Charles Clark, chief executive at Rosslyn Data Technologies (LON:RDT), said today's contract with one of the globe's largest miners worth £400,000 represented a break-out into a "new and valuable" sector for the tech firm.
It was also a space the firm would look to grow further into.
Investors hailed the news from the Big Data specialist and shares rose today over 11% to 17.25p each.
Earlier, Rosslyn said the miner - a Fortune 500 firm - currently has data stored in multiple platforms with inconsistent quality and completeness.
"This is further complicated by the vast volume of data, the speed at which it is being added and the fact that the client's large and mobile workforce requires access to secure and timely information around the world".
He reckons it chose Rosslyn's RAPid platform over alternative products, due to its speed, scalability and data transformation capabilities.
Clark told Proactive: "The significance of this win is threefold – its represents a breakout into a new and valuable sector, underpins the value of the technology we have developed on the global stage for analytics and is further evidence of the momentum that we are building in the business."
He said there was a growing realisation among mining firms that they will have to start to be as agile as they possibly can be – although that was "tough due to their massive capital commitments".
"We expect to see more interest in this space as they modernise their operations – they have been so very rich up until recently there really hasn’t been a need to work on a shoe string – that is changing.".
"Management are spread out across the world and the decision in certain things needs to done more locally and that workforce is mobile.
“Elsewhere decisions that were traditionally made locally are where possible being made globally – procurement of insurance, chemicals.
“Data needs to flow up and down more efficiently and be in the hands of many many more people."
Rosslyn is now looking at how to leverage this "great step forward".
"Almost certainly we will be looking to partner with professional services firms that major in this space.
“One of the reasons this is necessary is the global nature of this vertical. For a small firm like us that would be a big ask."
Last month Rosslyn revealed it had won another contract with an unnamed Fortune 500 company that will see it replace its own analytics platform with Rosslyn’s RAPid Cloud-based system.
There will be four separate “deployments” of the application, although the AIM-listed group reckons there was scope to expand the co-operation.