MAIA creates business intelligence courses with SASTA

Mumbai

June 3, 2008

MAIA Intelligence will work with Bangalore-based SAASTHA Infotech, a training
institute, to have education models focused on business intelligence (BI) tools.
SAASTHA has 14 centers in the country and is creating a certification program,
which is not limited to MAIA's offerings alone.

There is a reason why MAIA is working with SAASTHA as opposed to
well-established names like NIIT and Aptech in the training business. Said
Sanjay Mehta, CEO, MAIA Intelligence, “Big institutes want big price tickets
courses that are more prevalent in the market with better uptake. This is why BI
courses will work best with smaller institutes, similar to the ones that offer
Tally.”

Besides the SAASTHA initiative, MAIA offers focused training programs every
month, which is spread across two days and is aimed at empowering partners who
are considering getting into BI as business vertical. At these MAIA driven
sessions, besides sharing knowledge on deployment of BI tools, partners are also
given some business domain knowledge.

Mehta added, “The reason we offer business knowledge in addition to the
technical aspects of our solutions is simple. If a partner has to deploy BI
tools then he needs to understand the business practices employed by prospective
clients and build the BI applications around it.”

Currently MAIA has 14 partners who are focused on tapping the SMB space and
it is looking at expanding this base. It wants to work with smaller solution
providers who are content working with deployments around Rs 25 lakh each.

“The bigger solution providers want to work with organizations that have
1000 users and where the minimum project value would be around Rs 50 lakh. Since
BI is still in its inception in India, it does not make sense for us to work
with these kind of partners,” Mehta explained.

According to a Frost and Sullivan official, the BI market was projected to be
around $70 million in 2007, up from $47 million in 2005. Dun & Bradstreet
pegs the global BI market to be around $5.7 billion, while the Indian potential
is likely to be Rs 1,200 crore.

Gartner has said that India is the fastest growing BI platforms market in
Asia (including Japan), posting a growth of 35.6 percent in 2005-06. BI
platforms revenues in India grew from $12.1 million in 2005 to reach $ 16.4
million in 2006. In APAC (including Japan), the BI platforms market grew at 16
percent in 2005 to reach $491.8 million in 2006, with Japan accounting for more
than half the overall market.

Since India is currently in the implementation wave of business applications
platforms like ERP, CRM and supply chain management (SCM), the demand for BI
platforms will continue to rise. The BI market in India has tremendous
potential, with growth expected to be over 35 percent.