State Auto Selects SAS Enterprise BI Server

Providing superior insurance products at competitive prices and quality customer service have been hallmarks of State Auto since its beginnings in 1921. Now, the insurer is turning to SAS to provide its primary analytic and business intelligence (BI) solutions.

Using SAS analytic tools and the SAS Enterprise BI Server component, State Auto will fine-tune its ability to utilize company data as a corporate asset, leading to greater efficiency and helping control costs.

Building on proven success
Selected this year by Forbes magazine as the Best Managed Company in the insurance industry, State Auto focuses solely on serving independent agency partners, whose trust the company must continue to earn through sound pricing, stellar customer service and smooth business relations.

With SAS, State Auto plans to use data-driven analytics and key performance indicators to build upon its proven success. Executives aspire to provide continuous improvement in their ability to use corporate and third-party data for the pricing process, customer and analytic research programs, sound daily management of results, and increased data management efficiency. Also, they need powerful analytics within an organizational dashboard to help employees see quickly how their roles contribute to the company's overall goals.

"SAS is generally known to have among the best analytics available," says Kim Bailey, Vice President of Information Resources Division at State Auto. "Now, SAS' leadership extends to the business intelligence environment with SAS Enterprise BI Server. This solution addresses our goals by giving us the ability use common data access tools to work with our data assets from an analytics and a business intelligence perspective. We believe we can harness the prowess of SAS analytics on top of a common, easy-to-use business intelligence foundation."

Reducing costs, increasing customer retention
State Auto takes pride in doing business with steadfast integrity and appreciates the rock-solid reputation that SAS strives to uphold through its financial stability and commitment to its customers. This is best demonstrated through SAS' generous investment in research and development.

"Through our research, we heard very positive feedback from a variety of SAS customers and from peers in our industry," says Bailey. "Our staff is impressed with the skills and abilities, integrity, and work ethic of the SAS employees we've partnered with. We are confident that our implementation needs are well addressed."

Through the comprehensive business intelligence solution offered by SAS, State Auto expects to reduce total ownership costs by improving the ease of accessing and reviewing results throughout the company. Company executives expect to utilize the power of SAS to enhance the use of data as a strategic asset. Also, they expect to better serve the company's independent agencies and increase customer retention by developing a more comprehensive view of the customer experience.

"State Auto's goal is to use SAS to consistently improve upon our already demonstrated excellent business results," Bailey explains. "The valuable intelligence that SAS Enterprise BI Server provides will help us achieve our company data analytic initiatives. Eventually, we also hope to share this data with our agency partners to help them obtain better insight into their results."

End-to-end BI
SAS differentiates itself from conventional BI vendors by providing unmatched technology and expertise in advanced analytics, data management and tailored solutions for specific industries, such as banking, insurance, life sciences, manufacturing and retail.

SAS offers a fast, simple and complete solution that integrates analytics to supply insight and hindsight through historical reports while forecasting future outcomes, providing greater insight and foresight. With these capabilities, SAS gives users at all levels immediate access to cleansed and reliable data through targeted user interfaces that match the skill level of any individual user.

State Auto will use data-driven analytics and key performance indicators to build upon its proven success.