There are a lot of Odoo partners in Dubai. The badge on the website tells you almost nothing about whether they can deliver your project. These are the questions that do.
Odoo's partner programme has tiers, and the tier reflects sales volume more than delivery quality. A partner can be highly ranked and still be wrong for you — because they specialise in a different sector, because the people who pitched will not do the work, or because they are running twelve projects with four consultants.
What follows is what we would ask if we were buying rather than selling.
On the work itself
1. Who will actually do this project?
The most useful question in the list. Sales-led firms send senior people to win the work and juniors to deliver it. Ask for names, ask what else those people are working on, and ask to meet them before you sign.
2. What is explicitly out of scope?
A proposal with no exclusions section has not been thought through, or is deliberately ambiguous. Every real project has boundaries. A partner who can articulate them clearly is one who has delivered before.
3. What assumptions about our data does the price rest on?
Data quality is the largest single source of overrun. If the proposal is silent on it, there is a variation order waiting inside it. Ask what happens to price and timeline if the data is worse than assumed.
4. How many customisations are you proposing, and why?
Custom code has to be maintained through every upgrade, forever. A partner who agrees to every request without pushing back is optimising for their invoice, not your total cost. The right answer to most customisation requests is "let's change the process instead."
5. What does training include — hours, sessions, who?
"Training included" is not a specification. Twenty users across five departments need more than twenty users doing one job.
On commercials
6. Fixed price or time and materials?
Both are legitimate. Fixed price transfers risk to the partner and requires a tight scope. T&M is honest for genuinely uncertain work but needs a cap and governance. What you should not accept is fixed price against a scope nobody has defined.
7. How are change requests priced and approved?
Scope will change. The question is whether the process is agreed beforehand or improvised on the final invoice.
8. What is the payment schedule tied to?
Milestones tied to delivery — signature, UAT sign-off, go-live — align incentives. Payments tied to elapsed time do not.
9. What happens after go-live, and what does it cost?
The first month generates the most questions. Establish whether hypercare is included, how long it lasts, and what the ongoing support arrangement costs.
On credibility
10. Can I speak to a client you implemented in the last year?
Not a logo on a website — a conversation. A partner with recent successful projects will arrange this without hesitation. Ask the reference what went wrong and how it was handled; every project has something.
11. Have you done this in our sector?
Manufacturing, distribution, professional services and retail have genuinely different requirements. Sector experience shortens discovery and reduces the chance of a mid-project surprise.
12. What happens if we want to leave?
An uncomfortable question that reveals a lot. Odoo is open source and your data is yours. A partner who is relaxed about portability is confident in the relationship. One who is evasive has built in lock-in somewhere.
A note on cheapest. The lowest quote usually reflects a smaller scope rather than better value. When comparing, normalise the scope first — line by line — then compare. Half the time the cheap quote turns out to be the expensive one.
Warning signs
- Cannot name the delivery team
- No exclusions section in the proposal
- Agrees to every customisation without discussion
- Quotes a timeline before understanding your processes
- Reluctant to provide a recent reference
- Pressure to sign before scope is documented
None of these are disqualifying on their own. Two or three together are worth taking seriously.
Ask us these questions
We publish our pricing, methodology and payment structure openly. Happy to answer all twelve.
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