FPS Economy integrates on SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform

Tervuren, May 2008 - SAS announced that the Federal Public Service Economy, SMEs, independent Professions and Energy (FPS Economy) selected SAS®9 for its Data Warehouse & Business Intelligence Platform project. FPS Economy is the official statistician of Belgium.

In January 2007, FPS Economy published a data warehouse/BI RFP to optimize its processes for the collection, management and distribution of economical and statistical information. The customer's main objective was to increase the satisfaction and productivity of the external users and strengthen FPS Economy's market image as a producer and distributor of economic and statistical information on the Belgian economy.

SAS, expert in business intelligence- and analytic software, prepared a high-quality, customer-centric proposal that matched FPS Economy's budget and planning requirements. It built on existing SAS technology within the account and showed how SAS could provide an integrated solution on a SAS®9 platform.

A Proof-of-Concept (POC) on FPS Economy's real data showed that SAS' solutions are truly integrated and thus offer FPS Economy much more efficiency and ease of use. SAS' integrated offer completely covered all functional needs. To be able to offer this completeness, other suppliers had to offer a combination of different tools from different vendors.

SAS and FPS Economy

In the past, FPS Economy used SAS for several main applications. One is, ECODATA, an interactive Web application and the largest application of socio economic statistics in Belgium providing chronological series as well as multidimensional statistics. Approximately 25,000 visitors per month access Ecodata to analyse and research socio-economic information.

Another Web application is the CBE Public Search (KBO/CBH Public Search), had 50,000 visitors and an estimated 300,000 queries each month. SAS' presence in these existing applications positioned the SAS®9 Enterprise Intelligence Platform as the ideal option for adding data quality, mining and business solutions on a single, unified system.

SAS and CSC

CSC, a global SAS alliance, will manage the implementation process. In Belgium CSC and SAS have worked closely together since 1996. Together we cover domains ranging from business intelligence, data warehousing to performance management primarily in the Public Sector, Telco, Utilities and Financial Services. Joint clients in Belgium include FPS Health, FPS Finance and RSVZ-INASTI.

About FPS Economy

FPS Economy, SMEs, Independent Professions and Energy is a federal public service responsible for contributing to the development, competitiveness and sustainability of the goods and services market. The FPS Economy aims at increasing the competitiveness of the Belgian economy by developing a thorough knowledge of the goods and services market, sustaining this market by efficient regulations and stimulating it. www.economie.fgov.be.

About SAS

SAS is the leader in business intelligence and analytical software and services. Customers at 44,000 sites use SAS software to improve performance through insight from data, resulting in faster, more accurate business decisions; more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; compliance with governmental regulations; research breakthroughs; and better products and processes. Only SAS offers leading data integration, storage, analytics and business intelligence applications within a comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW®.