Microstrategy fills partner gap

Microstrategy has signed an OEM agreement with retail consultancy firm GAPbuster as the business intelligence vendor intensifies its APAC channel roll-out.

The partnership is one of many Microstrategy expects to sign in the coming two quarters as it extends its "successful" US and EMEA channel programs to APAC.

"This market is similar to the US, we see it as a logical transfer here," said Shankar Ganapathy, worldwide VP APAC channels for Microstrategy. "In the third and fourth quarter, we expect to make a huge push," he said.

Gapbuster, which operates in 74 countries rates customer experiences through services including mystery shopping, audits, surveys and consulting.

Kenneth von Rausch, COO at Gapbuster said through its partnership with Microstrategy, the firm is better enabled to view client metrics.

"Every time we provided a snap shot of data it was static. The challenge was to merge snapshots into a more interactive environment," said von Rausch.

"We put this out to tender and we engaged major players with the intention of buying their tool.

"The Microstrategy tool gives us the ability to interactively represent the data in a flexible format," he said.

Commenting on the partnership, von Rausch said from the beginning it was an engaged, fair revenue model.

"I was dealing with someone not a process, it became a real partnership, I fixed my pain point and have a revenue stream.

"I wasn't looking for revenue building when I approached Microstrategy. It seems like we have a win, win, which is rare," said von Rausch.

In addition to Sydney and Melbourne Microstrategy expects to sign regional system integrators, VARS and more OEM partners.

Ganapathy said the company is looking for partners who understand their regions more so than large global companies.

"We don't need a ton of partners, we need quality," said Ganapathy.

Patrick Elliott VP for Australia and New Zealand said Microstrategy currently has seven partners, four of which were signed in the second quarter which just ended.

"We changed our focus in January. We aligned our sales force by vertical and a push in channel," said Elliott. "You cannot have a success here without the channel."

"We want to create a mass of wealth," he said. "Programs are different depending on partners," said Elliot.