Yellowfin catches 15 EMEA channel partners

BI player claims 'great step in the right direction' on mission to become 100 per cent channel based

Business intelligence (BI) player Yellowfin has extended its EMEA reach by signing up 15 new VARs as it pushes ahead with its 100 per cent channel-model goal.

The Australia-headquartered privately held firm provides analytics software for customers to look at their data in a dashboard.

Previously its EMEA managing director, Peter Baxter, told CRN he is hoping the vendor will become a 100 per cent channel business by the end of 2015. Baxter said these new singings are a "great step in the right direction", and indicated the firm is well on track to achieve this target.

Yellowfin announced partnerships with seven BI-focused UK VARs, including DNAStream and Perception BI. It also announced partnerships with eight resellers based in mainland Europe and the Middle East.

Baxter said all these new signings are resellers who provide consultancy for end-to-end data management and are data strategy experts.

He also said Yellowfin is on the verge of signing another 20 new EMEA channel partners in the next six weeks.

"The response we have had from VARs has been phenomenal. They have been screaming out for a company that not only makes great enterprise-class BI but also has a channel model to support them," Baxter said.

"So we are on target in terms of the type of people we are recruiting and clearly we want to grow on that immediate success."

Yellowfin operates a single-tier channel model, and Baxter said this is unlikely to change.

News of the reseller signings comes four months after Yellowfin opened its UK office in Milton Keynes.

Baxter said what differentiates Yellowfin from its competitors is the firm's focus on the channel.

"When you compare ourselves to our competitors, Tableau Software being a classic example, they end up competing against the channel. But Yellowfin is on target to become 100 per cent indirect."

When asked what Yellowfin has to offer its partners, Baxter said it can deliver "very healthy margins", a good amount of inbound leads and said the firm is "incredibly easy" to do business with.

Yellowfin's customers include the NHS, Honda and Germany's University of Konstanz.