In the space of three weeks this autumn, the InnovatorSpark team attended two Odoo events at very different scales. The first was Odoo Experience 2026 in Brussels, the largest gathering in the Odoo ecosystem and one of the largest business software events in Europe. The second was the Odoo Business Show in Cluj-Napoca, an evening event held in our home city. Together they gave us two complementary views of the same thing: where integrated business software is heading, and what that means for the companies we work with.

Brussels: Odoo 20 and a community of 40,000

Our CEO, Mihai Runcan, attended Odoo Experience 2026 at Brussels Expo from 24 to 26 September. The event brought together more than 40,000 attendees from around the world, with over 400 expert talks, masterclasses and exhibitors spread across three days.

The centerpiece was the launch of Odoo 20, unveiled by Odoo founder and CEO Fabien Pinckaers in the opening keynote. The release continues the direction set by the last few versions, with a stronger emphasis on AI-assisted workflows across ERP, accounting, inventory and operations, and on making the platform scale with a business rather than against it.

Three themes stood out from the sessions:

• AI inside the workflow, not beside it. The most practical demonstrations were not about chatbots but about automation embedded in everyday processes: predictive suggestions in sales and purchasing, document processing in accounting, and fewer manual steps between a request and its approval.
• One platform, fewer integrations. A recurring message from both Odoo and its partners was that the cost of running disconnected tools is mostly hidden: duplicated data entry, reconciliation work and reporting that never quite matches. An integrated platform removes that cost rather than automating it.
• Scalability as a default. Several talks focused on companies that started with two or three Odoo apps and expanded over time. The pattern is a gradual rollout rather than a single large migration, which is how most growing companies can realistically adopt an ERP.

Between sessions, Mihai also joined the meeting of the Romanian Odoo community, hosted by Larisa Pop, Odoo’s Partner Manager for Romania, together with partners and members of the Odoo team working on the Romanian market.

For us as an official Odoo partner, events like this are where we stay close to the platform’s roadmap, exchange notes with other partners and hear directly from businesses about what has worked for them. A big thank you to the Odoo team for organizing such a well-run event, and to Fabien for the presentations.

Cluj-Napoca: the local picture

On Tuesday, 13 October, Odoo brought its Business Show to Cluj-Napoca, at the Golden Tulip Ana Dome. Mihai Runcan and Maria Angela Jisa represented InnovatorSpark. The format was compact: a welcome at 6 PM, a conference block with a live, audience-driven Odoo 20 demo and best practices for digitizing a company, then a partner spotlight with a business case and client testimonials, followed by networking over a walking dinner.

Larisa Pop and Denisa Usurelu from Odoo walked the room through the latest innovations across multiple business functions, from sales and CRM to accounting, inventory, manufacturing and eCommerce, with a live demo rather than slides. What made the evening valuable, though, was the audience: local business leaders from Romanian companies, many of them running operations on a mix of spreadsheets, accounting software and a CRM that does not talk to the rest. The questions were practical ones: how invoicing works with local requirements such as e-Factura, how inventory connects to sales, how long a first implementation takes and what it costs.

The business case and client testimonials answered part of that. The rest came out over the walking dinner, where we had the chance to meet local business leaders and exchange ideas with the Odoo community. Those conversations were less about features and more about sequencing: which process to move first, how to involve the team, and how to avoid the common mistake of trying to change everything at once. For us, being part of the Cluj business ecosystem as an official Odoo partner is exactly about these conversations, and we look forward to turning them into long-term partnerships.

What this means for growing companies

Seen together, the two events point to the same conclusion. The technology question is largely settled: Odoo 20 covers the core processes most small and mid-sized companies need, and its AI features reduce manual work in ways that become visible early in a rollout, not years later. The open question is implementation.

From what we heard in both Brussels and Cluj, the companies that get the most out of Odoo share a few habits:

• They start with one painful process. Usually sales-to-invoice or purchase-to-stock, not the whole business.
• They clean their data before they migrate it. An ERP exposes inconsistent product codes and customer records very quickly.
• They treat configuration as a business decision. The partner’s job is to translate how the company actually works into the system, not to impose a template.
• They plan for the second phase from day one. The first rollout should leave room for the next apps, not block them.

Where InnovatorSpark fits

Most Odoo partners configure. We engineer.

InnovatorSpark is an official Odoo partner rooted in Cluj-Napoca, with an office in Amsterdam. We are excited about what Odoo 20 opens up for the companies we work with, and we bring to it a decade of custom software development, which matters when an Odoo implementation needs integrations with existing systems, custom modules or a migration from legacy software.

If you are curious about Odoo, or thinking about how an integrated platform could fit your business, we would be happy to share what we learned at both events and talk it through. Find out more on our Odoo ERP services page or get in touch.