Study Reveals that SAS BI Costs Less

Organizations that deploy complete business intelligence (BI) platforms show lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than those that use solutions from multiple vendors.

This is the conclusion of a study conducted by the elite HEC School of Management in Paris researching costs of implementing a BI solution. Study results were announced at SAS Forum International in Geneva.

Counting total cost
The TCO concept measures costs related to the acquisition of a BI solution, its deployment and ongoing use. Responses from executives at 109 companies indicate that SAS customers have the lowest costs associated with their BI solution. The companies surveyed have deployed at least one BI solution from Business Objects, Cognos, SAP or SAS.

"When evaluating vendor offerings, it is important that organizations take initial software costs into consideration, but also the costs for maintaining and operating a solution, such as incremental consulting charges, the functionalities of each vendor's platform and their ability to scale," explains Professor Jean Loup Ardoin, who provided academic guidance to the MBA students who conducted the survey. "Of the four vendors evaluated, the student project group concluded that SAS shows the lowest TCO in the substantial IT projects."

This study also validates earlier research conducted by a team of students enrolled in the MBA program of Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. The results of this study were announced at the beginning of the year (see related story).

One vendor for BI
"The study endorses our strategy of offering an end-to-end and fully integrated BI platform to lower total cost of ownership," says Tonny Dierckx, Practice Head of Manufacturing at SAS International. "The average enterprise probably has 12 or more different business intelligence tools deployed to address specific requirements of various departments. This leads to duplication of spending and support."

SAS offers a business intelligence platform that provides the technology for the delivery of enterprise business intelligence services that are capable of delivering a range of products, tools and services to support information access and management requirements of users across the enterprise.

End-to-end functionality for CNAF
"After looking at the cost, we selected SAS as it offered end-to-end functionality," says Cyrille Broilliard, Director of the Decisional Computing System at CNAF, the French national social services program that allocates 50 billion Euros per year to more than 10 million beneficiaries (see related story). Broilliard adds that the integration capabilities provided by the platform allows cost optimizations in terms of internal resources, maintenance and capability that allowed CNAF to extend the project throughout the organization, spanning 123 agencies.

Organizations can rely on the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform integrate, store, analyze and report large volumes of data to manage customer relationships, supply chains, human capital or performance management. SAS is also used in the area of regulatory compliance for such programs as Basel II and Solvency II.