Local distributor of Business Objects, Usko Software, is looking to extend its channel strategy by appointing further partners.
Piet Loubser, country manager representing Business Objects International, says it is in the process of fine tuning its channel management projects.
"We are on an aggressive drive in so far as making people aware of our product offerings. Our team is working with partners like Hill Cunnington, BCS and other partners to embed our products into company applications," says Loubser.
In line with the channel strategy, the Business Objects division of Usko Software will continue to service and sell to the corporate market, with channel partners primarily targeting sales and services to the Small, Medium & Micro Enterprise (SMME) market.
Business Objects has the capacity to offer a solution that can scale from the small to the large enterprise. Through the modular architecture, companies can license only the required software or embed it as part of their own applications. It is in this latter area where Business Objects` channel strategy is already proving successful and where the organisation aims to build it further.
Having just returned from working in the US, Loubser says the sales model used locally differs vastly from that in the US. He says the aggression displayed by US salesmen, often hides weaknesses or over estimates the actual functionality of a product.
"In SA this type of sales approach would be totally unacceptable. The SA user is an intelligent user. Managers are very pedantic when purchasing a product and they ensure that the product will meet the business criteria.
"This in turn makes it more difficult but more challenging to sell into the local market, it also ensures that products are of a high quality before being shipped into the market," says Loubser.
Business Objects has recently launched its second generation web tools, which Loubser says are becoming popular because of good architectural design and easy implementation.
"The next IT phase is going to be e-commerce and extranets -- everyone has speculated on that for some time. The deciding factor however is going to be a company`s ability to integrate intelligent web-enabled applications into the heart of their systems," he says.
"At Business Objects we have to focus on informing the clients that our offering is heterogenous. Business Objects can retrieve data from many sources onto one document.
"Business Objects has adopted the strategy that people do not want to access silos of information. Instead, Business Objects provides users with the ability to access and analyse information across all of the enterprise, and then share it with peers, providing users with access to shared information across the business," says Loubser.
The reality of being able to provide that service is due to the use of an intelligent semantic layer in the products. This ensures presentation of corporate information irrespective of the complexity of the data and the level of computer literacy of the user.
"Data is an important aspect of anyone`s business. SA companies need to empower the users by adopting user friendly and effective analysis and retrieval tools.
"Through our channel partners we aim to educate the market accordingly, and ensure that people have access to technology that enhances the business process," concludes Loubser.
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