ABSA Group

Financial services, South Africa
Focus: data consolidation and user-controlled reporting

In 2007, South African financial services giant ABSA named SAS as its BI partner of choice. Now it will use SAS over time to consolidate the disparate BI environments throughout ABSA into a single enterprise business intelligence and analytical platform, providing significant savings in total cost of ownership.

As ABSA’s users become more sophisticated, they are becoming increasingly impatient about having to wait for information management services for the insights they need. “By implementing SAS Enterprise BI Server, we’ll give users easy access to the data they need, through Microsoft tools they’re familiar with – all while maintaining the integrity of the data,” says Premlin Pillay, ABSA’s Head of Group Information Services.

Pillay anticipates many advantages of putting power directly at users’ fingertips:

• Users will be able to query and report, analyze and visualize their data easily.
• Information management specialists will have more time to address complex analytical problems.
• Data will come from a single trusted source.
• The ability to make quicker, well-informed decisions will improve the customer experience.

ABSA’s most important measure of success will be the tangible business value its users derive from quick access to data, accurate analysis and better decision making.

That’s not all ABSA has planned. “A successful BI implementation must not simply be about the technology. There must also be an increased focus on the supporting functions of change management and training and development,” says Pillay. “We’re planning for a full-fledged BI Competency Center in the future.”