Business intelligence software vendor, Cognos, is on the hunt for more channel partners.

The vendor was acquired by IBM for $US5 billion last year. Since the acquisition, it had expanded its product portfolio, which represented a good opportunity to add more partners, Cognos marketing manager, David Merchant, said.

"We're looking to see who has the right skill sets," he said. "We don't want to flood the market because it becomes too hard for the partners that you already have, but we want to make sure we have partners that give us sufficient coverage in the market."

Locally, Cognos has 25 partners on its books. Merchant said he would like to attract partners that understand performance management, data integration and warehousing.

"They may also have specific skills in an industry like retail or government and other verticals that we're strong in like manufacturing, higher education and financial services," he said. "We're after partners that can bring something to the party, really add value and broaden our footprint in the market."

Merchant said partners will have access to a range of programs run between Cognos and IBM. Later on in the year, Merchant hinted the companies could look at integrating their channel programs.

"There's a wide range of programs that we're working on with our existing partners and we'll continue to enhance those as appropriate," he said. "We're not just going to run a program for the sake of it. It's got to be applicable and add value to the local partners and our business."