Leading the Way in BI

There’s a lot of noise from other software vendors about "business intelligence," or "BI" – but look closely: BI is not what many of them are offering. They’re offering a tactical, often cobbled-together approach to query-and-reporting tools that simply looks at historical data.

The gaps in the BI software that simple query-and-reporting vendors offer are crucial to the success of BI in an enterprise. Specifically, these BI vendors lack the complete offering that SAS brings to market, especially in the areas of ETL, data quality and predictive analytics.

How SAS stacks up ...
SAS provides the industry’s most comprehensive offering, complete with easy point-and-click reports, while at the same time delivering more breadth and depth than other conventional BI vendors. Here’s what sets SAS apart:

• SAS can get to virtually any data source – no matter where it is – and move it as needed. SAS is neutral when it comes to data sources, allowing users to access virtually any data in any location and move it to more optimal locations if necessary.
  
  
• SAS is No. 1 in the combined data integration, BI and analytics market. SAS takes customers Beyond BI^TM by including data integration capabilities and analytics with BI for true business intelligence. SAS is a leading data integration vendor and the undisputed leader in analytics.
  
  
• With 30 years of experience in BI and 26 percent of its $1.53 billion in revenue reinvested in R&D, SAS is dedicated to developing the best BI solutions for customers. SAS invests this much in R&D as part of its continuing focus on customers, helping them solve their most critical business problems.
  
  
• SAS is not for sale and will continue to provide consistent and reliable BI solutions with no interruption in service.

To sum up, SAS sees the value of delivering a comprehensive, analytics-powered platform to businesses, a platform that also provides users with easy, fast and simple access to information. Other software vendors are just beginning to understand the significance of providing end-to-end capabilities and the power of analytics – and SAS is too far down the road for them to catch up.

What analysts are saying ...
SAS consistently receives industry recognition as a leader in business intelligence, because SAS’ offerings are light years ahead of other BI vendors' talk of "drill, sort, filter and rank" as "analytics."

Leading industry analyst firm, Gartner has ranked SAS as the No. 2 business intelligence vendor based on 2004 new license sales, with 15.8 percent of the BI market share (see related story).

Research from other major analyst firms including AMR, Bloor, Butler, Forrester and IDC also rank SAS a leading vendor in the BI market (see analyst quotes and reports).

Unlike other vendors, SAS provides end-to-end enterprise intelligence that empowers our customers to answer even the most complex business questions, resulting in reduced costs, new opportunities and greater profitability. No other vendor can provide the full spectrum of technologies, solutions and expertise required to truly maximize the use of information as a critical corporate asset.

But don’t take our word for it – see what our customers are saying …
"SAS brings to the table in-depth analysis, text mining and other capabilities we need now. Our use of SAS business intelligence tools helps Whirlpool bring new innovations to our customers more quickly and in ways that create real brand value. Our application of these tools is another example of Whirlpool’s continuing efforts to differentiate itself in a competitive global industry."
– John Kerr, general manager of quality and OPEX with Whirlpool Appliances, North America

"We needed to update our system to handle the increasing number of ad hoc analytical requests we were receiving. The SAS Enterprise BI Server meets the needs of our growing organization. We can now get the right information to the right people in a timely manner that enables them to make more strategic decisions based on predictive intelligence rather than historical information."
– Mark Friedman, chief marketing officer at Redcats USA

"Cutting-edge technology may be a cliché term, but that’s exactly what our clients expect from COMSYS and that’s what we received from SAS Enterprise BI Server – fast, accurate, predictive information that provides the competitive advantage we need."
– Mark Bierman, senior vice president and CIO of COMSYS

"SAS’ BI enhancements will greatly contribute to our internal patient review process and could speed up the decision-making process, which is critical in the biopharmaceutical industry where time is money. Providing our doctors and scientists with easy access to the latest business intelligence tools from SAS that link directly to advanced analytics should allow them to make more highly informed decisions and take quicker actions."
– George Hage, associate director of statistical programming at OSI Pharmaceuticals

"Now that we have expanded our use of SAS and added the SAS Enterprise BI Server platform, Tekelec is capable of making the logical progression from making decisions based largely on intuition to being a fact-based, decision-making organization. We are experiencing an impressive return on investment, and we project that the business intelligence enhancements under way will generate millions of dollars in operational savings."
– Angela Hall, senior quality engineer at Tekelec

"To continue our ongoing success in strengthening the ability of individuals and companies to stay connected locally, nationally and globally, we needed to better understand the needs of our customers. To successfully achieve this goal required a robust and integrated solution, and, based on our research, SAS was the only provider in the marketplace with an integrated business intelligence offering."
-- Gabriel Toichoa, director of pricing and modeling for Canada Post

"With the SAS Enterprise BI Server, we will be able to reduce the complexity of our BI architecture, providing information on every aspect of Frankfurt International Airport’s operations. By consolidating our BI applications, we significantly reduce the cost for providing reports to various business departments. The integrated business intelligence environment will also reduce reporting cycles – better meeting business users’ information needs."
– Dr. Roland Krieg, senior vice president of information and telecommunication for Germany-based Fraport AG

"We have been using SAS for years for its sophisticated analytics. They’ve added some nice enhancements with SAS BI Server, and we can now provide high-end multiple query and reporting interfaces for different types of users at both the business and IT levels. By successfully combining these analytic capabilities with reporting, OLAP and other conventional BI tools, SAS has made it easy for us by providing a helpful solution on one single, comprehensive platform."
– Christophe Ponsart, marketing information system manager at France-based Sofinco