Saama may seal a $10-m deal

PUNE, INDIA: Saama Technologies, a player in the Business Intelligence (BI) industry, is scouting for acquisitions in the $10 million range.

“We would acquire some technologies and service targets in the next few weeks or quarter. The prospects for the same would be a combination of geographies with India, Europe and the US figuring prominently,” said Suresh Katta, president and CEO, Saama Technologies.

These plans are expected to bolster its overall basket of offerings. Apart from the inorganic route, Saama would also add new products to cater to needs of changes in BI space with emphasis on process and tool trends.

“Customer Churn Activity (CCA) solution would be one example of this trend. This requires high statistical modeling to crunch CRM data. We are figuring out how to size this product as per the market,” informed Katta.

The company claims three patents in its kitty with plans to add three more over the next quarter. “These are in the areas of spatial OLAP (Online Analytical Processing), location intelligence and others. We would also roll out Information As A Service (IAAS) beginning with the retail industry over the next six months,” he added.

The company’s current basket consists of consultancy and two products in data linguistics and impact analysis.

Saama sees Indian BI market still in the early stages of development. “As of now, the US, Europe and UK are our key markets. We follow the TPS (Transaction Processing System) to BI strategy. Unless a company has the plumbing base, how can it add fancy faucets?” explained Katta.

Its India set up in Pune, which started in 2004 is being expanded three times. “This comes hot on the heels of bagging multi-year deals with Cisco, Information Intellect and Business Objects. The new offices will cater to setting up of separate physical locations for the contracts,” said Katta.

Its focus verticals area finance and life sciences. Going ahead, it plans to tap high-tech and education verticals in the next 18 to 24 months.