Company Name: Rhea Vendors Benelux

Location: The Netherlands, Europe

Industry: Wholesale and service organization

Established: 2007

Company Size: <30

Odoo Users: <30

Hosting Type: Odoo.sh

Apps: CRM, Sales, Purchase, Invoicing, Accounting, Website, e-Commerce, Logistics, Inventory, Quality, Project, Studio, Documents

Implementing Partner: Radical Fanatics

Part of Rhea’s group, a global leader in custom coffee machine manufacturing, Rhea Vendors Benelux faced some challenges handling its operations with a collection of different tools. Even though everything was working, the company had a desire to begin a transformative chapter implementing a unified, modern management system. Odoo’s software was therefore embraced to streamline workflows, enhance efficiency and pave the way for future growth.  

Founded in 1960, Rhea’s group is one of the largest manufacturers of custom coffee machines. The company has distinguished itself by its broad international reach, high quality design, advanced technology and “Made in Italy” excellence. 

A global player in vending, Rhea has also evolved into a pioneer in several sectors such as retail, hospitality and out-of-home. The mission of the company is to interpret and even anticipate a constantly changing market. 

In 2007, Rhea opened its Benelux branch. At this point, there was no system in place yet to manage tasks and operations. The team investigated the market to identify suitable software options for a start-up company and decided to go for several tools handling:

• Tickets creation and management
• Accounting
• Website 
• CRM database
• E-commerce
• Packages shipping 

Over the years, various software solutions, all independent from each other, have been subscribed for the different departments and needs of the company and then connected somehow to smoothen the operations. Even though everything was working and doing what it was supposed to, Rhea Vendors Benelux felt the need to let go of the current and familiar way of dealing with operations to move on to a tool allowing the team to achieve greater results. Switching to something new was a challenging but exciting decision!

“It was time to upgrade our landscape, as AI was not integrated, systems were all on-premise and maintenance became costly. We could not make progress and achieve efficiency anymore.” - Claudio Cottica - Manager at Rhea Vendors Benelux

In February 2023, the company started a roadmap to find the ideal management system partner. The team carefully evaluated around 9 providers, interviewing suppliers and confronting offers, features and necessary developments in order to make a proper selection. 

Realizing it was crucial to switch from traditional on-premise software to a modern online management system, the company chose Odoo for its ability to scale with their vision and evolving needs. Indeed, the feeling was clearly that the project would be a success for the many years to come.

In March 2023, Rhea Vendors Benelux started the implementation process with the intention to go live in July, working hand in hand with Radical Fanatics, a Silver Odoo partner. The workload has been divided into financial, design and web implementation, including the key phase of data transfer. Making the most of the testing playground, every party involved brought some expertise, with a huge focus put on combining skills and discussing the progress weekly.

On June the 30th, the old tools were switched off and the last data was imported into Odoo’s software, becoming the one and only management system for the company. The teams were so enthusiastic they wanted to add more and more apps, but the decision was made to let them get used to the basic modules first.

Odoo’s software sometimes comes with some challenges and complexities. But overall, Rhea Vendors is thrilled with Odoo’s management system, even wondering why they didn’t implement this solution years ago. Driving exceptional change across the organization, the tool brings multiple advantages such as: 

 Centralization of all data and processes: having everything in one centralized and integrated environment provides peace and focus. 

 Flexible solution: The flexibility the platform offers is both a relief and a pleasure to the team.

 Training of new team members simplified: When a new member joins the team, training him is much easier as there is a single interface to learn how to use. 

 Almost paperless office: Implementing Odoo has digitized even more the office, which went from 90 to 99% paperless. 

Implementing Odoo has not only transformed the company’s workflows, but also freed up valuable hours for the teams. Employees can benefit from this time to fine-tune the workflows, be more efficient in pending projects and even work on a “wish list” to achieve greater success. 

Looking ahead, Rhea Vendors Benelux plans to continually evolve by strategically adding new features to the platform according to the needs - ensuring the work environment is fully optimized for ongoing success.

Rhea’s successful Odoo implementation in Benelux is extending to its subsidiaries, with Austria that went live in January 2025 and Germany to follow in January 2026, further solidifying global efficiency.