Sagent SA, the full lifecycle data warehousing company, has announced its channel strategy. This has been initiated by an agreement with FTC, a software development company specialising in project management. Sagent entered the local market in February through the formation of its own subsidiary, which has the sole rights to distribute Sagent's range of data warehousing tools in Southern Africa.
Sagent SA has immediately set about defining and executing a channel strategy that will allow the Sagent Solution to reach its broadest possible target market in corporate South Africa. With a strong presence in Johannesburg and a recently opened office in Cape Town, the alliance with FTC offers the potential for expanding into Kwazulu-Natal as well. FTC has a base of clients involved in the shipping, bulk transport, motor and associated industries.
"We are forming alliances with a wide range of complementary vendors," says Sagent SA marketing and sales director Paul Murphy. "Taken together, the Sagent channel will provide our customers with every element they need for implementing a successful data warehouse. FTC primarily uses Microsoft technology and with its strong project management skills will provide the sort of specialist approach that is needed with data warehouse implementation."
Sagent SA will also be targeting a number of other vendors for its channel strategy including:
- Business intelligence specialists in mainstream databases, reporting tools, online analytical processing (OLAP) tools;
- Infrastructure providers: In particular for Internet-enabled technologies, outsourcing and database management;
- Hardware companies: Providers of high-performance, scalable servers and bulk data storage solutions; * Consulting companies: Companies with data warehousing on their solutions portfolio and suitable reference sites;
- Vertical specialists: Companies which provide dedicated solutions into areas of specialisation, such as the financial services, insurance and marketing.
Peter Paice, MD of FTC, says, "FTC's strategy pointed towards the need for identifying a product-based data warehouse system which also fitted in seamlessly with our Microsoft-developed systems. Sagent's end-to-end data warehousing software delivers this and in turn, we bring strong project management skills and expertise in Microsoft technologies to the table."
"We have targeted a number of specific vendors in each of these niches and will soon be announcing more strategic relationships," adds Murphy.
Strategic business partners of Sagent globally include IBM, Siebel, Oracle, Unisys, Microsoft, ADP, Usinternetworking and Ralph Kimball and Associates.