SAS Forecast Server Shipping Globally

Accurate forecasts allow managers to reduce supply chain costs, respond quickly to dynamic market changes and meet performance objectives better. For organizations that need to automate large numbers of forecasts without sacrificing accuracy, SAS is now shipping our award-winning SAS® Forecast Server softwareto customers globally.

Increasing operational efficiency
"Inaccurate forecasts result in higher costs and missed opportunities. SAS Forecast Server helps companies increase operational efficiency and improve corporate performance," says Anne Milley, SAS director of technology product marketing. "The beauty of this offering is its ability to produce large-scale, automatic and high-quality forecasts."

"The entire organization benefits from greater forecast accuracy," continues Milley. "SAS Forecast Server delivers cutting-edge forecasting capabilities including large-scale, automatic model creation and optimization, which no other vendor can offer in a combined package."

Gaining competitive advantages
According to a January 25, 2005, Alert, "How Do I Know That I Have a Good Forecast?" by Lora Cecere of AMR Research, "Forecast accuracy is the most important and advantageous supply chain metric. According to our benchmarking research, a one-point improvement in demand forecast accuracy could yield a two-point improvement in perfect order performance. Organizations with better forecasts gain competitive advantage with a 35% shorter cash-to-cash cycle time."

Automated, accurate models
Patent-pending SAS Forecast Server automatically chooses the best forecasting model, optimizes the model parameters and produces the forecasts, even accounting for seasonality and intermittent data, both of which are common in many industries.

As an example, graphical displays offer retailers an understanding of the effects of holidays, marketing events, sales promotions and unexpected events such as weather, thus improving their ability to plan effective sales promotion and marketing events. The resulting forecasts better reflect the business and require less overriding and fewer manual interventions so decision makers can trust the accuracy of the forecasts.

"Telstra managers and senior leaders want accurate forecasts," says Terry Simmonds, national manager for strategy and marketing analysis at Telstra Country Wide. "No other software but SAS could cope with the volumes of forecasts required to predict Telstra Country Wide’s customer revenue. We selected SAS Forecast Server because SAS can do everything we need, including data integration, BI reporting and analytics. The reports that formerly took three to four weeks to accomplish, SAS now accomplishes in one day."

Product of the year winner
Already a favorite with users, SAS Forecast Server was named one of the "Trend-Setting Products of the Year for 2005" by KMWorld magazine (read related story), highlighting innovative products that make a significant impact on the marketplace. SAS provides an integrated, open and extensible enterprise intelligence platform that serves as the foundation for creating and delivering accurate, in-depth intelligence.