Stellar SAS performance in five-year study earns BI leader mention in New York Times best-seller

Breakthrough Company highlights business value behind SAS benefits

CARY, NC  (Jan. 30, 2008)  –  SAS makes analytical software that supports critical business decisions and life-altering research discoveries around the world. But its oft-reported corporate culture, highlighted on The Oprah Winfrey Show and CBS’ 60 Minutes , gets much of the limelight. Keith McFarland's new best-seller, Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers , suggests SAS should be equally known for its impressive customer focus and unparalleled growth. 

McFarland,a BusinessWeek columnist, gives readers insight into the business behind the benefits, shining a spotlight where SAS CEO Jim Goodnight wishes it would stay – on SAS’ relentless focus on serving and satisfying customers. 

“SAS owes its ‘breakthrough’ performance to high levels of employee commitment that leads to customer loyalty,” said Goodnight, who is quoted in the book along with SAS CIO Suzanne Gordon. “It is gratifying to have that story told in such a public way.”

McFarland, himself a former technology CEO, said, “Our research team could have spent a year at SAS and still not captured how truly unique this company is. Most business books are written by people who merely cherry-pick interesting companies to write about. In this book, companies weren’t simply chosen because they were interesting. SAS made it into the book because, when compared to the performance of more than 7,000 other growth companies over a 22-year period, its performance put it in the top nine performers.” 

The book, which debuted at No. 7 on the New York Times best-seller list, notes that only one-tenth of 1 percent of companies exceeds US$250 million in annual sales. SAS, with revenues exceeding $2 billion, is one of two software companies cited among a total of nine companies profiled. 

SAS’ success is contrasted with the modest growth of its analytics rival SPSS, and Goodnight criticizes another competitor for expecting payment to expedite technical support service. SAS provides its customers technical support, including 24/7 support for critical problems, as part of an annual license fee. 

McFarland spent five years building and analyzing the world’s largest growth-company performance database and interviewing hundreds of executives on four continents. SAS and eight other companies were found to best illustrate “breakthrough” dynamics. The profiled companies, averaging $900 million in annual sales, share four characteristics. Each company:

• Exhibits a sustained trajectory of growth in both revenues and profits.
• Is an industry sector leader in terms of products, customers and profits.
• Has reached “critical mass” of at least $250 million in annual sales.
• Is largely run by the same management team that was in charge when the breakthrough occurred.

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