Heightened expectations for CFOs require deeper financial intelligence and corporate performance management

SAS delivers most comprehensive offering

LAS VEGAS (Oct. 20, 2004) – Today at BetterManagement LIVE 2004, SAS announced SAS® Financial Intelligence, an advanced portfolio of software solutions that helps organizations 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 organizational power and added responsibility. With this new focus on finance, organizations 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 optimizing performance management.”

SAS® gives CFOs foresight, insight and hindsight
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, analyze and report accurate and timely financial information. SAS Financial Intelligence helps CFOs plan better by providing integrated forecasting, optimization 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.

John Hagerty, vice president at AMR Research, observed three top concerns for CFOs. “The first is alignment and accountability, the second is risk management, and the third is managing and communicating business performance. Faced with these challenges, CFOs need systems that integrate financial data and performance management while helping them meet current and new regulations. SAS Financial Intelligence fits very nicely into a potential technology framework for a CFO.”

Progress Rail relies on SAS® Financial Intelligence
Progress Rail Services Corporation is one of North America’s largest and most diversified suppliers of products and services to the railroad and rail transit industries. A billion-dollar subsidiary of Progress Energy (NYSE: PGN), Progress Rail has made nearly 20 acquisitions over the past five years in an effort to better serve its customers. This resulted in multiple financial systems and data sets. Progress Rail turned to SAS Strategic Performance Management and SAS Financial Management to enable its managers to operate from a single, integrated system so that all business decisions draw from the same set of data.

“SAS Strategic Performance Management and SAS Financial Management play a key role in the finance department at Progress Rail,” said David Klementz, chief financial officer for Progress Rail. “We depend on SAS to streamline and accelerate our financial processes and to assist in our strategic business decisions. The power of the SAS®9 platform multiplies the effectiveness of these two critical SAS solutions, allowing us to focus more time and resources on strategic activities and stay ahead of the competition.”

SAS® Financial Intelligence
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 enterprisewide 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 organizations unique capabilities for forecasting and optimizing financial operations.

“A key to building trust and confidence in an organization is high-quality financial and performance information." said Lee Dittmar, principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP. "We encourage clients to accomplish this by integrating financial management into a larger performance monitoring strategy. The goal is increased transparency and information that is accurate, reliable and timely. SAS Financial Intelligence is clearly aimed at helping to achieve this important but challenging goal.”

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 organizations 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®9 - beyond business intelligence
SAS Financial Intelligence is 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 organization. The SAS®9 platform is faster, more efficient and easier to use than its predecessors and can accommodate changing organizational 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 optimization, quality, supply chain management, etc.), so they work together transparently while communicating with other data sources and programs. The result is consistent analysis of financial data and the sharing of financial insights throughout the organization.

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.

Today’s announcement was made at the BetterManagement LIVE Worldwide Business Conference, which addresses critical business management issues from around the world. BetterManagement LIVE brings together more than 1,000 thought leaders from the public and private sector to share insights and knowledge. More than 130 speakers in nine focused tracks represent a broad spectrum of executives, academics, consultants and financial experts. Learn more at www.BetterManagement.com.