Another Silver Anniversary

SAS marks its first 25 years in Europe

In 1980, organizations were struggling to produce business information with COBOL. Punch cards were still in use and "reporting" meant producing stacks of greenbar paper, which sometimes took hours to print. Even back then, SAS helped customers cut through the numbers to quickly gain useful information, and the slogan SAS used was "SAS Saves Time."

Recently, sascom interviewed three members of the founding staff at SAS International: Art Cooke, President; Allan Russell, Senior Vice President of Strategy; and Ginny Roehner, Manager of Properties and Facilities.

Art Cooke, what were some of the most significant milestones in the past 25 years and what have these meant to the European markets as a whole? It's quite a different world now, isn't it?

Art Cooke: Yes, it certainly is a different world! Over the last quarter-century, we've seen some dramatic changes in the world, including the end of the Cold War, the reunification of Germany, the fall of apartheid and now the Black Economic Empowerment movement in South Africa, the expansion of the European Union (EU) most recently to include Eastern Europe, the rise of the ERPs (enterprise resource planning systems) and Y2K, numerous global economic booms and downturns, the advent of the single European currency, and the emergence of India and China as global players. SAS has never been more relevant.

For instance, the deregulation trends for public utilities and telecommunications have placed incumbent providers in a precarious position as new market entrants struggle to provide better service and selection to gain market share. For these competitors, strategic intelligence has been a key differentiator.

Likewise, we recognized early on that the Basel II Capital Accord represented both significant headaches for banks in terms of compliance, but also significant potential advantages in terms of reduced capital requirements through more effective risk management. SAS developed solutions specifically for financial institutions to address and go beyond the legal requirements of Basel II. For the insurance industry, Solvency II requirements will mirror these developments.

In the public sector, as the EU continues to expand, SAS is supporting new member states to meet the regulatory reporting requirements in a variety of areas. Indeed, the EU itself has chosen SAS as a strategic vendor to meet many of its intelligence needs including analyzing and improving how its Web site is utilized so that the EU can more effectively communicate to the public. (see related success story)

One indicator of how much Europe and SAS have changed is our annual customer conference. Over time, it has grown from being a user's group (SEUGI), which originally attracted mainly programmers and statisticians, into the premier international event for enterprise intelligence – SAS Forum International, where both audience and content now reflect the much broader intelligence strategy required by organizations.

Allan Russell, in light of these events in Europe, could you describe how SAS has not only survived but grown to be the $1.53 billion global company it is today?

Allan Russell: From the very beginning, our customer approach has been very one-to-one. In each case, we endeavor to truly listen to what our customers' business pains are, so that we can deliver exactly what they need and work with them through and beyond the implementation. The needs of our customers have evolved as their hardware and software have evolved from the days of the mainframe to "client-sever" environments, to Unix and currently to open Web-based environments. Evolution can be harsh, so we offer ongoing support to ensure that our customers gain the maximum return on intelligence (ROI).

SAS has accumulated a great deal of industry-specific expertise. For 25 years, we have been there, working alongside our European customers as their IT infrastructures have evolved. In tandem, our product strategy has evolved to meet market needs. We continually refine our research and development to meet the current and future needs of our customers on a per industry basis.

Back then, we offered analysis, query and reporting tools – all cutting-edge in their time. Now, SAS offers an integrated enterprise intelligence platform and customized industry-specific solutions to address those unique challenges.

Many modern trends in data management began within SAS' European offices, including OLAP and EIS, data warehousing, financial intelligence, leveraging ERP systems (such as SAP), and Basel II, as Art described earlier. Being privately held has allowed us to focus on the long-term development of these technologies and solutions to satisfy our customers, rather than on satisfying investors and stock analysts. It's a difference of vision, really.

Ginny Roehner, you've been integral to the "behind-the-scenes" planning process as SAS has expanded across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Asia/Pacific region. In many cases, national headquarters offices occupy historic buildings in idyllic settings. Can you explain some of the reasons behind this strategy?

Ginny Roehner: Yes, in places like France, South Africa, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK, we were very lucky to acquire some lovely historic properties. Our intention has always been to state, quite clearly, to our customers that we are a solid company that is here to stay. By investing in local communities – in many cases, purchasing historic buildings and restoring them – we have preserved part of the local history and created an environment where our staff can feel productive, creative and proud to be a part of SAS. In many countries around the world, SAS continues to win awards for the quality of its working environment. This, in turn, affects the quality of the relationships we develop with our customers.

Art Cooke, any closing thoughts?

Art Cooke: Yes. In the industry itself we've seen executive information systems, enterprise data warehouses and ERPs come and go in their abilities to deliver intelligence across the organization.

Now more than ever, organizations require an intelligence strategy. The investments into ERP systems have failed to deliver any kind of significant ROI. The way forward is to put in place an intelligence strategy based on reliable data derived from an enterprise intelligence platform, contextualized within critical business departments to have a bottom-line impact and matching industry-specific business models for generating quantifiable business benefits.

SAS is uniquely positioned to provide each of these. While many things have changed, the advantage that SAS delivers has not – we reduce the time to intelligence. That is why today, just as 25 years ago, we can confidently claim that "SAS Saves Time."