The Hindu Business Line : Business Objects bullish on domestic market

Hyderabad, Aug. 28 Business intelligence (BI) software maker Business Objects is bullish on the market in the South Asian region and India in particular banking on increasing adoption of BI solutions.

The company has come up with next generation enterprise wide suite, 2.0 that brings about convergence of various pieces of BI solutions, all laced together and rolled out into one.

The Regional Vice-President, South Asia, Business Objects, Mr V.R. Srivatsan, said: “About 80 per cent of information resides in unstructured data and is inaccessible for decision makers. With the use of BI software and its tools, decisions makers in enterprises can get empowered.”

He told Business Line that over the last decade, the focus was on data issues — integration, data quality, modelling and governance. Now, BI has become a more proactive issue with decisions makers in enterprises, and has becom e real-time, integrated with business processes and extending beyond organisations.

Business Objects has grown to a $1.5-billion corporation, through organic growth and mergers and acquisitions.

Three of the latest acquisitions of Crystal Decisions, Inxight and Cartesis, have added important pieces of technology that fit into the larger BI space.

INDIA EXPANSION

“We have over 350 customers in the Indian market and expect to consolidate our presence while targeting new clients. The domestic market here is on rapid growth in the areas of banking and financial services, telecom, and other services along with manufacturing, all requiring BI solutions,” he said.

Significantly, the retail industry and small and medium enterprises have begun to take to BI solutions and through partners, system integrators and independent software vendors, Business Objects is growing in the Indian market.

“It has grown to over 400 people and is backed by a development organisation, support centre, sales offices and expanding to new areas. We are evaluating the possibility of setting up a centre in Chennai. The India mandate is to not just develop products for global markets but also localise them for Indian requirements,” Mr Srivatsan said.