CRN: Tell me how Inside Info came about
SB: I'd worked for some time for mainstream business intelligence vendors and large IT organisations and was underwhelmed with what was being offered up to clients in the business intelligence space.
I've always been a bit of a free spirit, so I entered into discussions with Phil Langdale, who was on the client side of the equation and also passionate about the value BI can offer organisations.
We joined forces in early 2004 to change things.
CRN: What's your role with QlikView locally
SB: Inside Info is the distributor and provider of QlikView business intelligence software in Australia, with responsibility for growing the QlikView business and brand in Australia.
We sell to customers directly and through specialist partners and have over 240 local clients across a range of industries in the mid market and enterprise sectors, like Amcor, Manassen Foods and Fujitsu General.
There are over 11,000 QlikView customers worldwide, QlikView being the flagship product of QlikTech, based out of the USA (though originally from Lund University in Sweden).
Our partners account for a growing share of the business and this is something we aim to encourage moving forward.
CRN: Could you tell me about your partner program
SB: At Inside Info, we have over 15 local QlikView resellers as part of our Australia-wide network.
The types of partners we look for are OEM partners that integrate QlikView into their own software solutions to differentiate their data presentation and delivery like Leap legal Software and JIWA Financials or those that resell QlikView and create and deploy QlikView applications for their own clients such as Greentree, Micronet, Moveit, Satsuma and Synateq.
Inside Info, with QlikView, also has strategic alliances with other organisations like PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
A key to the success of our partner program has been about being clear about the strengths of each participant in the relationship and in looking for partners that bring to the table expert skill in a particular industry, area or region.
CRN: Why the focus on information and software providers at the moment
SB: We find that providers of information and software services find ways to improve their processes for data aggregation, integration and storage, but data delivery and simple exploration of the data continues to present a challenge.
QlikView's associative analysis provides a single platform to make data more usable, timely, and easier to develop and deliver.
Using QlikView, information and software providers substantially increase the productivity of their value proposition to customers.
In fact, this goes for anyone that has a software solution.
Interactive, self-serve analysis "Powered by QlikView" enables end users to get better answers to more business questions from data - so your product offerings command higher value and wider use within customer organisations.
CRN: What challenges do you think you can solve that others in BI can't
SB: People want timely, actionable data customised to their needs.
Static reports, spreadsheets and traditional business intelligence tools delay and limit data delivery - at best, providing a complex interface to data and a limited set of inflexible analysis paths.
Plus they tend to be expensive and take months to deliver.
Organisations are demanding analysis that is faster and more flexible to fulfill different reporting demands.
This would include improving the timeliness of information, data presentation, capabilities to interact and work with data, and delivering more value to customers for making business decisions.
CRN: How does QlikView work
SB: QlikView uses patented 'in-memory' associative technology to provide self-serve analysis of data according to how each user wants to interact with it, in visual formats that customers can easily understand and use.
Customers can explore data on their own and drill into the underlying details with just a few clicks for quick answers to their business questions, with near instant response times on billions of records for thousands of end users.
QlikView analyses an unlimited number of dimensions and metrics that can be modified by end users in seconds.
If you're looking to integrate QlikView as the reporting or analysis module of your own software, QlikView operates seamlessly with an existing software providers applications for data collection, integration, storage and more.
New customer applications can be developed quickly and rapidly deployed reducing time and cost to deliver more actionable and robust data to customers.
QlikView deploys easily as an AJAX, Java or plug-in client or customer application to fit or expand any partners' existing business model and product offerings.
CRN: What's in it for partners
SB: Partners use QlikView all over the world to increase their value proposition to customers enabling their customers to get more business value from their data, improve responsiveness, drive new revenue streams and improve customer relationships.
Inside Info partners make actionable data easier to develop and deliver the way customers want. We offer flexible licensing programs and partner support, particularly in the area of sales and application development, accelerate time to market and create new business opportunities that otherwise would be too expensive to consider.
The same QlikView analysis can be developed once and used online, offline, embedded or delivered as an .exe executable file to create more customer centric-offerings across applications and data delivery channels.
We move with the industry, for example, in delivering location-based BI for the iPhone, and shortly for the Blackberry.
CRN: What's your product roadmap for 2009
SB: We're on track to launch QlikView 9 midyear that will take the product to even more places, making it even easier for customers to make larger deployments of the software, and offer usability enhancements such as new ways to visualise and simplify data.
CRN: What opportunities are there in the BI market at the moment
SB: Business intelligence has evolved beyond reporting.
Recent reports like BI Survey 8 (OLAP Report), tell us that most organisations use business intelligence for ad hoc query and analysis.
We've seen the rise of self-serve information analysis among business users, with a reduced reliance on IT. A good result as this also improves IT productivity.
We know that CIOs have typically cut budgets on average by 13 percent this year, however according to most analyst firms, business intelligence remains the top priority for CIOs.
The differentiating factor is to provide interactive data delivery and analysis in way that is simple, with powerful, unrestricted query capability that can deliver value fast.
The fact is that Inside Info and our partners can do this, providing a unique proposition in the market and one that other software and information providers should consider.
-1.jpg&w=100&c=1&s=0)
.png&w=100&c=1&s=0)
