SAS Institute MD Bill Hoggarth says apart from the company's product offering, the SAS licensing and business model gives it a unique place in the business intelligence software industry by embracing the principles of risk-sharing and phased investment.
[VIDEO]Hoggarth told the closing session of this year's SAS Forum at SAS head office in Houghton, Johannesburg this week, that despite the turbulence of the industry, the company has grown consistently and profitably for the past 27 years.
"That says to our user base and to those organisations looking to us to be a business partner that we are here for the long-term."
Having detailed some SAS core competencies with validations by analysts and customers, Hoggarth told delegates that the SAS investment in SA was testimony to the company's stability and indicated a great commitment to providing local support and services.
Hoggarth also praised the company's latest suite of business intelligence (BI) tools. "On the comprehensive BI platform, we are incredibly proud of SAS9, which reaffirms our differentiation in the marketplace as being able to handle the end-to-end process of converting data to intelligence," he said.
Responding to informal feedback at the SAS Forum that customers were often not aware of the range of solutions SAS provided, Hoggarth said steps would be taken to correct this, "especially across the whole complex area of enterprise performance management".
After two days of briefings on various aspects of the SAS solution set - like new addition, Activity-Based Management, and success stories from SAS customers such as SAB, Liberty Group, Old Mutual, Eskom, FNB and De Beers - Hoggarth added a personal endorsement.
He said working for SAS enabled him to sell software he knew worked and delivered the value customers expected. "Our strongest commitment to our customers is to produce quality software that works, that delivers year in, year out."
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