Wellington
Ever tried to make sense of a spreadsheet of numbers - data that in its raw form can be a sea ofcomplexity?
Sure, a bar graph or pie chart can do for some statistics, but once you start getting two, threeor more variables in the scheme of things, it becomes increasingly difficult to 'see' meaning.
Enter BIS2 (Business Intelligence Software Systems), a threeyear old Wellington-engined, with a USA front-office marketing and sales company, that ironically asyet has no New Zealand clients.
"We make super graphics," says BIS2 development team leader, Jeremy Banks. Kiwi founders, chiefexecutive Mukesh Gordhan and chief technology officer Andrew Cardno are based in San Diego.
"We provide visualisation tools that make it very easy to take the mass of your data and see whatareas you need to look into." (If you haven't already, go and check
An example is the casino industry, which the company has initially concentrated on in America asa "low hanging fruit".
Many gaming machines are software-based, with up to five different game types able to be playedat any one time. Such games' appeal changes during the day, depending on a multitude of factors. Byproviding a supergraphic, or visualisation that shows its use, a casino manager has an objectivetool to fine-tune their decision making process of what should be available, when.
In saying that BIS2 provides seven types of visualisations, it underplays the powerful algorithmsand mathematics that lie at the heart of the interpretation of data provided by the company. Bankswouldn't be surprised if BIS2 has one of the biggest patent portfolios in the country, based mainlyaround the processes to create its graphics.
Its visualisations are one of the company's points of difference. "Other companies do similarthings in different ways….but they're not as good," Banks says.
Another major advantage of BIS2's system is that its front end (the part that the customer seesand uses) is a standard Flash plug-in. Unlike some of its competitors which can take days, if notweeks to set up, BIS2's configuration can be up and running in a couple of days.
"Some of our competitors have to set up their bespoke applications on the client's desktop,"Banks says. "We're also light on the database aspect of things."
By this he means that the company's competitors take their customer's data, manipulate it andtransform it to their own repository. "We sit on top of our customer's repository that's already setup, pull the information out, and create a super graphic from that," he says.
Its standards-based system makes for easy interoperability with other computer software products,possessing what is known as a "RESTful interface."
In the meantime, BIS2 is partnering with third party vendors, who would help sell, configure andtrain users.
"The job now is about getting more sales, with the airline and telco industriesbeing more than suitable for our different visualisation types," says Banks.
"We can work with exactly the same software, and it's about whatever the industry actually wantsto measure. Then we simply put our templates on top."