The digital transformation of Meteotest: With braintec and Odoo to a scalable end-to-end solution
The Swiss climate and environmental expert Meteotest AG has digitized its business processes in collaboration with braintec. By developing the Meteonorm web shop in Odoo, Meteotest automates the sales and subscription management of its climate and solar service portfolio.
Meteotest, known for its services in the fields of energy, environment, climate, and meteorology, faced a typical digitalization challenge in 2018: the existing software solution was outdated and no longer supported. A change was inevitable, and Meteotest was looking for a future-proof alternative.
Meteotest’s portfolio is as diverse as the weather itself. The seven business divisions – ranging from weather forecasting and air quality, through energy, wind and ice, to software, measurement technology and the global climate database Meteonorm – require a high degree of organisational autonomy to develop, yet they work in close collaboration with one another.
Companies from various industries utilize the expertise of Meteotest. In the event sector, precise real-time forecasts enable reliable risk management, including evacuation. In the energy sector, meteorological analyses secure investments in wind and solar parks and manage production planning. Weather data also optimize agriculture, from irrigation to emissions protection. The portfolio is complemented by collaboration with insurers for damage plausibility assessment and with the BAFU for national air quality monitoring.
The representation of this diversity in a central ERP posed a particular challenge.
To efficiently manage this complexity, the choice of Odoo was a logical step. Stephan Loser, Head of Software at Meteotest, sums up his vision of digital transformation: "Digitalization only provides real benefits for me when all processes are seamlessly interconnected. Isolated digitized processes offer only limited added value. That’s why we also chose Odoo. As an integrated ERP, Odoo is superior to standalone solutions, and with its modularity, the tool remains relatively lean."
This realization led to the consistent decision to represent all relevant business areas in a single ERP system.
The choice of the right partner: Expertise meets trust
“With braintec, we have found a partner that is 100% specialized in Odoo. That was decisive for us,” summarizes Stephan Loser.
For Meteotest, it was clear that complex requirements need in-depth expert knowledge. As a leading Odoo partner in Europe, braintec impressed with its technical expertise and built the necessary trust to tackle the ambitious project together.
The decision for Odoo was primarily based on the system's high adaptability. Initially, Odoo faced some skepticism from the employees at Meteotest, but this quickly transformed into broad acceptance through practical experience. Stephan Loser summarizes the success as follows: "The decisive factor for Odoo was the combination of standardization and customization. Only thanks to this flexibility was a smooth integration into our existing processes achievable, and the benefits became tangible for everyone. Through gradual upgrades, we are continuously approaching a technically sensible level of expansion. A conscious consideration between implementing the standard and targeted individual adjustments is something that defines braintec."
“The Odoo experts from braintec internalized our individual requirements from the very beginning. Our project manager, José Montero, immediately understood our business model and all the peculiarities of Meteotest and looked at what Odoo could do for us. I felt like he was one of our own employees, equipped with the entire Odoo expertise.”
Automation in the Sales of Solar Data with Odoo
Meteotest has completely transformed the product platform Meteonorm into a web app and API. The goal was to automate marketing to achieve high scalability through self-service while maintaining Meteotest's proven custom offerings. "With Odoo, we were able to develop a webshop and a sales backend that provides us with both. All sales are now 100% connected to CRM, accounting, and product license management," emphasizes Stephan Loser.
What is Meteonorm?
Whether as an intuitive web app or through a practical API: Meteonorm provides PV planners, architects, and engineers with global radiation and temperature data. This allows you to plan solar systems and buildings with absolute reliability – including shading and future scenarios. Additionally, you can optimize operations through real-time monitoring and smart yield forecasts.
The key task was to implement a flexible pricing model. Access to the API and web app is available either via subscriptions with monthly allowances or via individual data packages, enabling bespoke pricing for a wide variety of usage profiles.
Customers now manage their purchases via a personal portal and configure their access themselves via API (keys) and the web app (user email). Sales can be handled fully automatically via the online shop, or – depending on specific customer requirements – by Meteonorm Support via the backend. The entire sales and consumption logic is seamlessly integrated into the invoicing system, whilst the Odoo messaging function ensures centralised, end-to-end traceability of customer communications. The next step is to integrate the Odoo Helpdesk module.
The success story of Meteotest shows: A modern, flexible ERP system like Odoo is an indispensable driver for the digitalization of SMEs. The key lies in the integration of processes and an Odoo partner who understands the individual business models and optimally represents them in the software. Meteotest is now future-proof, scalable, and flexibly positioned.
For Stephan Loser, the following highlights are in focus:
- Scalability: More queries and larger customers can be served
- Automation for most customers: Fully automated sales through the webshop thanks to standardization
- Flexibility for special needs: The complex, custom pricing can be easily and efficiently managed in the backend
- Subscriptions: The annual subscription renewal is now automated
- Efficiency increase: The automation of sales and subscription renewals has minimized error susceptibility and reduced the administrative effort for manual sales by 30%
The Odoo apps used at Meteotest
Meteotest uses a wide range of Odoo apps to ensure continuity across all business areas:
Accounting
Project
Sale
Subscriptions
Documents
Timesheets
Employee
Absences
Expenses
CRM
Webshop
Current examples of this gained freedom are the straightforward rollout of the new web app subscription, or the quarterly subscription, which allows Meteotest to serve customers from countries with strict capital controls. Meteotest is currently migrating to Odoo 19 with braintec to optimally utilize the latest features, especially the AI capabilities.
The Meteotest Team
About Meteotest
Meteotest is a leading Swiss company specialising in applied meteorology and climatology, which provides weather, climate and environmental data for various sectors, including energy, construction, agriculture and spatial planning.
The company is 100 per cent employee-owned and sees itself as an agile solutions provider that delivers bespoke solutions to client enquiries with precision and in line with their needs. Meteotest offers specialised analyses, forecasts, software and training for weather- and climate-dependent decision-making processes, ranging from microclimatic simulations for cities to long-term climate scenarios and risk management consultancy. The focus is on the digital collection, analysis and interpretation of environmental data by a team of 40 scientists, IT specialists and engineers.
More about Meteotest
All pictures © Meteotest
