SAS Institute South Africa recently organised an educational conference for SAS users at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in Pretoria.
The half-day seminar, which was also broadcast to HSRC attendees in Cape Town and Durban, was held to create an awareness of the SAS training and support available, and to demonstrate to HSRC users how to get the most our of their software.
Some of the industry experts speaking at the event included Goran Dragosavac from SAS South Africa, Ronelle Brandt from Stats SA and Hans de Roos from Octoplus Information Solutions.
The meeting was also designed to provide networking opportunities between users and experts. By providing support to clients in this manner, delegates were able to address issues and queries using a face-to-face and intimate approach.
"I really believe this event is a step towards building a strong relationship with HSRC," says Lydia Mogoboe, Account Executive on the HSRC account with SAS, who also organised the successful event.
"Because SAS has a strong local and global presence we can provide excellent support, and our users also gain the benefit of our proven track record," says Dragosavac, National Product Manager for Analytics at SAS. "The fact that SAS software is present in about 99% of the Fortune 500 companies speaks for itself."
The HSRC is primarily concerned with humanities and social science research; it currently employs around 165 researchers working on projects regarding human and social development. Due to the fact that the HSRC research concentrates on statistics, efficient data analyses and visualisation IT tools are vital to achieving significant and accurate results.
Ronelle Brandt, the Quality and Methodology Manager at Stats SA, was able to explain the full potential of SAS software, specifically relating to statistical analysis.
"Stats SA was one of the first users of SAS in South Africa and we have maintained a successful relationship ever since," adds Brandt. "SAS software is responsible for improving our turnaround time on statistical results from three months down to ten minutes."
"The awareness day was a resounding success," ends Rabindra Laldaparsad, Senior Network Engineer at HSRC. "The fact that the speakers had gone to the extent of using sample data, which our customers could identify with, really brought out the true power of SAS."
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