Bangalore Bound

The tickets are booked, the bags will soon be packed. I am off to Bangalore.

It's been some time since I was in 'IT City'. Intervening trips to both the US and the UAE have delayed the normal 3 - 4 month visit. So there is a lot to catch up on.

It will be great to catch up with familiar faces and familiar places. I am looking forward to spending my time with the fantastic team at HBI Software and HBI Sales. Then there is the airport, the autos, M.G. Road and The Capitol.

There is so much to do. I cannot wait.

The HBI Sales Story - Part 1

HBI Sales Private Limited opened its doors for business in Sunrise Chambers, Ulsoor Road, Bangalore in 2003.

It's key objective was to create research and analysis reports on different sectors of the ICT space. Since its inception, its largest client has become Smart Analytics, which publishes the Smart Analytics ICT Research portal. This portal is now integrated and hard-coded into the Research ribbon of Microsoft Office 2007 Suite.



Since the launch of its Smart Analytics service, HBI Sales has prepared over 40 Competitive Intelligence reports on global companies operating in the ICT industry. These companies are monitored daily to ensure that the Subscriber Area of the Smart Analytics portal is updated daily with Breaking News and New Product Details.

The HBI Sales team work closely with the development team at HBI Software to ensure all their competitive intelligence reports and updates are fully smart tagged so that users get the full benefits of Microsoft Office's web services functionality.

Introducing Smart Analytics

About two years ago, I set up the Smart Analytics (SA) research portal. Check it out here at www.smart-analytics.com

Targeting Competitive Intelligence (CI) in the ICT space, the SA portal provides profiles on different companies in different ICT sectors. The portal design and build was and is outsourced to HBI Software Pvt Ltd in Bangalore. The actual research, analysis and content was and is outsourced to HBI Sales Pvt Ltd, also based in Bangalore.

The reports themselves are smart-tagged using smart tags and Microsoft Office web services. This means that users can automatically update downloaded reports once content has been updated. Microsoft liked this so back in 2005, the Smart Analytics portal was made available through Microsoft Office Marketplaces.

In 2006, Microsoft selected a small number of core research data sources to be integrated into the hard copy and OEM versions of Microsoft Office 2007 Suite. Smart Analytics was one of the core data sources selected, so today, users of Microsoft Office 2007 Suite can search Smart Analytics from within the Research ribbon / pane. SA is also available as a core research source in Internet Explorer 7.0.
The relevance of all this today is that we are about to publish a series of reports published by OTR onto the SA portal. It is e-commerce enabled so we can add third-party reports to the portal shop.

One of my own personal targets for 2007 is to encourage content providers based in NZ who create CI related reports in the ICT space to make their content available on the SA portal. Microsoft Office 2007 will provide them with a great route to market and raise their profile in the global market.

Today is not all work however. Tonight there will be a toast to Blackpool FC who managed a 2 - 0 win over Huddersfield in the Easter Monday game. That puts Blackpool into 4th place in the First Division and re-inforces their Play-Off credentials. With just 4 games to go, a trip to Cardiff in May is now well on the cards!