With the economy finally turning around, European marketing organisations are turning to SAS's global customer intelligence expertise and industry-specific market experience to ready themselves for better times.
"We expect the South African economic situation to mirror that of Europe," says Bill Hoggarth, managing director at SAS Institute South Africa.
Hoggarth points out that every industry sector from financial services to manufacturing and retail to telecommunications in Europe is seeking the ability to analyse large volumes of data from numerous contact channels to predict complex customer behaviours and drive profitable sales.
"Last year, this need for more precise information drove demand for the depth of SAS's business domain expertise and the breadth of its proven solutions," comments Hoggarth.
SAS Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions allow companies to easily manage and deliver sophisticated, personalised and relevant communications to customers at the right time.
Using quality data, marketers can better analyse, segment, profile and target customers, resulting in superior marketing campaigns and customer profitability. This allows marketing organisations to clearly demonstrate increased sales and provide an improved return on their marketing cost.
Phil Winters, vice-president of customer intelligence for SAS International, says that regardless of the industry, the challenge remains the same: acquiring customers in the most cost-effective manner, retaining profitable customers and growing their value.
"As organisations prepare for the economic rebound, they are turning to SAS for the deep insight and breadth of solutions that one-size-fits-all ERP [enterprise resource planning] vendors and financially weaker operational CRM vendors don't have," he adds.
In Europe, a wide range of clients from various industries is using SAS customer intelligence software. In the financial services sector, these include Erste Bank (Austria), Fortis (Belgium), and ING Direct (France), as well as Fiat Auto (Italy) in manufacturing.
In telecommunications, SAS clients include Hutchinson 3G (Austria), Moscow City Telephone Network (Russia), and Vodafone (Italy). The retail sector comprises Loyalty Management (UK) and Monoprix (France), while publishing clients include Hjemmet Mortensen (Norway), Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt (Germany), and Sanoma-Uitgevers (Netherlands).
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