Prospects in BI Solutions Selling Space (Part 1)
By P. K. Chatterjee
Mumbai, May 28, 2008
MAIA Intelligence develops Business Intelligence (BI) reporting and analysis products. In an
exclusive e-interview with ChannelTimes, Sanjay Mehta, CEO of the company, unfolds potentials
and paths for resellers to enter into BI business segment, to P. K. Chatterjee. Excerpts...
Why BI is getting so high priority among Indian CIOs these days?
There is a big gap between data and usable information. Information is the most underused asset in
today's organizations. Unstructured way of reporting results in unforgiving data errors with low
satisfaction. Information from a single system is easy, but to have a single unified view from multiple
data sources is a challenge.
Indian CIOs have already invested heavily in applications like ERP, CRM, SCM, HRMS. They are now
struggling to justify the ROI with year-on-year recurring investments. Driven by market pressures to
quickly respond to the dynamic business environment, CIOs now need to look at leveraging BI for
optimizing and streamlining business operations on a daily basis, by taking BI to the functional level to
quickly respond to the MIS requirements of the business users.
There are too many report requests coming from business users, CIO and his team are under constant
pressure, everything wanted YESTERDAY. Everyone expects instant results and don't want to wait for
answers. Hence, Indian CIOs give high priority to BI, which empowers the business users within the
organization to reduce the time gap between the business event and action taken. BI application like
1KEY, gives business users the power to define and generate ad hoc reports with intuitive, highly
interactive and user-friendly interface, coupled with multi-formatted visually stunning and flexible data
presentation layers.
What are the criteria that influence the implementation cost of the BI solutions in an
organization?
The least cost-effective BI solution is the one that never gets used. The most cost-effective BI is one
that is highly used, and connects to the long term strategy. To Implement BI, prepare an over-arching
plan with a strategic track and a tactical track; as each project within the tactical track completes,
iterate the strategy with lessons learned.
BI solutions deal with things like the value of providing better service to customers, and the value of

people making better decisions faster. And therein lies the problem. It's hard, if not impossible, to
calculate the ROI of better decision-making. Unlike some IT systems that replace more expensive
systems, manual processes or headcount, BI's benefits are often 'soft' or intangible. While there may
be some ROI metrics that support a business case, BI projects often require a bit of faith on the part
of the people writing the checks - and some savvy selling by IT and business users.
What kind of Channel Partners are working with MAIA Intelligence in India?
MAIA Intelligence has consulting partners, OEM partners and Resellers as channel partners under its
Global Partnership Program.
Consulting partners provide consulting services and earn revenue from implementation, integration,
data warehousing, training services and licenses. They resell MAIA product licenses, services, which
are the primary revenue drivers. These partners are provided qualified leads related to
implementation and deployment of all the MAIA Intelligence products to the end customers. They get
preference in all the direct contacts with end customer, as they communicate MAIA's Policy - 'Partner
with customers by providing value adding solutions and not merely selling licenses'.
OEM Partners are those software product companies who integrate, embed, or host MAIA products as
part of their software offerings. Software partners may also bundle and resell MAIA software products
with their solutions. Our Reporting Tools are fully customizable, configurable and add comprehensive
reporting and analytical functionality to client's software products.
Reseller Partners get the opportunity to market, distribute, sublicense, and support some or all MAIA
Intelligence products, and are generally attached to Consulting Partners for Solutions to Customers.
How can a reseller become MAIA's sales partner?
IT Solutions Providers / Hardware Vendors / Software Vendors / Resellers / Distributors / Consultants
/ CA Firms, can become MAIA's Reseller under Global Partnership Program. MAIA Reseller program
offers companies an easy way to begin to work with MAIA Intelligence. Additionally, it enables MAIA
Intelligence to identify potential users of its BI software solutions, by offering transparent and timely
rewards to an expanded set of participants for leveraging their business relationships to refer BI
prospects to MAIA Intelligence.
Reseller partners are rewarded when a deal is closed. The rewards are based on size of the deal's net
software license value realized - hence more the deal size value bigger becomes the closing reward
incentive to reseller. The Referral partner program provides exclusive sales materials on the complete
portfolio of 1KEY Agile BI Suite solutions, along with opportunity qualification tools and online learning
sessions. For these companies, getting enrolled in reseller partner program can be the first step in a
long-term partnership with MAIA Intelligence and solution selling space.
(To be continued)
http://www.channeltimes.com/India/News/Prospects_in_BI_Solutions_Selling_Space_Part_1/551-
89713-741.html