SAS Institute and SAM (Systems Automation and Management) have announced a
comprehensive partnership, which both companies believe, will be mutually beneficial. Niall Walker, the Strategic Alliance manager at SAS Institute, says that SAS Institute has decided to embark on a comprehensive partnership programme where only qualifying partners will be considered.
"Our partnership programme supports our intention to grow business both locally and further into Africa. As such we are taking care to choose `blue chip` partners," says Walker. Michael Eksteen, business development director at SAM, explains that they are doing fairly unique things with SAS software. "We focus on the industrial manufacturing environment and we are using SAS software to analyse the production line to improve machine optimisation, efficiency and quality. Using SAS software we can assist
operational and engineering staff to assist the businessmen in their strategic decision making," he says. Their involvement with SAS software mostly originated from customers that have requested the customisation of software applications, for example, where they have wanted data analysis or needed analytical models.
"We researched the software market and found that SAS Institute met our customers` requirements. Instead of writing custom software, we found that we could implement most of the changes through a SAS Institute solution," he says. This partnership came into effect from the first of June this year.
Eksteen lists other advantages of the partnership with SAS Institute. These include the fact that SAM already have skilled and trained staff, and he adds that SAM is training additional staff on SAS Institute software. "SAS Institute have very good support in terms of being part of a large international company and have good skills in the European region," says Eksteen. "They also have a very good understanding, amongst others, of datawarehousing, business intelligence and data mining issues, and the fact
that they offer an end-to-end solution was attractive."
Walker explains that SAS Institute is continuously talking to potential partners and that existing partnerships are rigorously and regularly reviewed. A joint business plan is developed which forms the core of the partnership.
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