SAS Spans the Performance Management Spectrum

At SAS Forum International in Geneva, SAS introduced a series of new and enhanced software as part of the company's performance management offering.

Also new to SAS is its way of communicating new offerings in the context of the latest developments in performance management.

"SAS software helps leaders not only understand what is going on in their organization, but also measure and align around goals, and predict the future state of operations to improve the performance of their organization," says Allan Russell, Senior Vice President for Strategy at SAS International. "So everything we do and ever have done is to support performance management, and we've always been taking it far beyond the pure financial view."

Covering every aspect of BI
SAS' latest amendments to its product suites come in the light of helping organizations drive business performance. These include four enhanced cross-industry solutions ranging from human capital management, financial management and activity-based management to strategic performance management. These enhancements are complemented by a new telco solution (see related story) and new capabilities for the banking and insurance industries.

Adaptations addressing the latest technology requirements round out SAS' latest product developments. With new capabilities in its Enterprise Intelligence Platform, SAS is the first technology vendor to supply a full spectrum of service-oriented architectures for every aspect of business intelligence (BI), including data, analytic, reporting and composite services for business areas.

Also, a new world record was set within a benchmark performed by Sun Microsystems and SAS: the tests reveal that SAS Enterprise Data Integration Server can outperform other vendors' ETL (extraction, transformation and loading) tools by more than 230 percent (see related story). These capabilities provide organizations with the flexibility, reliability and agility to respond quickly to new data integration requirements.

"The concept of performance management has evolved and is now about the ability to link enterprise planning and operational activities to corporate strategy that will influence business performance – and ultimately shapes success," Russell explains.

Enhanced intelligence solutions

• SAS Human Capital Management, which offers a holistic view of the work force, delivers enhanced analytics and refined user interfaces. The SAS Human Capital Management Adapter 4.2 for SAP leverages the business rules in SAP, helping to lower the cost of ownership through repeatable processes and enabling faster implementation.
• SAS Financial Management delivers instant consolidation so users can surface information in real time. Improved performance and scalability will help budget-preparers speed data entry and help managers more easily validate data. SAS Financial Management Adapter for SAP enables faster implementation by delivering predefined mapping between R/3 and SAS Financial Management.
• SAS Activity-Based Management is now integrated with the SAS Enterprise BI Server to enable powerful cost analysis and faster deployment of reports to those who need to separate cost from value drivers.
• SAS Strategic Performance Management now allows all content from the scorecard to be displayed via the portal, which lets executives and analysts monitor performance from any device. 

SAS strengthens vertical solutions 

• SAS Revenue Assurance for Telecommunications equips telcos with a way to identify and stop revenue loss caused by problems with business processes and technical issues.
• SAS Ratemaking for Insurance and SAS Customer Lifetime Value for Insurance are new solutions that enable insurers to effectively carry out targeted strategies, maximize profits, retain and grow customer accounts, manage risk and execute efficient marketing campaigns.
• The SAS Banking Intelligence suite now includes enhanced cross-sell and up-sell functionality, as well as upgraded solutions for customer retention and customer segmentation. 
• In the risk management market, SAS is rounding out its offering for financial institutions with a new version of its software for credit risk management, credit scoring and operational risk. 

Customer investments in SAS pay off
"We are strongly positioned to meet increasing demand for performance management, because of our breadth and depth of offerings across business lines and industries – all built on an enterprise intelligence platform," says Jim Davis, Chief Marketing Officer at SAS, noting that recent independent research commissioned by SAS validates the company's strategy.

The HEC School of Management in Paris recently conducted a study, interviewing executives at 109 European organizations to assess total cost of ownership (TCO) of four vendors' BI platforms. Of the four, SAS was found to have the most scalable and cost-effective platform, despite managing the greatest volumes of data and serving the largest average number of users (see related story).

Analyst firm IDC published a study revealing that leaders of key markets in Europe rely on BI to achieve better performance and return on investment (ROI) from their marketing campaigns (see related story). IDC surveyed 350 companies in seven countries and across four vertical markets. Marketing organizations that invest and efficiently use BI achieved better financial results and higher ROI.

New SAS solutions and product upgrades will help businesses report, manage and improve organizational performance.