeah, they've talked about that. And actually we've we've connected them with you guys, as we know.

Emilia Navarrete: 7:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we'd love to have them. I mean, they're doing what we do here every day, which is really awesome. So this is, this has been really cool, and we've gotten to know each other better because you've been using Odoo for close to five years. So would you mind explaining just what brought you to Odoo and how you were introduced to it?

Bill Ritchie: 7:37

Yeah, well, the introduction came through an engineer friend working with a company out West that basically they, they focused on working with open source software. And I was talking to him about other ERP platforms and how challenging it was to bring something like an ERP platform into a classroom when you don't have a university budget for something like this. And it's deep waters, of course, with with so many different apps. And he mentioned Odoo to me, so that's the first I've heard of it. That was about six years ago, and he was working with it from the perspective of being able to customize ERP software solutions for companies as a consultant. And so, I took the next step and contacted you guys. And, and shortly thereafter, I received the scale up game and in a large box from Belgium. So it was exciting. The next semester, I basically picked some of the pieces of the scale up game and and share it with my students.

Emilia Navarrete: 8:45

Wow. So I know that JMU actually uses some other ERPs or other softwares within kind of their ecosystem of software. Why decide to use Odoo specifically and not one of the existing kind of software?

Bill Ritchie: 9:01

Well, first of all, I think an important component in in introducing anything into a 16 week semester is ease of the learning curve, right? So, you know, I needed something that I could introduce the students to within a week or two and actually have some outcomes in a very short period of time. Because, after all, an introduction to supply chain class is not a ERP software course where we're designed to turn out software engineers, right. Or or purchasing agents and that kind of thing. But we do want to want to teach about the software that are in the marketplace. So what had happened, though, is most of the ERP platforms are so complex, and they have so many moving parts that it's not only difficult to unpack the content of what what they're made of, but also it's cost prohibitive to even open the door to some of those packages. So. So that was the big challenge. And what was what I think really unique about Odoo is, you know, I had my students spinning up their own database within one day, within a class period. And the other great feature that I've enjoyed is that the database stays live for upwards of 8 to 10 months. And that's another great, great piece that I was attracted to is the the students then can see the results of their work in my class, but then it remains online for them. And a number of my students actually have shared with me how they've showcased the website they developed or the e commerce site in an interview.

Emilia Navarrete: 10:45

Wow, that's really awesome. And that's that's really what the education kind of program was kind of designed for. And for those of you who don't know, who are listening and don't know much about our education program, this is something that's fairly new to the Northern region and as well Latin America. And we offer the software for free to students and universities for teaching programs such as this one. And this is an awesome example of kind of how people make the most out of it. I'm curious, what's the feedback you get from your students when they use this kind of software? Like, are they engaged? Do they like it?

Bill Ritchie: 11:21

Yeah, they do. And there's two key parts to that. Number one, they see for the first time how all the different software components integrate together. That's difficult to illustrate. Even if you could come up with a model with combining programs like Microsoft, Access, and various other database platforms, as well as word processing and project management and, let's say, some inventory tools, You know, all of these things are easy to access and visualize within the Odoo platform. The second big piece is, you know, I heard, even as recent as last night at our celebration dinner with with the students, that one student came to me all excited and said they're the person they were interviewing with at a at a fairly large company about fell off their chair when the student said that they had put their hands on an ERP software they had never heard. Yeah, they'd never heard that from a candidate before that that students are actually working with an ERP software. So so just just the exposure alone has been, I would say, almost priceless to the students. I've had three or four stories like that in their interviews just this semester where the students have been so excited that they knew something about ERP that surprised their person interviewing, Right.

Emilia Navarrete: 12:49

And set them apart, which.

Bill Ritchie: 12:50

Is exactly.

Emilia Navarrete: 12:51

The goal for us. Honestly, if we can get everybody using it, it just really makes it that much better when you're going into the job market and better for employers to see that kind of thing on someone's resume. Yeah, that's really awesome. I wanted to ask you, what are kind of the main goals for your students when you're using Odoo, the things that you really want them to be able to get out of it or map besides, obviously, you know, being able to go to employers and say they've worked with an ERP.

Bill Ritchie: 13:21

I think the first thing is, is understanding the integration component of multiple pieces. As I mentioned before, having them understand how a system works. And the other thing, too, a lot of the students that are looking at supply chain may not necessarily be highly technically oriented, but they're good big picture and strategists.

Emilia Navarrete: 13:45

Oh yeah.

Bill Ritchie: 13:45

So so I think that's a big part of this too, where you're exposing the the big picture management folks to a technology that they might otherwise pass off as just being for the the i.t folks. So I think that's a big confidence builder. So that's the second big piece for me is to build their confidence in their ability to digest and understand a fairly complex ecosystem, right. With, with this. And you know, I would think a third one is the practical application, you know, more now than ever. Supply chain needs to be rooted in practice. We've got plenty of theory and, and, you know, ideas about sourcing and and all manner of bullwhip, effects and whatnot. But to actually augment that with something practical as a skill like understanding ERP, that was a big part of this for me too. And then the other aspect is, I guess building off of the practical side, yeah, is this something that that companies can actually use immediately without significant budgetary considerations. And and I was I was definitely attracted to the notion of the modular aspect of this, like practically speaking. So so yeah, if I'm teaching a consultant, a future consultant in my class about a software like this, you know, they can, they can build this out and, you know, kind of grow with the company that they're consulting with that they don't have to buy into just a massive platform that that has tools that might not ever be used or maybe used in ten years.

Emilia Navarrete: 15:34

Right? Yeah. Actually, another feature I don't know if you've heard this, but most recently we had our Odoo experience in Belgium, and one of the new things that kind of came out of that was our new pricing model. And now companies who are subscribers can actually get access to every single application under one cost. So now, more and more companies will have access to all of the applications, but still be able to take advantage of that modular feature and download the applications that are relevant to their business and turn on the features that are relevant to their workflows but have access to all the applications. So I think that's going to be really great for customers and a lot of people are already taking advantage of that and students such as yours that now know how to use so many different apps and in so many different verticals and see how they work together. That's going to be a huge advantage.

Bill Ritchie: 16:28

Yeah, no doubt.

Emilia Navarrete: 16:29

So you brought this up because you were talking about customization. Is that something you have the students use, like take advantage of our studio application or go into the back end, or are you having them use this software out of the box?

Bill Ritchie: 16:43

They are using the software out of the box. And I guess if you think in terms of scale up, it's literally out of the box, you know, so they take one week on scale up, and I pick selected apps from there to adjust to keep the environment fairly simple so they can understand again, how the how these pieces fit together. So, for instance, I have them focus on things like purchasing inventory, sales, project management, you know, they explore e commerce and website, and then after they're familiar with that through the cards, that's when they jump into my sort of custom project with our local client here. So and that's where the, you know, I'm working with a local organization called Madison Automotive Apprentices. It's a it's a nonprofit. They, they work with restoration of of classic cars, and the the owner, Cole Graham is, has been amazing and just coming into the classes and sharing with the students and then the students visit his property they look at his business for a couple hours and then he comes back again into class to see their presentations.

Emilia Navarrete: 17:54

Wow. No, I mean, that's a really cool hands on application. I guess the question that I think a lot of people are going to ask after hearing all of that is are they an Odoo customer already? Are they have they implemented the software yet?

Bill Ritchie: 18:06

No, we've talked extensively about that. And and actually, that might be the next aspect of my my classroom integration with with that business. So that's. Oh, there you go. That's up and coming.

Emilia Navarrete: 18:17

Yeah. The budding implementation specialists can set it up for the company themselves. Yeah. Odoo is going to be out of business. That's so funny. So the next thing I want to jump into is just kind of some advice for other professors who may be looking at the platform. And I think you've given us a great background into how you got involved and what are the pros of using it. But I wanted to ask, what advice do you have for anybody who might be looking to get started with Odoo in their classroom and any steps they should take, things they should think about and such?

Bill Ritchie: 18:57

I think the first thing is, is having the proper perspective of on what you'd what you're going to cover in the course and and to take baby steps with it. And that's where as I mentioned earlier, we we began with just using the scale up game and, even within the scale up game, small pieces of that. So, you know, like I said, I pulled out a half a dozen apps and then built off of that with each implementation in the course. So, so really, for the first couple of semesters, it was just a matter of, of scale up and again, managing the expectations of the students and letting them know that this was really all about becoming fluid in the technology and, and that the knowledge of the terminology in ERP. So just those two things alone, when they're clarified with the students, it kind of sets them at ease. You know, they're really just there to to to learn some new. Terms and to get their hands on the technology. And that also helped me get familiar with the software. So, you know, you don't have to, you know, tackle this whole thing in a in a semester and and devote all kinds of classroom time to it. It you could do this as simply in just one or two class meetings really and a couple, you know, maybe homework assignments where the students go through scale up and then, you know, they finish up and say, yeah, I, I understand what ERP is now. So so, I think that's where I would start is, is picking some simple apps and just getting students to create a database alone is a, you know, I would say is a great talking point for future interviews and even their own knowledge.

Emilia Navarrete: 20:45

Yeah. How did you find was the best way for you to learn the software before teaching it or while teaching it? How did you tackle learning it yourself?

Bill Ritchie: 20:55

I did it while teaching it, so I went through scale up myself, and then I just walked the students through exactly what I did with scale up. And then, the students questions usually drove most of my learning with this. So so once again, and I think all professors are stretched in terms of time and resources between teaching research and service at their universities or colleges. So just taking those baby steps and and saying, look, I'm just going to learn a couple of these apps and even just getting a database created and then putting it aside for the next semester and then add another piece and then the next semester. And, and, you know, again, I did not start out with a with a three or four week project. Three about five years ago, I started out with a couple basic lectures and said, here's what it is. And then, when I found the students liked it, I started, of course, moving forward with a deeper knowledge and then eventually writing a case about it.

Emilia Navarrete: 21:59

Yeah, I think because I think that answers a lot of the bigger questions that I get within the education program is, how much of my time is it going to take? Or when it comes to scale up, how long does it take to teach scale up from beginning to end, or how long should I much time should I reserve in my classroom? And a lot of the times, I can say when we use scale up here at Odoo, it varies depending on how much time we want to spend, in which of the modules within scale up we choose to do. So I think it's great to hear from somebody who knows how long it might take to use scale up or to learn the software themselves before with the education program.

Bill Ritchie: 22:36

That's right. It can be overwhelming to look at all of the offerings. And that's, I think, the beauty of scale up to you. If you take those cards out of the box or look at the the online resource in the PDF document, you can just pick a few apps. And really, the first two or three cards talks about spinning up the actual database and and then you just jump into downloading a couple apps, and you know, you could, you could stop there in one semester, you know, and just do a one or two class lecture on it and then again build out from there. I think that's a big I think that's actually the biggest barrier to adoption of new technologies is the the professor's perspective of how much time it's going to take.

Emilia Navarrete: 23:25

Yes.

Bill Ritchie: 23:26

Right. So if you kind of if you kind of get past that and say, you know what, I'm going to spend one class on this and just kind of test this thing out, you know, I was just amazed at how much the students picked up from even just one or two basic lectures on this, you know, and just jumping into a couple of the web pages from Odoo, which nicely lays out some of that flow to of of what the apps are. And, you know, inevitably, you'll have a number of students in the classes, see some of the names on the different apps. And that in itself will tap into interests that your students have. So, for instance, I've had an engineering student he saw PLM on the apps. Well, I normally might not consider PLM. I'd be focused on, like I said, maybe the e commerce and the sales or project management, but that one student's interest in PLM sparked my interest. And now I'm working with an engineering professor on integrating PLM into my stuff.

Emilia Navarrete: 24:26

Right.

Bill Ritchie: 24:26

So that's you could almost let the students drive some of this because there's so many different apps that touch on the things that the students are studying.

Emilia Navarrete: 24:38

That's such an interesting point you make because I guess I don't necessarily always get to work directly with the students because I work mostly with the professors or the department people. But that's so interesting to think that they might see the word PLM or sales and and want to know more and want to take it on themselves to to kind of learn that. Are there any other resources? That they found or you found to be really, really helpful. That provides.

Bill Ritchie: 25:03

Well, I hear repeatedly the online resources from Odoo, really that's you know and the students are already well versed in in looking at YouTube videos and and so, you know just the YouTube videos alone out there from Odoo, a lot of the curated content as well as add on content that sets up a pretty nice self study environment for this. So that's the other plus really it's you know this isn't this isn't a situation where there'll be lacking for resources. It's it's out there on the Internet, it's easily accessible. And I think that maybe that's in part because Odoo, you know, came out of an open source background, right? So there's just there's just a lot of content out there, more than what you would need.

Emilia Navarrete: 25:52

Right? No, that's that's very true. And I think when I when I work with a lot of professors, they're surprised generally about how much is available free online. And I'm like, no, I'm really not gatekeeping. Any of this information is all available on our YouTube channel, any learning platform. And you can you can take it upon yourself to learn the software if you want. And that's always a big eye opener, though, though. Overwhelming, which I can understand. Have you been able to take advantage of any of the new features and version 16 since that was released in October?

Bill Ritchie: 26:24

No, we're working with version 15 and earlier because we we kicked off this class in, what, August, August of 2022 here. But I'm excited to consider some of those for the the spring term.

Emilia Navarrete: 26:37

Yeah. I'd be curious to see what the students have to say and if they catch on to anything and if they like something or if they they don't.

Bill Ritchie: 26:44

Yeah, no, definitely. We'll give you the feedback on that.

Emilia Navarrete: 26:47

Oh, that's so funny. So as far as your your scale up game that you kind of created, are there any plans to update it for version 16 or kind of bring any new companies on board and create more content like that?

Bill Ritchie: 27:02

Yes. And actually, my my plan is to revise and add to it. It's an e-book format, and I put it up on Amazon. So it's basically every semester break. I'm working with the local organization here updating it, and I'll probably be adding a few more modules to it as well. For instance, PLM is probably going to be up and coming very soon. And so that's going to be a work in process. And I specifically planned on an ebook so that I could make edits on the fly, knowing how much the technology changes. And and really though the the E book is not a you know, a software step by step, it's it's more of an overview of ERP and then a case by case, get your hands on the software after reviewing the scale up game. So I just conveniently put the link of the most recent scale up game in the E book. So that will always be current and, and the stuff that I create is almost benign to the, to the different versions because it's it's just kind of walking you through some basic processes that would happen in a business, whether it's create a website or sales, etc..

Emilia Navarrete: 28:24

Yes. No, that is correct. And version 16 Scale Up did actually recently go live on our website, so that is available to anyone who wants it as well. I'll be linking the book that we're talking about in this episode so that anybody can see this version of the scale up game, especially if they work with supply chain in their programs or any anything else that has sparked their interest. I have a fun question for you, only because it was asked to me recently, but would you retire as an Odoo consultant?

Bill Ritchie: 29:03

Well, actually, yeah. The fun in something like that is is learning so many different aspects of business. As you know, I teach strategic management, and my biggest goal in that class is teaching the students how all the pieces of a business or the silos, if you will, are actually interconnected. Right. And, you know, some have used the buzzword here, you know, silo busters. That was something that one of the engineering professors just mentioned to me last week. And I thought, you know, that's a great summary for the way I view business. You know, you really want to help people understand that there really aren't silos. It's only it's the people that create the silos. Her job is to make sure that the silos are all connected as they should be in a business, right? So so I think with Odoo, yeah, I think the fun for me in the future would be to learn more about both how silos are created, both in people's minds and in the business, and then how they can be maybe dismantled and integrated with the whole right through software like this, you know, getting people to see the real picture of how things are actually operating here. So there's another side kind of a side note on this. It was through my work with Odoo that I began to understand more about how a business simulation that I use in my strategy class is really very much an ERP type program. So so I'm even using this in my strategy classes, you know, talking to students saying, "Hey, look, you know, this simulation you're doing is like an ERP. Let me show you what an ERP software looks like" and then I'll point to Odoo. So, Yeah, it's really kind of breaking down those silos, right? And that's really what's I think that's that's the backbone.

Emilia Navarrete: 30:58

Oh, yeah. Making it a lot more accessible because, you know, you say the word ERP, and nobody necessarily gets it. But the second you break it down even a little bit, people are like, Oh, okay, yeah, just everything's connected. You know, you're talking to a customer, or you're talking to a friend, and it just really breaks that down. And one of the fun things when I came to visit your class in Virginia was, you know, getting to see how excited the students were to kind of show off the interconnectedness or the things they were able to trigger within the system where it was all connected, and everything worked. And that's the big fun of it. That's that, you know, or when I speak to businesses and they say, well, now I have to create this invoice. And it's like, well, actually, the system already did because you told it to. And these are all just kind of very exciting things that you see in other systems, as you said, but is really just makes it so much more accessible when when it's brought to you and the way that Odoo brings it.

Bill Ritchie: 31:53

Yeah, I think that's I think you said that well it's the, the learning curve and basically kind of the ramp up of this is so quick, you know, it's Yeah, that's, that's super attractive.

Emilia Navarrete: 32:08

No, I agree. I agree. And I really do thank you for kind of explaining this just because with someone with so much experience, and as we're ramping up a program like this in in North America and Latin Am, it is really cool to see what people are doing and those kind of beginner steps. I think that's the scariest part for a lot of the people that I speak with about bringing in a program like this because there is so much available, but they are worried it will take so much to get it done. So thank you for for explaining all of this and thank you so much for for joining us and kind of breaking it down.

Bill Ritchie: 32:41

Oh, it's my pleasure to be here. Yeah. Again, I just would emphasize with the implementation of this, if you kind of keep a keep a perspective of wanting to learn from the students, I think that's a that's a big draw for this, too. That will help. It just be a really smooth process for introducing this. Whether you take a deep dive into all the apps or you're just looking at teaching the students how to create a database.

Emilia Navarrete: 33:07

I mean, I pitched it to your students, but if any of them want to move to Buffalo, New York and join us in the cold or to San Francisco and join our teams, I think it would be so cool if they did so.

Bill Ritchie: 33:20

Oh, yeah, we thank you for that opportunity, and I'm really looking forward to having you back in the spring.

Emilia Navarrete: 33:24

Very excited. Would you consider bringing the students to us and having them come to our offices?

Bill Ritchie: 33:30

I would, absolutely.

Emilia Navarrete: 33:30

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I'm going to bring it to a close and just let everyone know again that I will be linking the scale up game that we've been talking about during this episode into the description below so that you can see the ebook. And then, if you would like to talk about the education program, you can go to Odoo.com/education to get started with the program. Thank you again, Bill.

Bill Ritchie: 33:55

Thank you so much for having me.

Emilia Navarrete: 33:57

Well, that's my cue. Thank you for joining us today. And if you liked it, take a look at some of the other episodes above. We have tons of other stuff. Talk to any expert from the Belgian team or join me and talk to more people from North AM. Go check out all of our episodes on your favorite streaming platform and come back. Bye, guys.