91% of Dataiku’s business last year was influenced by partners and for Dataiku, partnership is a corporate culture because this is what its enterprise customers need. Dataiku customers are looking for services around implementation, training, building and scaling use cases and this is fully managed by partners and is with partners. 95% of the services are delivered by its partners from the Dataiku Partner Network programme.
Dataiku is a 12 year old company that has been preparing for the AI disruptive cycle. Along this journey it has also been talking about analytics, Machine Learning, and deep learning. According to Sofian Benali, Regional Vice President EMEA Partnerships, at Dataiku, the AI wave is as disruptive as the impact of cloud that began more than a decade ago and the Internet much before that.
“That had a huge impact and it was a big shift in the IT industry. For us, from our view, AI, Generative AI, and Predictive AI will have the exact same impact, which means right now we are in the early days,” Benali explains.
“The impact will be from our view, extremely positive and beneficial.”
Dataiku’s go to market pillars
The Dataiku platform is a combination of four go to market pillars. These are people, data, technology, and governance. These four pillars are a good snapshot of how Dataiku differentiates and positions itself in the market and how it guides its enterprise customers.
Dataiku has been created around Universal AI as its mantra. Dataiku’s positioning is that everyone in an enterprise should be able to use AI and be a user of AI, whether they are software coders, business analysts, C-level executives, marketing teams, sales teams, and so on.
It is for this reason the Dataiku platform has been built so that everyone in an enterprise can use the platform, collaborate with it, and understand what the results around the usage of AI are.
“Everyone can use it and that is really making us different. So, it is about people, allowing everyone to collaborate regardless of their skill level,” says Benali.
For Dataiku and its enterprise customers moving along the AI journey, data is key. It is for this reason, that Dataiku works closely with AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud, Snowflake, Databricks, and others, because they are the modern day custodians of data through their cloud platforms.
Since its customer’s data is resident in these platforms, Dataiku works closely with these players to access their data. “The idea is to have access to the data wherever they are. Dataiku is not moving data, and it is not hosting data. We are just connecting to the data sources, and to have access to them wherever they are.”
Since most global enterprises have adopted a multi-cloud strategy, by having access to all data repository players, Dataiku is helping to meet its enterprise customer’s data objectives and data requirements.
“That is why those partners and every customer loves us. Most of them will use some Snowflake, some Databricks, some AWS, and we will just connect to the data where ever they are,” says Benali.
While enterprises need to try to put their data in order and secure it, Dataiku builds the bridges to access that data.
Dataiku also never dictates to its enterprise customers which technology to use. “We will never tell a customer to choose a technology or another. We are the skeleton, we are the backbone of their data strategy, which will connect to every technology,” says Benali.
As an example, since LLMs are being created every week, as an Universal AI solution, Dataiku needs to be able to connect and work with every LLM of the market.
A key discussion that Dataiku engages with its enterprise customers is governance and to make them feel comfortable with the usage of their enterprise data and AI. No enterprise can go big while using AI if they are not feeling secure about the usage of their data, points out Benali
“Our job as a company is to provide them with this comfort, with security by adding a governance layer, which will ensure regulatory compliance.”
Partnership and alliance ecosystem
Global and regional enterprises are using plenty of technologies and this trend is here to stay. For Dataiku it is critical to always remain positioned and available as a backbone that is able to connect and integrate with its customer’s environment.
Benali points that a large number of specialised players are helping to transform the landscapes for enterprises today. He cites examples such as the global consulting companies, cloud providers, data specialised consulting companies, LLM providers, and NVIDIA itself, which is a big partner for Dataiku.
Dataiku has a structure-specific programme called the Dataiku Partner Network programme. Different categories of partners are onboarded into this partner network including consulting and cloud partners, data platforms, LLM partners, global system integrators, and regional system integrators, ISVs.
Benali points out this Partner Network also includes resellers. “There are areas in the world where our go-to market is mainly through resellers,” he says.
The Dataiku Partner Network programme has tiering that helps partners unlock different benefits. This includes Global Elite, Premier, Select tiers.
Some of the leading partner names include Accenture, Deloitte, AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud, Snowflake, Databricks, Nvidia, SLB, in EMEA region; Capgemini, Orange Business, Lincoln, Eulidia, in the Southern Europe region; PWC, Aimpoint, Kubrick in the Northern Europe region; Infomotion, Unit8, Adesso in the Central Europe region; and KPMG, Ejada, Komtas, Insight 360, Devoteam, Beinex, Code81, in the Middle East region.
Dataiku believes that it is not possible to drive end to end transformation of an enterprise on its own. “We are 100% convinced that to drive the whole transformation of an organisation, you cannot do that on your own. You need to do that with the large companies that are managing those transformations at scale,” says Benali.
“They are our partners because they are transforming the whole organisation of our customers. They are the people that are making AI real at an organisation. And they are not handling AI only. They are taking that as a rule among a lot of other projects. That is how we see the alliance and channel ecosystem at Dataiku,” says Benali.
For Benali, who manages Dataiku’s partners and alliances, it means being fully aligned with what customers are doing, what technologies they are using. And Dataiku needs to be there to offer its customers the full menu of choice.
Benali’s role and his team’s role is to make sure that Dataiku is working with the complete ecosystem of players that are transforming enterprises today and scaling the use of AI.
“We need to provide that ecosystem to our customers when we talk about delivering AI at scale, and putting AI in the hands of everyone. Dataiku will not be the only one making it happen. We will make it happen with our whole ecosystem,” explains Benali.
For Dataiku, partnership is a corporate culture. Other than the sales teams, Dataiku’s marketing, customer success, services and leadership teams are engaged with partners every week and every month. The spirit is that every single team in Dataiku needs to scale and needs to work with partners to be relevant for customers.
Building a services economy
91% of Dataiku’s business last year was influenced by partners. “And that is a huge statement and a big commitment. Partnership is a corporate culture for us because that is what our customer needs.”
So how are Dataiku’s partners rewarded and incentivised? Other than the classical tools like MDF, sales accelerators, and others, Dataiku and its partners are building a services economy for its customers.
Other than the solution from Dataiku, its customers are looking for services around implementation, training, building and scaling use cases. “This is fully managed by partners and with partners.
While Dataiku and its professional services team may handle the first deep dive involving configuration and implementation with the customer, 95% of the rest of the services will be delivered by its partners from the Dataiku Partner Network programme.
Dataiku is building its services offering with partners that are required to be delivered by partners. Dataiku has joint services offerings around governance, analytics, modernisation, and Generative AI.
“We have referral programmes, we have reseller programmes, we have sourcing programmes for partners sourcing new business. They are getting rewarded on fees outside of the reseller margin and from the services they will deliver,” sums up Benali.
