The SAS Intelligence Value Chain: Bringing analytics into BI

Companies and industry and financial analysts all recognise a trend towards increased investment in software that gives insight into historic corporate performance and allows companies to better plan future strategy. This trend is driven by a number of factors including increasing product commoditisation (which has driven a requirement for better customer differentiation), market volatility and a heightened need for financial transparency in a post-Enron world.

Equally recognised by analysts is the fact that the query and reporting tools that some have labelled "business intelligence" are not up to the task of generating the intelligence necessary to run the business. Analytical technology - especially predictive analytics - is key to ensuring quality intelligence that results in quality business decisions.

Vertical packaged applications are important to give companies a fast track to intelligence, as well as a fast return on investment. Finally, data preparation - including extraction from transactional and operational systems and transforming into a format suitable for analysis - and storage that is suited to high volumes of queries are essential to ensure that quality data is available as the basis of analysis.

SAS is the only vendor of business intelligence software able to provide technology and solutions that deliver proven value across the whole process of generating intelligence - which SAS calls the Intelligence Value Chain - as well as domain expertise that is delivered through SAS methodologies, models and packaged industry solutions.

One area that clearly demonstrates SAS's dominance in the emerging next generation of enterprise business intelligence is analytics. As mentioned above, analysts and companies have recognised that sophisticated, predictive analytics are crucial to and organisation's success, and to getting the most out of its data resources.

Many software companies, particularly ERP vendors like SAP AG and database vendors like Oracle, are rushing to reposition their operational or transactional offerings with a veneer of analytics. These so-called analytics, like that offered by the BI tools vendors such as Business Objects, Cognos and Informatica, are usually nothing more than a series of canned reports -- not the sort of analytics that a company should bet its business on. SAS, on the other hand, offers the broadest array and depth of analytical intelligence and data mining capabilities in the form of predictive and descriptive modelling, text mining, optimisation, simulation, forecasting, and spatial analysis, among others. Combined with SAS's quarter century of data management and data warehousing expertise, these analytics give organisations an unmatched enterprise business intelligence foundation on which to build and grow their business.

"Generating intelligence that will drive the business forward is a complex process that requires more than the query and reporting tools that some have labelled 'business intelligence'. As the next generation of enterprise-wide business intelligence emerges, companies will seek proven technologies that leverage existing investments -- in hardware, ERP systems and database software. They look for vertical packaged solutions that offer rapid return on investment while meeting the unique needs of their industry. And they want a vendor that can provide and support integrated and flexible technologies across the whole intelligence value chain -- from extraction to storage, to query and reporting to advanced analytics. SAS is that vendor," said Jim Goodnight, SAS president and CEO.

The new release of SAS software, Version 9, offers a number of enhancements that optimise SAS software to meet the needs of enterprise computing in an environment of increasing data and user volumes.

Version 9 is built on the four cornerstones of usability, manageability, interoperability and scalability. A new Java-based interface will streamline the consistent look and feel of SAS and extend user access capabilities. Version 9 also will centralise the administration to provide a flexible and efficient entry point when maintaining and launching SAS applications. The highly compatible and interoperable Version 9 platform environment expands SAS' continued support of open standards. With this improved foundation, SAS can augment and adapt to address an organisation's dynamic technology environment.

New industry solutions - initially for telecommunications and banking -- provide a portfolio of industry-specific packaged applications, embedded domain expertise and an extendable underlying architecture. Applications initially available include credit scoring, customer retention and segmentation, cross- and up-selling and marketing automation, as well as a strategic performance management application that helps organisations track their overall performance.

In addition, SAS's enterprise BI offering is strengthened by new industry intelligence models that map business entities and processes within a specific industry and provide analytical models for generating intelligence that can be used to increase customer profitability, such as likelihood of purchase, likelihood of attrition and channel preferences. These models, which are available as part of the industry solutions, reduce the requirements and design phase of a project by up to 90%, giving a fast track to return on investment.