Family Dollar Uses SAS Merchandise Planning to Accelerate Its Company-Wide Transformation

SAS® Merchandise Financial Planning, SAS® Assortment Planning Help Family Dollar
Make Better Decisions Quickly in Challenging Economy
EXPO, N.Y.--(Business Wire)--
Family Dollar, a Fortune 500 retailer with more than 6,600 stores and $6.8
billion in annual revenues, is in the midst of "Project Accelerate," a
three-year transformation that ultimately will lead to a better shopping
experience for customers, improved productivity of its inventory, and enhanced
efficiency in its supply chain. At the heart of Family Dollar`s transformation
are merchandise planning applications from SAS, the leader in business
analytics.

"We view our relationship with SAS as one of our most strategic partnerships,"
said Mike Laurenti, Vice President of IT Solutions and Delivery for Family
Dollar. "We made a conscious decision to work only with best-in-class companies
as we began transforming Family Dollar. SAS is the leader in this space, and
their applications are key to helping Family Dollar achieve success in our key
initiatives."

To power Project Accelerate, Family Dollar invested in software from the SAS®
Merchandise Intelligence suite including SAS® Merchandise Financial Planning and
SAS® Merchandise Assortment Planning. More than 100 Family Dollar employees
began using SAS Merchandise Financial Planning in August 2007. The retailer has
initiated a roll out of SAS Merchandise Assortment Planning that will continue
throughout 2009.

"SAS enables the Family Dollar merchandising organization to quickly create
integrated merchandise financial plans we can share and adjust collaboratively
on an almost real-time basis," said Scott Zucker, Vice President of Merchandise
Operations for Family Dollar.

"With the current economy, it is important for us to make inventory adjustments
quickly to minimize `discretionary` risk and maximize `basic needs`
opportunities," said Zucker. "During 2008, the SAS Merchandise Financial
Planning solution enabled us to adjust our merchandise assortments much more
quickly than in the past. This allowed us to make immediate investments in the
consumable categories that our customers need most during these difficult times.
Our strong fourth quarter results from June to August in 2008 reflect this mix
shift away from more discretionary merchandise."

To nimbly leverage the eight terabytes of data underpinning Family Dollar`s
transformation, the retailer chose to deploy the applications on a powerful
Windows 64-bit platform with a distributed architecture. The platform provides
Family Dollar with needed flexibility and scalability combined with
significantly reduced overall deployment costs.

In addition to Family Dollar, SAS retail customers include AutoZone, Bakers
Footwear, Brooks Brothers, Burger King, Cabela`s, Carrefour, Casino, Casual
Male, The Children`s Place, Eddie Bauer, Hallmark, Hudson`s Bay Company,
JCPenney, Kohl`s, Luxottica Retail, Macy`s, Mark`s Work Wearhouse, Marks &
Spencer, Northern Tool & Equipment, Office Depot, Sainsbury`s, ShopKo, Sport
Chalet, Spiegel Brands, Staples, Tesco, Tween Brands, Waitrose, Williams-Sonoma
and 1-800-FLOWERS.COM.

To learn more about Family Dollar`s transformation, attend the NRF Big Ideas
Session led by Scott Zucker on Monday, Jan. 12, starting at 1:45 p.m. (Eastern)
in Room No. 3D08 in the Javits Convention Center in New York City.

For more information about SAS® Retail Intelligence Solutions, visit
http://www.sas.com/industry/retail. SAS is demonstrating its retail intelligence
solutions at the NRF 98th Annual Show and EXPO in Booth 1337.

About Family Dollar

Operating small store locations, Family Dollar is one of the fastest growing
discount retail chains in the United States. Family Dollar offers a core
assortment of name brand and quality consumable merchandise supplemented by
fashion and seasonal merchandise at everyday low prices.

Beginning with one store in 1959 in Charlotte, N.C., the company currently
operates more than 6,600 stores in 44 states. Family Dollar, Inc., a Fortune 500
company, is based in Matthews, N.C., just outside Charlotte and is a publicly
held company with common stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the
symbol FDO. For more information, please visit www.familydollar.com.

About SAS

SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest
independent vendor in the business intelligence market. Through innovative
solutions delivered within an integrated framework, SAS helps customers at more
than 45,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better
decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving customers around the world The
Power to Know®.

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered
trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries.
indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of
their respective companies.Copyright © 2009 SAS Institute Inc. All rights
reserved.

SAS
Laura Fleek Brumley, Laura.Brumley@sas.com
Office: 214-349-6296
Cell: 214-762-0921
Visit the SAS Press Center
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Copyright Business Wire 2009