Bad Times or Good, SAS® Business Analytics Vital to Competitiveness

New Enhancements to SAS Data Integration, Analytics and Reporting Capabilities
Add Even More Value
WASHINGTON--(Business Wire)--
Proactive companies are doing more than just staying afloat in the current
global economic downturn. They are relying on the predictive power of SAS®
Business Analytics software to identify opportunities and position themselves
for the eventual economic recovery.

Executives are already aware of what has happened and what is happening-from
tight credit and relentless pricing pressure to the perils of unforeseen risk.
Using SAS, they are gaining a clearer view of what will happen, so they can move
quickly and confidently when the economic pendulum eventually swings the other
way.

Significant enhancements within the SAS Business Analytics framework announced
today provide business benefits such as: extending the power of SAS to new
non-technical users; achieving insight much faster as conditions change;
increasing collaboration across diverse business units; and maximizing
organizational efficiencies. The result is increased profitability whether
economic winds are blowing hot or cold.

"Our customers know this economic environment won`t last forever and they know a
turnaround is an opportunity to surge ahead," said Jim Davis, SAS Senior Vice
President and Chief Marketing Officer. "The SAS Business Analytics Framework
provides the depth of software, services and best practices to capitalize on new
opportunities ahead of competitors."

Adding elements as needed

The SAS Business Analytics Framework, from the leader in business analytics,
provides a powerful blend of data integration, analytics and reporting
capabilities. These core technologies are imbedded in SAS` ever-expanding range
of industry and line-of-business solutions. Organizations can quickly address
their most immediate business issues, and then expand their use of SAS
capabilities over time to achieve continuous performance improvements.

Waitrose, the UK grocer known for quality and service, has grown to depend on
SAS Business Analytics.

"We need to be able to support almost 200 Waitrose branches and their ordering,
including predicting demand and enabling accurate replenishment even during
special events and promotions," said Gail Richmond, Waitrose Manager Branch
Ordering Development.

"Our use of SAS business analytics allows us to continually evolve our
capabilities as we determine new requirements. With ever more accurate and
comprehensive forecasting through SAS business analytics, our managers now have
more time to spend focusing on customer service and satisfaction," she said.

One size fits nobody

"Evidence-based decision making is taking root in all types and sizes of
enterprises as they are driven to retain customers, find appropriate cost
savings and comply with regulatory issues," said Dan Vesset, Program Vice
President, Business Analytics Solutions, for IDC. "We continue to observe
growing positive evidence of business analytics solutions' impact on
organizational competitiveness and performance."

Vesset notes that query and reporting tools, often referred to as Business
Intelligence (BI) software, are important, but are only one part of the broader
business analytics platform that includes data warehousing, advanced analytics
tools, and packaged applications. "One-size-fits-all, rarely, if ever, solves
all business analytics needs."

In the overcrowded Business Intelligence market, vendor strategies are "as
indistinguishable as polar bears in a blizzard," wrote Forrester Senior Analyst
James Kobielus in a February post to the Forrester blog for Information and
Knowledge Management professionals."1
Kobielus sees enterprises seeking to consolidate their analytics
environments to a few key analytics vendors, among them SAS, who enhance core BI
with data warehousing, data mining, data quality and other solutions.

"Where SAS and some other vendors are concerned, another key differentiator
that`s helping them stay strong is emphasis on BI`s chief growth segments: most
notably, advanced analytics, which encompasses predictive analytics, data
mining, and text mining/analytics. Deep domain expertise and customer intimacy
are also keys to vendor growth in advanced analytics," Kobielus wrote.

Joshua Chan, General Manager, Competitive Strategy and Planning, CSL Ltd., Hong
Kong`s first mobile telephone operator and a subsidiary of Telstra, said, "SAS
gives us a comprehensive business analytics solution. We deploy SAS for customer
analyses including customer segmentation, profiling and ongoing behavior
tracking for understanding and predicting customer preference and changing
usage. Such customer intelligence is absolutely crucial to us for designing
targeted marketing programs to increase hit rate and efficiency."

Today`s announcement of enhancements to SAS data integration, analytics and
reporting capabilities, came at SAS Global Forum, the largest annual SAS users
group conference, attended by more than 3,000 business and IT users of SAS®
software and solutions.

SAS® Data Integration

SAS Data Integration enhancements help organizations to efficiently wring more
value from their data resources. Enhanced performance tuning and monitoring,
easier debugging and a more intuitive GUI are among the features providing
improved cross-enterprise collaboration, ease of use, processing speed and
integrated analysis.

For example, a new Code Analyzer imports existing SAS code and converts it into
a graphical data integration process flow. This provides a migration path for
complex, valuable programs developed over years. Resulting visual programming
solutions allow business analysts or others who don`t write code to maintain
legacy code.

"We really enjoyed the new user interface with new smart features around
propagation and mapping, job management, and monitoring within SAS Data
Integration," said Sonia Ruault, Business Intelligence Manager at Pacifica. The
insurance subsidiary of Crédit Agricole uses an advance copy of products within
the SAS Business Analytics Framework. "The job manageability and debugging
capabilities are impressive. We expect time reductions of at least 25 percent to
get data integration flows into production."

SAS® Analytics

Improvements to SAS Analytics, including SAS® Enterprise Miner and SAS® Forecast
Server, add additional power to these popular applications.

SAS Enterprise Miner provides rapid answers to key business questions, helping
decision makers react quickly to volatile conditions. New algorithms, such as
Least Angle Regression (LAR) and Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator
(LASSO) algorithms, provide more efficient, step-by-step treatment of variables
than classical stepwise regression methods on new data sets. This reduces large
sets of variables to smaller subsets, generating better results in fraud
detection, warranty analysis, clinical drug trials, database marketing and other
applications.

SAS Forecast Server includes a new point-and-click Scenario Analyzer that lets
planners ask "what if?" Viewing likely impacts of proposed changes to pricing,
promotions or other factors affecting demand helps companies meet customer
demand, enhance supply chain efficiencies and boost profitability.

Eric Sandosham, Director of Decision Management, Citibank Singapore, said,
"We`re probably the industry leaders in terms of analytics. Innovation came
because we wanted to better understand and serve our customers in a highly
competitive marketplace: We needed different ways to reach out to customers and
grow share of wallet. Ten years ago, we started investing in a business
analytics platform. Our solution of choice is SAS."

SAS® Reporting

SAS Reporting enhancements expand information use to a wider community within an
enterprise, promoting a culture of fact-based decision making. With new features
such as Microsoft SharePoint integration, high-impact and engaging Flash-based
interactivity and other user-centric capabilities, smarter and more valuable
intelligence is available to users within familiar environments. This is
achieved with less administrative overhead and reduced reliance on IT or other
support organizations.

"SAS Business Analytics enables more detailed and reliable analysis than before
while allowing us to estimate the effectiveness of initiatives with customers,
dealers, and product families. SAS` unique framework lets us address strategic
decisions sensibly, increasing our overall business success," said Roberto
Debbi, ICT Project Manager Reporting, Heineken Italia. The beverage company in
Italy uses SAS® Enterprise BI Server, SAS® Enterprise Guide® and several other
SAS products to monitor sales and service performance, to track purchasing, to
improve reporting and to establish effective sales strategies.

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.

1. "Is BI Recession-Proof...or Are We Just Bracing for the Next Shoe to Drop?"
Forrester Research, Inc., Feb. 4, 2008

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SAS
Steve Polilli, steve.polilli@sas.com
Office: 919- 531-2979
Mobile: 919-632-1890
Visit the SAS Press Center
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Copyright Business Wire 2009