A new multi-year contract with an integrated holiday resort in Asia is today's news from Malaysian data analytics tools designer Fusionex (FXI:AIM). Worth about $1 million, according to the statement, that works out at around £750,000. More interestingly, that's about 5% of the RM77 million (it reports in Malaysian Ringits, or £14.5 million) of revenue chalked-up in full year to 30 September 2015, or roughly 4% of the RM99 million (18.7 million approx) analysts see the company churning out in the current 12 months.
Good, but not exactly Carling, to quote a recent unrelated TV ad campaign. Far more impressive is the fact that this agreement is for Fusionex GIANT 2016, the company's software-as-a-service model, which only launched last week (28 June). Significantly cheaper, it is being aimed at small and medium-sized businesses they may not have the financial muscle to invest in the more extensive, and far more expensive, original Fusionex GIANT suite.
As I wrote in early June (read here), this new toolkit should provide 'another lever to crank the growth engine.' No wonder the shares have rallied strongly today, up nearly 7.5% at 151.5p.
The new platform is able to connect directly to any data source, including local files, databases, social media channels and third -party applications. It then uses natural language processing capabilities to humanise data discovery by allowing users to simply ask questions, analogous to a search engine, resulting in instant responses and insights without any programming skills required.
'Fusionex GIANT 2016 also empowers data scientists to perform advanced predictive analysis to uncover hidden information in data,' according to Panmure Gordon tech analyst George O'Connor.
Fusinex CEO, Ivan Teh and GIANT dashboard
'We are delighted to have secured a significant multi-year contract with one of Asia's leading resort providers,' says CEO Ivan Teh today. 'This is particularly encouraging as it is the first contract we have announced for our recently launched next generation offering, Fusionex GIANT 2016.'
Interestingly, Panmure's O'Connor informs me that today's contract was won against stiff competition from much bigger rival analytics groups, including IBM (IBM:NYSE) and Oracle (ORCL:NDQ).
'The contract shows how data is being used as a competitive weapon in many industries to better serve customers by improving speed and quality, hence setting themselves apart from their competitors as the destination of choice,' states O'Connor.
