Ben Werther CEO of Platfora joins John Furrier and Dave Vellante in theCUBE for their ongoing coverage of Hadoop Summit. The three discuss Platfora’s innovation in business insight and corporate growth.

Vellante notes that many companies have not been able to derive the value promised from business insight. He asks Werther what gives him the confidence that Platforma can live up to the often unfulfilled promise. Werther suggest that there are naysayers that ask how will you leverage the existing strategies. He believes in shifting the discussion to “talk about the kinds of things you’re trying to answer and the different insights you’re trying to bring together.” For Werther this involves exploring different types of behavioral analytics. Doubters tend to hold onto the idea “that you’re going to try to do that, even if you made the traditional stuff work in Hadoop land…when you get that you realize that that’s not success, you’ve recreated a model that has a lot of problems in it.”

Vellante also asks how customers are changing business processes. Werther believes the key is that data is a resource that can be combined with other areas so that Platfora is not simply trying to re-platform your reports.

Furrier asks about the business value Platfora offers its customers. Werther explains that companies typically have a Hadoop roadmap and plan. A strategy Platfora uses is to offer a demonstration against their data to show them what is possible concerning speed and democratization. Not only are Platfora solutions fast, but accessible to various users other than developers. He notes, “Most of existing solutions are not about people solving problems, low level plumbing for developers.”

Werther also reviews the typical customer support process. He explains, “We sell software, we run it on commodity servers that they’ll have on premise. Typically its to the point where they’ve usually got some data in Hadoop and they can start down a long process of trying to build something custom or they’re interested in coming to talk to us.”

The three conclude discussing business. Werther notes that Platfora raised two rounds of funding, the latter of which they received a $20 million investment. He notes that Platfora has seen the customer uptake that they wanted. They currently have space for 180 in their office and is focused on enhancing sales and customer success. Werther says, “We have a huge opportunity here. We have to move fast enough to keep up with interest.”