| (Oct 21, 2004) Hong
Kong - SAS has unveiled SAS® Financial Intelligence, an advanced portfolio of software solutions that helps organisations achieve more predictive, accurate and timely results from their finance functions. By using SAS Financial Intelligence, the finance department can deliver a comprehensive perspective for performance management and transform itself into a confident, trusted adviser that supplies valuable intelligence to the entire enterprise. "SAS Financial Intelligence is our biggest SAS®9 solution launch to
date,"
said Dr. Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS.
"With new government regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Basel II and International Financial Reporting Standards, CFOs have both increased organisational power and added responsibility. With this new focus on finance, organisations need to have unwavering confidence in the financial data they create and in the analysis of this data for making timely and accurate business decisions. SAS Financial Intelligence helps CFOs prepare for the unexpected by providing better enterprise planning and optimising performance
management."
CFOs need to anticipate and respond effectively to changes in business and market conditions. To do so, CFOs require a cost-effective way to gather, analyse and report accurate and timely financial information. SAS Financial Intelligence helps CFOs plan better by providing integrated forecasting, optimisation and planning capabilities delivered through one common platform: the SAS®9 Intelligence Platform. The suite of SAS Financial Intelligence solutions collects and consolidates financial data from across the enterprise more quickly and efficiently while providing time for value-added analysis and planning. Finance groups can develop accurate, cost-driven and demand-driven forecasts, and then complement those forecasts with alternative cost and profit scenarios, helping develop an informed opinion on how to adapt rapidly to any business situation.
The SAS Financial Intelligence solution suite features the latest releases of SAS Financial Management (www.sas.com/solutions/financial), which provides integrated financial consolidation, reporting, planning and analysis, and SAS Strategic Performance Management (www.sas.com/solutions/spm), which helps formulate, execute and fine-tune business strategy.
With SAS Financial Intelligence, the finance department has the broadest offering on the market today. SAS Financial Intelligence equips CFOs with the intelligence to address regulatory compliance, financial transparency, strategic planning and corporate governance, reinforcing their role as a trusted enterprise-wide adviser.
Using the suite's scalable repository and compliance dashboard, compliance officers can manage and reduce the risks associated with non-compliance, and respond swiftly to changes in market conditions. With SAS Financial Intelligence, finance executives can collect and consolidate financial data - easily and quickly - from operational systems, thus establishing appropriate financial transparency. By integrating the most complete and powerful predictive analytics on the market today the solution offers organisations unique capabilities for forecasting and optimising financial operations.
In addition to SAS Financial Management and SAS Strategic Performance Management, other solutions within the SAS Financial Intelligence portfolio include:
- SAS Activity-Based Management (www.sas.com/solutions/abm), enabling line managers to accurately calculate, model and understand costs and thus profit at the product, service, customer, segment or channel level of business.
- SAS' suite of risk management solutions, assisting organisations in monitoring and managing operational (www.sas.com/industry/fsi/oprisk), market (www.sas.com/solutions/riskmgmt), credit (www.sas.com/industry/fsi/credit) and fraud (www.sas.com/industry/fsi/fraud) risk elements and scenarios.
- SAS Corporate Compliance (www.sas.com/solutions/financial/sox), allowing users to archive, track, manage, monitor and report financial controls for compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley and other corporate governance regulations.
SAS Financial Intelligence is the latest offering built on the SAS®9 Intelligence Platform (www.sas.com/sas9), which supplies critical information about key aspects of enterprise operations through improved analytics. The user-friendly interface of SAS®9 expands the use of SAS intelligence to more than 80 percent of employees in an organisation. The SAS®9 platform is faster, more efficient and easier to use than its predecessors and can accommodate changing organisational needs without any loss of efficiency.
The new platform also integrates the components of SAS Financial Intelligence with each other and with other SAS solutions (for marketing automation and optimisation, quality, supply chain management, etc.), so they work together transparently while communicating with other data sources and programmes. The result is consistent analysis of financial data and the sharing of financial insights throughout the
organisation.
"Today, CFOs are spending more and more time in ensuring that their enterprises can cope with new compliancy challenges, such as shortened reporting periods as well as greater financial transparency. SAS®9 Financial Intelligence relieves this extra burden on CFOs by providing timely and deeper financial intelligence from across the enterprise without hampering other critical decision-making processes," said Peter Tsang, Managing Director, SAS Institute Limited.
The powerful, integrated solutions on the new SAS®9 Intelligence Platform, supported by nearly three decades of vertical industry expertise, are helping to redefine performance management. Earlier this year, SAS launched SAS Marketing Automation (www.sas.com/solutions/crm), SAS Risk Dimensions (www.sas.com/solutions/riskmgmt), SAS Web Analytics (www.sas.com/solutions/intellivisor) and SAS Activity-Based Management on the SAS®9 platform. In addition, SAS IT Management Solutions (www.sas.com/solutions/itsysmgmt) debuted in mid-September and SAS Supplier Relationship Management (www.sas.com/solutions/srm) was launched on SAS®9 earlier this month. SAS Human Capital Management (www.sas.com/solutions/hrmanagement/index.html) will be available in the first quarter of 2005.
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