Mobile BI Platform Will Drive Growth for MAIA Intelligence This Year

MAIA Intelligence was incorporated in 2006 as a Single promoter driven company with Sanjay Mehta as the Chief Promoter and CEO of the company operate in a boot-strap mode from the second year of
operations. The company started with the offerings of Reporting, Business Intelligence and Data-Analytics Products, with “1KEY” as the flagship product brand. A combination of multiple technologies and a robust component integration framework has helped MAIA Intelligence to use best of breed technologies to offer pertinent and optimum features and functionalities in 1KEY.       

However, Maia faced an unlikely challenge- the market was not ready to accept an Indian software product company offering an enterprise software application like Business Intelligence was not ready. BI was a fort held largely by the big brand global vendors then, and the only way Vikram Kole, COO, Maia Technologies, could convince the market was through long term Proof of Concepts (POCs). The challenge was overcome through persistence, patience and convincing proofs about 1KEY being an Enterprise grade BI  application which can be deployed across a large sets of users. The company bagged their first large Enterprise customer within 8 months from inception after 6 months of rigorous POC efforts.     

1. Looking back on the struggle, what were the milestones that gave you learning points?

The first major turning point for MAIA Intelligence was in 2008 when we branded and launched our first full functionality Operational BI Suite – 1KEY Agile. 1KEY Agile then was a Client-Server Architected solution that was highly appreciated by our enterprise customers.

1KEY Agile was able to garner huge customer base with more than 100+ users on multiple customer sites. Other turning points were – when MAIA was getting recognition for an Innovation driven approach in building the 1KEY BI platform.

Over the years recognitions from bodies such as FICCI, NASSCOM etc. as well as awards from Frost & Sullivan, Microsoft, India Innovation Growth Programme  (IIGP-FICCI), HOT100 etc. have been great turning points in establishing the “Trust & Innovation” behind the MAIA & 1KEY brand.

1KEY HPC (High Performance Computing) version released in 2013 was also a milestone  for MAIA as the market place was looking at churning large and  varied data volume or Big Data into their BI ecosystem and 1KEY HPC was capable of delivering the same.

Today 1KEY HPC is a full feature BI platform which can be rolled out across the Enterprise for all Data-Output needs such as Basic Reporting, Scheduled Reporting, Management Dashboards, Data-Analysis, Secure Data sharing with external entities such as customer, suppliers etc.

2. What is the present focus of the company?

From a product perspective, the present focus of MAIA Intelligence is to deploy Mobile ready BI interfaces for organizations to roll-out user friendly and pertinent decision Support system. We have made 1KEY HPC as a device agnostic Business Intelligence framework and are working with our customers and partners to work out a robust Mobile BI strategy.

From a Go-To-Market perspective, MAIA is also focusing on working out strategic alliances to venture into new geographies such as Middle East, Africa, Europe, US etc. MAIA’s focus will always revolve around out three basic concepts i.e:  BI democratization, making user-friendly software solutions for IT, and business and technology innovation.

3. Which are the solutions you are offering?

1KEY HPC, which is a full-feature business intelligence, data-analytics & reporting platform with various business user interfaces such as Cube, View, Chart, Ticker, Static Reports, Scheduled Reports etc. for Enterprise-wide BI roll-out.

1KEY Touch Dashboard: 1KEY Touch can be deployed independently or along with the 1KEY HPC platform to deploy interactive dashboards. 1KEY Touch offers a wide variety of interactive charts with on-the-fly options to drill-down, drill-through etc. and conduct analysis.

1KEY Financial Consolidation Management (FCM): 1KEY FCM is a ready data warehouse for financial data consolidation across multiple legal entity structure of an organization to improve Statutory Reporting (Balance Sheet, P&L, and Schedule VI etc.) as well as internal reporting & data-Analysis.

EDA: EDA is a Desktop Application which enables Excel data holders to analyze their excel data using a simplified and analysis-ready framework within minutes.

4. Which are the potential verticals you see for your solutions?

The major verticals for us are BFSI, Manufacturing, and Retail & Distribution. However with customers spanning across all verticals such as Healthcare, Hospitality, Pharma, FMCG, IT & Professional Services etc. we see a lot of potential for 1KEY BI in every industry vertical. We have also created a solution specific approach across Vertical Industry as well as Business Function.

Our recent Solutions such as CIO Dashboard, HR Analytics, and NBFC Analytics etc. have been able to help our customers reap a faster ROI from 1KEY deployments because of the reduction in implementation time using a ready-to-use solution framework. Unlike other BI product companies who rely completely on a partner for developing a solution, MAIA has used a hybrid model of solution deployment where MAIA also takes project ownership during the implementation & deployment phase.

5. Which are the potential cities for your business?

We see cities in West, North & South India contributing equally well to our business growth. All metro and mini-metro cities have a huge potential in India for 1KEY BI. Since Manufacturing is a core vertical for us, we also see a lot of potential even in towns / cities that have a sizeable manufacturing output Eg: We recently bagged a customer in Bhilai. Such manufacturing intensive towns also have a huge potential for 1KEY BI.

6. Where is the growth coming from? What are your expansion plans?

Our growth is majorly coming for new Enterprise Customers.  Many of these customers had invested in large MNC BI products but have been unable to reap the ROI from these large, complex BI implementations. 1KEY BI offers a fast and easy passage for such customers to deploy a robust, scalable enterprise-wide BI strategy. With 1KEY’s right “Cost-Business Benefit balance”, we have been able to showcase a BI vision to such Enterprises.

As mentioned earlier, we want to look at overseas geography over the next 3 to 5 years. We might go for strategic alliances, direct presence, or a hybrid model for geographical expansion. We already have customers in Middle East & Africa and hence our immediate expansion plan will be focused in these geographies to start with.

7. Which is one technology that you will be focusing in 2015?

We will be focusing on Mobility in 2015.

For deploying Mobility aspects in our 1KEY BI platform, we are adopting a long term approach that will support the BYOD policies of organizations. Apart from Mobility, MAIA Intelligence is also focusing on nimble Desktop Apps, which can enable Desktop users to do self-service activities not only at the report level but also at the report / dashboard building level. EDA as mentioned earlier is our first Desktop App in that direction. Such Desktop Apps will be developed and deployed for improving the productivity of individual users.