30 Minute Interview

Path Infotech and Microsoft collaborate to set up BI CoE

Sudhanshu Jain, Chief Architect – BI Solutions, Path Infotech talks to Varun Aggarwal about their new venture and how it will benefit both Path Infotech as well as Microsoft.

Sudhanshu Jain

What is the purpose of this new Center of Excellence? What will it do?

The purpose of this CoE is to suggest best practices, provide industry-specific data models, Proof of Concepts, demonstrations for customers and fellow partners. We will develop solutions for the customers as per their requirements, provide consultancy to customers on BI deployments and develop specific data models for industry segments like financial services.

Path Infotech is a big partner of Oracle on BI? What is the reason behind setting up this CoE with Microsoft?

With most enterprises having deployed OLTP application irrespective of size and industry segment, there is a growing demand for Business Intelligence. Many customers prefer Microsoft solutions because of the familiarity, ease of use, lower learning curve, and overall cost effectiveness it delivers.

While we have been associated with Microsoft for a long time, we decided to set up the CoE to develop integrated, end-to-end solutions. Gartner has also acknowledged Microsoft as one of the top three BI vendors in India, and the establishment of Microsoft BI CoE will help us give world-class solutions and consultancy to our customers, and complete our BI solutions stack.

Which verticals/ segments do you plan to tap with this CoE?

We have observed an untapped market of small and mid-size financial services companies including new players entering the market, which are setting up their BI systems and are in need of customized solutions. The CoE, to start with, will cater to the demand from such financial services companies. We will gradually begin developing solutions for other verticals like manufacturing in the coming months.

Why only SMBs? Will you look at enterprise customers as well?

We, at Path will certainly continue our engagements with enterprise customers as in the past. The productized solution we plan at present will cater to new global entrants and mid-market companies in the financial services industry. Thereafter, we plan to develop solutions that will cater to the needs of large FSI customers and other industry verticals like manufacturing, retails and insurance.

What solutions do you plan to develop at the CoE? Will they compete with the solutions that you develop with other players like Oracle, etc.?

We plan to develop data model for the consumer finance industry. Any organization that wants to implement a Data Warehousing solution needs to create a data warehouse so as to facilitate the required reporting. We will then prepare complete reporting solution on the data model. By developing this model we will help organizations to reduce the cycle of implementation by giving them readymade data warehouse or complete reporting solution. We develop solutions on technologies from all vendors depending upon the need of our customers.

On what technologies/ products will you develop solutions?

We will develop solutions based on MS SQL Server 2005, Office 2007, esp. Excel 2007 and also PerformancePoint Server 2007.

Do you have any customers at this stage? If yes, share their names.

We plan to have 4-5 customers on board in the next 3-4 months.

What has been the response the Center so far? How has the market response been to Microsoft’s solutions in the past?

The response is quite encouraging and we are already engaging with potential customers. Microsoft is one of the leading BI vendors in the country and in the world. According to customer feedback, Microsoft’s platform and products score high on factors like ease of use, rich functionality, familiarity and learning required by the user. For instance, Excel is one of the most used BI tool among enterprises and SMBs. It is a known fact that most data from other database/transactional software is transferred to Excel for further analysis. We hope to leverage further on Microsoft platform and offer more robust and end-to-end solutions to customers.

What is the current manpower size at the CoE? What are your plans to expand the operations of the CoE?

Currently, we have about six IT experts who will be present at the CoE to provide consultancy and provide solutions to the customers. As the center stabilizes and scales up, we will increase the manpower depending upon the requirements from customers and the verticals we work with in future.

What kind of support have you received from Microsoft in the set-up of the CoE?

Microsoft is enabling our team on the tools and technology by conducting training sessions. It shares case studies and also provide the necessary technical expertise , which helps in creating the right solution for the customer.

Do you have any plans to expand your partnership with Microsoft in the coming months?

We continue to partner with several vendors and keep channels open for further partnerships and alliances.

How exactly will the Microsoft CoE help you grow your Business?

This new CoE will help organizations to envision their ideas into reality. The CoE platform is an enabler for customers and partners alike. We expect that more and more customers, Microsoft Sales, and partner organizations will leverage on this excellent opportunity presented to them by virtue of access to the CoE. We understand that customers today want to see and feel the technology before taking the decision to buy it. We want to assist customers in finalizing the technology they want to finally deploy. The CoE has no role in growing the business directly. It is a technological initiative which supports the sales team.