Exon analysis is a powerful complement to traditional 3’ expression analysis, providing new opportunities to identify biologically relevant splicing patterns. Alternative splicing is already known to play a role in guiding developmental processes such as tissue differentiation (3), and changes in alternative splicing patterns have been associated with cancer and other diseases. As next-generation sequencing technologies expand in popularity, knowledge of common and rare alternative splicing events is likely to expand greatly, further increasing the size and complexity of these data sets. JMP Genomics meets this challenge with intelligent filtering capabilities to reduce large data sets to reliable results, and powerful analytics capable of distinguishing statistically relevant exon-level and transcript-level changes using any platform that may detect alternative splice events.

The batch-mode mindset of annual budgets, quarterly forecasts and monthly reports hit a real-time speed bump during 2008, revealing its shortcomings. This Webcast summary offers ways to move your business to the real-time status necessary when risk and volatility are standard operating conditions; when the extraordinary is now the ordinary.

Pour Laëtitia Bardoul, consultante au sein du cabinet Yphise : «DataFlux qMDM Solution est une solution complète en termes de gestion des données de référence. Elle offre la plus large couverture par rapport à notre liste de critères, en particulier par ses fonctions très évoluées de gestion de la qualité des données. De plus, la solution intègre de puissantes fonctions de monitoring de la qualité des données au fil de l’eau, de même qu’une approche de la gouvernance des données répondant aux enjeux de conformité, de limitation des risques et de rentabilité.»

Selon la dernière analyse du cabinet d’étude indépendant Yphise, la solution décisionnelle SAS® Strategic Performance Management devance une nouvelle fois l’ensemble de ses concurrents, tels que SAP/Business Objects, IBM/Cognos et Microsoft. L’offre de SAS est celle qui répond le mieux aux 160 critères techniques et fonctionnels identifiés dans ce domaine stratégique.

Natural resources agencies in the Americas must understand how to enhance the effectiveness of programs and policies while maintaining an adequate level of funding. This white paper describes how analytics can provide optimized solutions to these challenges. The paper first describes the use of analytics in resource management, education and CRM, operations and performance management. Ultimately, you will learn about SAS' analytic capabilities for natural resource agencies.

This white paper describes ways the healthcare industry can use the data at its disposal to evolve toward more personalized medicine. In particular, you will learn about the promising possibilities of electronic medical records and powerful analytic solutions for healthcare providers from SAS. The paper also includes some real-life situations in which SAS analytics are being used to improve patient care and research.

Pharmaceutical sales and marketing professionals face a unique set of challenges in their efforts to boost sales enough to recoup staggering development costs. This white paper explores the possibilities of data integration and advanced analytics in marketing and selling pharmaceuticals. The paper also includes a list of key analytical techniques and several industry case studies.

Unlike any other software tool, spreadsheet programs have found their way into everyday reporting and quick calculations. Because of this popularity, there is frequent talk of overuse and even serious risks posed by spreadsheets. However, spreadsheets are insufficient for regulatory reporting and risk management. This paper explains the risks posed by spreadsheet reliance, proposes the optimum use for spreadsheets as part of an integrated data framework and discusses the role of SAS Business Intelligence software as a risk management solution.

It is no longer sufficient for an organization to be lean, agile and efficient. Its entire supply chain must also perform as the company itself does. If some customers are excessively high-maintenance, they erode profit margins. Who are these troublesome customers, and how much do they drag down profits? Once you know, what corrective actions should you take? This detailed white paper explores the value of activity-based cost management (ABC/M) in determining customer profitability. It describes the insights gained from validly measuring customer profitability and how organizations apply performance management systems to manage changing strategies for increasing profit, reducing cost and improving performance throughout the enterprise.

Most pharmaceutical companies focus their sales and marketing activities on the top-decile prescribing physicians for a given therapeutic area, based on purchased data. But such practices are no longer yielding desired results. This white paper discusses why now is the right time to make sales and marketing decisions based on deeper analytic insights - using predictive modeling - and how organizations that take control over their own physician targeting will get more timely insights, targeting decisions aligned with business issues and real competitive advantage.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is spreading quickly through the global network of supply chains. The technology promises improved efficiency and more accurate tracking--along with untold amounts of data. Read this white paper to get a brief introduction to RFID and learn about a variety of SAS technologies that can help you harness the value of your RFID-related data. Such technologies include data quality, business intelligence, predictive analytics and even retail-specific applications.

This paper presents a methodology for conducting a forecasting strategic value assessment for your organization.

In September 2005, the Federal Reserve Board will disclose pricing data on higher cost loans with respect to applicant race, ethnicity, gender and income status. This new pricing information, in the officially filed HMDA data, will be used to monitor mortgage lending practices and assist in identifying possible discriminatory pricing patterns.

This paper presents a systematic approach for statistical analysis of HMDA pricing data. You will learn how an effective and powerful method to detect statistically significant pricing disparities amongst various groups is beneficial for lending institutions. The method described in this paper can be applied to HMDA filing data and a broader set of information including additional applicant and transaction information, credit bureau data, and credit underwriting and pricing policies.

Quel que soit le secteur d’activité ou la taille de votre entreprise, SAS peut vous aider à améliorer votre satisfaction client, à augmenter votre chiffre d’affaires et à accroître vos performances marketing. SAS® Customer Intelligence est une solution intégrée et modulaire d’analyse, de gestion et de pilotage entièrement dédiée aux besoins des équipes marketing. SAS est le seul éditeur à adresser l’intégralité des fonctionnalités indispensables à un processus marketing orienté clients.

This paper illlustrates how Credit Scoring for SAS Enterprise Miner software is used to build credit scoring models for the retail credit industry. It discusses the benefits of performing credit scoring and the advantages of building credit scoring models in-house using SAS Enterprise Miner. It goes on to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of three important model types: the scorecard, the decision tree and the neural network. Finally, it presents a case study where an application scoring model is built with SAS Enterprise Miner, beginning with reading the development sample, through classing and selecting characteristics, fitting a regression model, calculating score points, assessing scorecard quality (in comparison to a decision tree model built on the same sample) and going through a reject inference process to arrive at a model for scoring the new customer applicant population.

This white paper discusses some of the key infrastructure challenges that IT faces in meeting the ever-increasing demands for intelligence across their organizations. It provides an overview of how the platform for SAS Business Analytics can help overcome those challenges. It also describes SAS strengths within each of the platform components -- data integration, analytics, and reporting. Most importantly, it outlines how SAS is here to help organizations achieve success through analytic solutions built upon an integrated framework. 

This paper, based on research by nGenera Corporation, provides answers to six key questions that executives should be asking about how to use business analytics to improve performance and compete successfully -- from "Where should we leverage business analytics?" and "What's the payoff?" to "What kinds of people do we need?" and more.

In an effort to provide better, cost-effective care, health care providers are increasingly turning to IT-enabled business strategies. This white paper by Health Industry Insights, an IDC company, and sponsored by SAS presents the findings and analysis of in-depth interviews conducted with nine senior executives and system architects at three prestigious teaching hospitals acknowledged to be industry leaders in their use of health information technology, in general, and BI applications, in particular.

In March 2007, SAS conducted a survey of 175 business intelligence professionals from around the globe to assess current trends in the use of business information -- specifically business intelligence and competency centers -- and their effect on organizational performance. This report outlines the results of that survey and its implications for information management in your organization.

This white paper provides a blueprint for action for senior marketers and decision makers across the enterprise. It provides straightforward advice on how to build a more durable and profitable customer base by:

- Building a more competitive business model. - Enabling customer-centric business strategies in a product-centric organization. - Turning expanding volumes of customer data into actionable insight for smarter decision making. - Providing a roadmap for integrating technology to achieve competitive advantage.

This white paper discusses the nature of business risk, from credit risk to market risk and operational risk, primarily in the context of the banking industry. The paper provides a history of the Basel accords, outlining in detail the implications of Basel II on risk management. You will also learn about the processes and systems  required for implementing internal ratings-based approaches to risk management.

Release 3.1 of JMP Genomics software from SAS adds specific menu items for copy number analysis. In this white paper, we will review a simple JMP Genomics workflow to determine differences in copy number or B-allele frequencies. These workflows have been tested on Illumina DNA Analysis BeadChips, including the Human1M DNA Analysis BeadChips.

Statistical methods and software available for identifying common and rare copy number variations (CNVs) are still evolving. Here, tools in JMP Genomics 4.1 were used to find shared regions of CNV and correlate SNP intensities with gene expression differences. A similar approach can be applied to examine pairwise correlations between other genomic measures.

Attitudes about how corporate citizenship strengthens profitability and revenue growth in American companies are presented in this report from both interviews and an online survey of 566 US-based executives conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit in September 2008. SAS was one of the sponsors of the research.

Healthcare leaders are challenged to improve care delivery, reduce costs and enhance physician and employee engagement. Doing so requires the ability to access data from a variety of siloed and disparate systems, and then to get that data into the hands of those closest to the issues. Applying business intelligence in a healthcare setting is a powerful way to break down political barriers, overcome resistance to change, align strategic priorities and improve communication. This white paper explores the ways that business intelligence and performance management software systems can facilitate evidence-based healthcare delivery in hospitals. The paper provides background on implementing business intelligence and then offers case studies demonstrating successful BI at several prominent hospitals.

The amount of information in business is growing exponentially. This white paper shows how the dashboarding and scorecarding capabilities of SAS Strategic Performance Management can help you maximize the value of this information. The paper describes the progression through focus, alignment and agility that SAS facilitates using advanced data access, alerts and traffic lighting, and dynamic diagramming functions.

In times of market turmoil, several weaknesses of risk management systems that had been developed in relatively benign market environments have become apparent. As a consequence, the challenge today consists of refining and enlarging the traditional credit risk management repertoire on the one hand, and being more creative in the modeling and management of innovative credit products on the other hand. Furthermore, a successful risk management system will allow for the interdependencies between credit risk, liquidity risk and market risk and will contrast various quantitative analyses with qualitative considerations. This white paper focuses on the credit risk management part of an integrated enterprise risk management system.

To meet mounting demand for service, the United States court system must use modern technologies to guide decision making, the development of public policies and communication with citizens. This white paper argues that technology, when properly conceived and implemented, is the critical component that drives opportunities for U.S. courts to demonstrate improvements in efficiency, effectiveness, communication, interagency collaboration and customer service.

This research report from SAS, Peppers & Rogers and Jubelirer Research provides insights into building authentic and profitable long-term customer relationships. The research outlined here attempts to understand how a broad range of companies manage customer experiences, explore the advantages of superior customer experience, document the enablers and inhibitors to excellent customer experiences, and assess the maturation of companies along a developmental spectrum.

While it is essential to employ customer-centric strategies to improve revenue, it is also necessary to balance customer needs with shareholder value. This white paper outlines a method for achieving this balance by tying retention spending to customer financial value. You will learn how to evaluate customers by combining financial value with loyalty, and about requirements for a properly customer-focused strategy.

The federal government has enacted laws and standards making discrimination in lending illegal. To help financial lenders improve the accuracy of their disparate treatment testing evaluations, SAS has developed a methodology called the Dynamic-Conditional Process (DCP). This methodology dynamically classifies lending decision factors and captures variations in policy thresholds among loan products, markets and/or programs. Read this white paper for an introduction to the DCP methodology.

This white paper reviews a portion of a research program conducted by BusinessWeek Research Services designed to understand how companies can optimize business analytics to improve fact-based decision making and to determine the attitudes and opinions of C-level executives with regard to the use and value of business analytics. It is part of a series of white papers for C-level executives intended to facilitate sharing the most important insights from the research. 

Many forward-looking executives are turning to predictive maintenance (PM) solutions to help prevent equipment failures and avoid the costs of unplanned downtime. This paper explores the business case for investing in predictive maintenance solutions, examines how they work to lower maintenance costs and minimize disruptions across the enterprise, and describes what is required to get started with PM today.

Lorsqu’une organisation souhaite améliorer sa capacité à appréhender ses coûts, il est nécessaire de mettre en place un système d’analyse des coûts. SAS propose une solution de pilotage des coûts informatiques, reposant sur les recommandations du CIGREF et permettant de répondre aux questions budgétaires clefs que se posent les DSI.

Financial institutions are finding it necessary to strengthen their anti-money laundering (AML) platforms to stem the tide of illicit financial transactions and meet new regulatory mandates. For enterprises with moderate to high risk exposures, this calls for a rigorous automated system based on dynamic risk assessment. This white paper discusses how SAS Anti-Money Laundering enables institutions to create an enterprisewide view of customer relationships and risks, monitor activity using multiple detection methods, adapt that monitoring as appropriate for each customer's risk classification, investigate and document suspicious cases, and produce required regulatory reports – all within an integrated solution built on award-winning SAS data management and analytic capabilities.

Enterprise case management is garnering much attention for its potential to combine intelligence from disparate systems into a single repository to more effectively prevent losses, meet regulatory compliance mandates and reduce costs. This white paper discusses enterprise case management and explores how SAS Enterprise Case Management significantly reduces the time and effort of investigating fraud and resolving customer service cases.

As banks increasingly look to best-of-breed, third-party solutions for their risk management and independent derivatives valuation needs, SAS and FINCAD have partnered to offer a joint solution to address these needs. Following this best-of-breed approach can save a bank significant time and costs over developing the systems in-house. This white paper discusses the joint solution from SAS and FINCAD – an enterprise risk management system with independent derivatives valuations – and how the solution enables banks to develop effective risk policies that are designed to continuously manage a firm's risk-and-return profile and the capital required for long-term success.

Organizations that respond to regulatory pressures by simply documenting their existing fraud management practices are selling themselves short. This paper describes how an enterprisewide approach to fraud management -- spanning all contact channels and account types and including powerful analytics, holistic intelligence and integrated case management -- is the best approach for financial organizations looking to turn the tide on fraud.

This report from Bloor Research evaluates SAS ETL^Q, outlining a number of key findings about the SAS offering. In particular, this report highlights that, while SAS has not traditionally been well known in the ETL marketplace, SAS ETL products are mature and worth consideration. In addition to outlining key findings, this report provides some background on SAS, its available products, and its capabilities in data access and data quality. The paper also includes a discussion of SAS ETL Studio, the primary development environment for ETL processes in SAS ETL^Q.

Government agencies are particularly susceptible to misappropriation of funds. Billions of dollars can be siphoned away from worthy programs due to process deficiencies, lack of transparency or outright fraud. This executive overview outlines five steps to identifying and preventing fraud, waste and abuse. These steps focus on gaining deeper insights into existing records of program activities and financial data.

This report provides the topline results of a survey commissioned by SAS but conducted independently by Computerworld Research of business leaders on sustainable IT initiatives at their organizations. With nearly 8 out of 10 survey respondents expecting an impact of sustainability on the goods and services their organizations offer to end users, they recognize the impact on their brands and are turning to the adoption of performance management frameworks to strategize, analyze and implement effective sustainability initiatives.

Activity-based costing (ABC) has transformed from a tool that simply improves the accuracy of cost computations to one that adds immeasurable value to forward-looking government organizations. This white paper explores the transformation of ABC from a manufacturing tool to a management practice. You will also learn about the relationship between ABC and performance management. The paper also includes two real-world case studies.

The global financial crisis highlighted major shortcomings in liquidity risk management. As a result, liquidity risk management has entered a new era aimed at ensuring that future liquidity shortages will be less severe and that when shortages do occur, firms will be in a better position to cope. This white paper outlines the failings of liquidity risk management and summarizes the solutions recommended by the industry and the official sector. It then goes on to explain how those solutions can be developed and implemented using the full power of business analytics.

How can the chief human capital officer optimize the work force in alignment with organizational goals? This paper discusses how aligning goals is possible, as well as addressing workforce demands at every stage of the talent life cycle, mitigating workforce risks, proactively responding to changing workforce trends and demographics, planning for mergers, acquisitions and downsizing, and synchronizing financial and operational workforce strategies.

Government agencies are facing a human capital crisis where CHCOs and managers will need to be more strategic and gain a more holistic view of the work force to support the agency mission. This paper presents how to align the human capital strategy with organizational goals, address workforce demands, mitigate workforce risks, proactively respond to changing workforce demographics, plan for change, and synchronize financial and operational workforce strategies. 

Data is only as valuable as its actual or perceived quality. The traditional approach to data quality management is to correct quality problems as they are encountered. There is an emerging approach to data quality that takes a more proactive approach by putting data quality standards and processes in place that govern data throughout its lifecycle. This white paper, based on two research projects, describes a three-tiered approach the research uncovered for managing data quality in the insurance market.

This white paper discusses fundamental issues that impact an organization's ability to forecast accurately. These issues include the operational definition of "demand," what to forecast, how to measure performance, organizational practices and demand volatility. Without addressing these issues, the investment may yield no return.

This white paper, together with our live Web training sessions, is intended to give existing and new customers and evaluators a brief overview of the JMP® Genomics solution and an introduction to some of the features in JMP Genomics 4.1 pertaining to the import of genetics data from external sources and an introduction to the Basic Genetics Workflow and various analysis options, including principal components analysis, linkage disequilibrium and haplotype analysis.

IT capacity management is a balance between service cost and capacity investment, and between supply and demand. This white paper explores how to move beyond the IT Infrastructure Library's (ITIL) best practices for capacity management. You will learn how to automate the capacity management process and use advanced analytics to align demand forecasts with business requirements.

While Web services have great potential as a technology for implementing applications such as stock price delivery or inventory ordering over the Internet, there is another key business benefit — the delivery of analytical services and business intelligence functionality. This white paper provides a technical overview of how Web services fit into the SAS Intelligence Architecture and shows how to develop applications that make use of the Web services framework. It gives in-depth code examples of how to implement a simple, real-world scenario. The paper describes how to implement Web services using both the.NET and J2EE frameworks and provides an appendix outlining a basic Web services model.

Companies are extremely vigilant about all spending. The budget expenditures for marketing should be subject to the same intense examination by the COO and CFO as any other spending program, but the ROI on marketing must be better projected using modern analytical techniques, fact-based logic and financial data. This white paper argues for the importance of calculating customer lifetime value (CLV) to use in important marketing decisions. The paper explores the difference between customer profitability and customer value, and you will learn why it is important to consider customers as investments. Ultimately, this paper suggests that, while it may be difficult, analyzing CLV provides significant benefits when used in addition to customer profitability.

According to analysts, business intelligence applications are a top priority for CIOs. To help cut through the clutter of conflicting and overstated vendor claims, SAS has developed a comprehensive framework that can be used to evaluate any and all BI vendors. This white paper outlines the criteria included in this framework, which include measures of technology, alignment with customer needs corporate vision and geographic scope.

This white paper discusses the critical elements of a supplier risk solution that integrates sustainability factors into a holistic supplier analysis, necessitating not only a thorough analysis of a supplier's financial track record, but also environmental and social performance as well.

This white paper outlines the flexible architecture of SAS Enterprise Miner. It shows how the SAS architecture enables users to create data mining projects for interactive or batch execution and share projects with other business users and decision makers across the organization.  

Information technology is finally up to the task of cost-effective clinical research. But there are still some significant barriers to gaining all the benefits of this technology – in particular, interoperability. This white paper explores the need for a consistent industry architecture that allows life sciences firms to connect their enterprises to enjoy better data integration, process consistency and communication of results. You will also learn about the requirements for such an architecture and the benefits it can provide.'

Stratégie et pratique marketing : ce livre blanc traite de la place et de l'impact des pratiques marketing au sein des grandes entreprises françaises. Il est réalisé et publié par IDC sur proposition de SAS. Les résultats présentés dans ce document sont issus d'une enquête menée par IDC auprès des directions marketing de 150 entreprises françaises. Les entreprises interrogées représentent l’ensemble des secteurs d'activité. 

This white paper discusses the drivers and the challenges in implementing a longitudinal data system. It then explores how, with SAS' Business Analytics Framework, information gaps among key educational agencies need no longer exist, and decision makers can be armed with the accurate data they need to make proactive decisions and effective education policies.

Loyalty and reward programs are typically designed to achieve four objectives: increase customer spending, improve retention, maintain competitive position and get new customer data. But do these programs actually achieve those aims? There’s no doubt that today’s programs yield useful customer data, but what about the other objectives? As membership in such programs continues to increase, many firms are left wondering whether their programs buy loyalty and increase customer value, or simply add costs without securing repeat patronage. That was the topic of a December 2009 Webcast sponsored by the Cornell University Center for Hospitality Research and SAS. This paper provides a summary of that Webcast.

This white paper offers a broad look at the process of managing future uncertainty in business. It first explores the four main aspects of managing the future: forecasting, risk management, decision making and planning. The paper then presents specific SAS solutions, designed for each of these areas, that help organizations manage their future.

Companies today have to make difficult decisions about targeting the right customers with the right offers while staying within budget and channel capacities, and without cannibalizing future sales or saturating customers with too many messages. Optimization is a process that resolves these complex issues by balancing the constraints of an organization with the need to improve results. This paper provides an introduction to marketing optimization. You will learn how optimization can help improve campaign revenues by up to 25 percent and how other companies have successfully implemented such technology. You will also learn about SAS' powerful, easy-to-use approach to marketing optimization.

As global markets mature, institutions recognize that risks are intertwined with performance and should be measured in an integrated manner. This white paper provides an explanation of enterprise risk management (ERM), describing both the reasons for managing risk and the components necessary to do it successfully. These components include the ability to communicate risk measures throughout the organization, establish effective diagnostic techniques and effectively allocate risk capital.

Current economic conditions heighten the need for financial services firms to accurately gauge required levels of regulatory compliance and economic capital to support business strategy and risk appetite. More regulations are on the way, demanding transparency, accurate information about company operations, robust and comprehensive risk management, regulatory compliance and efficient governance. What does this mean for many organizations? This paper takes a step back to examine how all components of a successful company must work in an integrated manner in order to produce the best results, and how SAS approaches governance, risk, compliance and performance management issues by providing a comprehensive framework for analyzing and managing risks in the context of corporate strategy and performance.

Competition in retail is ever more intense as companies face slow domestic growth, rapid increases in selling space, and new and innovative channels and formats. To achieve merchandising dominance, it is critical to improve core merchandising processes.

This white paper will give you a head start in evaluating the potential of revenue optimization to deliver significant, sustainable profit improvements. You will learn about the key components of revenue optimization, the steps required to implement such a system and the lessons learned by several companies who have already implemented this technology.

OLAP has become a standard requirement for almost any BI-related project because it enables users to navigate quickly through complex business data. This white paper provides an overview of several integrated SAS products that can be used for OLAP. You will learn how these products, all part of SAS Enterprise BI Server, allow different types of users to perform analysis of varying sophistication, from simple reporting and exploration to advanced visualization and publishing of results.

Asset-backed securities pose special problems for risk managers because of their contingent, path-dependent cash flows. This paper provides a high-level, conceptual view of 1) the difficulties involved in measuring the risk of asset-backed securities, 2) a methodology for overcoming those difficulties and 3) a software solution that can implement the chosen methodology for projecting potential profit-and-loss distributions of asset-backed securities at various future points in time or horizons.

This white paper illustrates a new patent-pending approach that may be helpful in certain new product forecasting situations.  It combines human judgment with time series mining and statistical modeling.  This "structured analogy" approach helps automate the selection of analogous products ("like items"), facilitates review and clustering of past new product introductions, and generate statistical forecasts.  Users can make manual overrides to the statistical forecasts, and get a better sense of the risks and uncertainties in new product forecasts through visualization of past new product introductions.

Service organizations an increasingly important source of revenue for many companies. For these organizations, better methods for forecasting warranty reserves and accruals mean greater efficiency and profitability. This paper outlines some of the pitfalls of traditional methods for allocating warranty reserves, the best practices that can transform the process, and the significant monetary gains that can be achieved by improving the accuracy and adaptability of warranty reserve forecasts.

Recently, the focus in banks has shifted from mergers and acquisitions to organic growth – attracting and retaining good customers. This white paper describes how to apply customer value to the retail banking business model as a continuous loop of insight, action, assessment and learning for continuous improvement. It also proves the advantage of a more interactive view of customer value.

What-if scenarios that predict what might happen given different business conditions and decisions are most enlightening when we understand the relationships between the variables that influence potential results. Data visualization expert Stephen Few describes the characteristics of good visual analytics and describes how to use the JMP Prediction Profiler to build predictive business models and interact with data and graphs to observe how changes in one variable influence changes in the others.

In times of economic uncertainty, corporate decision makers need more high quality information to make well-informed decisions. So said the speakers and  delegates at CFO Publishing's recent conference, "Predictive Analytics in Perilous Times." The conference, held in San Francisco in February of 2009, featured leading voices in corporate finance -- including Thomas Redman, president of Navesink Consulting, Arthur Kordon, a leader in the data mining and modeling group at Dow Chemical and Dr. David Friend, chairman of Palladium Group Inc., among others. This conclusions paper presents the highlights of the conference program.

Claims payouts and loss adjustment expenses can account for up to 80% of an insurance company’s revenue. The way an insurance company manages the claims process is fundamental to its profits and long term sustainability. Equally important is the role claims processing plays in customer satisfaction, renewal and retention. This white paper discusses how predictive insurance claims processing can help insurers make the right decision, at the right time to the right party.

By integrating predictive analytics into performance management activities, organizations can focus on their true key performance indicators and drive significant performance improvements. Read this white paper to learn about the five steps, supported by real-world examples, toward predictive performance management. The paper also includes a short guide to predictive analytics, which defines common types of analysis and the results they can provide.

Manufacturing and supply chain organizations must not only optimize resources and minimize waste, but also predict future growth and demand. Event-handling and transactional systems cannot merge data into an integrated source of business intelligence; organizations need adequate data management, forecasting, optimization and modeling techniques to bring disparate data together and gather useful intelligence from it. With key performance indicators and process metrics that span functional areas, managers and other stakeholders can see changes and trends as they occur and make business decisions based on those indicators.

Many companies are beginning to realize that warranty data is an integral part of the customer's voice. It is essential not just to the bottom line, but to customer satisfaction and brand reputation. To understand how companies analyze warranty data, SAS commissioned a study to look at the warranty reporting and analysis systems of 20 companies. This paper summarizes the study and provides three case studies of companies that are now reaping the benefits of automated analytics.

Labor costs represent one of the largest operational expenditures in hospitality and gaming. At the same time, labor can be one of a property’s biggest competitive differentiators—or its worst liability. As economic pressures persist, strategies aimed at hiring the right skill set and efficiently deploying labor resources have become critical to reducing costs while maintaining service levels. That was the topic of a November 2009 Webcast sponsored by the Cornell University Center for Hospitality Research and SAS. This paper provides a summary of that Webcast.

Executives charged with the task of putting banking on a safer, more promising footing in the wake of a global economic slowdown need to be armed with trustworthy, complete facts and analysis. This paper looks at how adopting a business analytics framework enables decisions to be based on true knowledge and predictive insight – adjusted for known risks, across the institution's business units, functional areas and channels.

There are some factors that require careful consideration before the development and implementation of a risk-based pricing framework. This paper outlines those factors and provides a quick methodology to begin instantiating risk-based pricing when other processes, such as an economic capital framework, have not yet been implemented.

Organizations increasingly look to hosted applications as a way to get the business solutions they need. This white paper outlines the benefits of SAS Solutions OnDemand, a collection of hosted solutions for a variety of business needs. Read this paper to learn how SAS has extended the traditional model of solution hosting and about the advantages of choosing SAS Solutions OnDemand -- including analytics, fast deployment, a proven delivery methodology and more.

This white paper explores several critical facets of SAS Sourcing Data Quality, a solution designed to ensure the quality of your sourcing data. The paper begins with a discussion of data integration, which involves gathering supplier data into one location, cleansing it, augmenting it with additional information and then classifying commodity data for use in supplier and spend analysis. Then you will learn more specifically about the SAS commodity classification engine, which helps automate the process of preparing commodity data for analysis.

At a time when many organizations are outsourcing to save money, the quality of your relationships with suppliers can have a critical impact on the success of your company.

This paper will explore how SAS' solution for analytic supplier relationship management can be used to create a competitive advantage from a company's procurement activities. The paper also looks in more detail at SAS' closed-loop process for strategic sourcing and at the process for creating and maintaining a single, reliable view of procurement spend throughout the enterprise.

Being bound to a traditional, 12-month budget can create problems for organizations, problems such as an underutilized staff, inefficient use of resources and a lack of flexibility when economic circumstances change. Employing a 90-day budget based on processes and making better use of scenario planning and forecasting can make a difference. That is the commitment of this paper: to provide a catalyst for change and a road map for achievement to the financial planning and analysis manager who wants to shake up the status quo and get his or her team engaged at the high level of value they are capable of.

This special report, part of the TDWI Monograph Series, discusses the need for DI professionals to respond to a new set of trends related to sustainability, business transformation initiatives and data governance. It explains how new approaches to collaborative data integration can help make IT more sustainable as well as help meet new requirements for data stewardship and transparency.

For the past several decades, organizations have focused heavily on improving their supply chains. Best-in-class companies are now turning their attention to the extended supply chain, the service chain, to further improve customer service, reduce costs and boost net profits. This white paper discusses the emerging concept of "service intelligence" and shows how the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform provides an integrated foundation for the SAS Service Intelligence software suite.

World-class organizations have realized that the service supply chain is different than the traditional production supply chain. This white paper examines the difference between these two supply chains. You will learn how some organizations are developing service supply chain techniques to solve their unique challenges. You'll also learn which business methodologies foster the best return on investment in service supply chain improvements.

In a perfect world, retailers would always have just the right assortment of merchandise at each store. But with tens of thousands of SKUs across thousands of stores, most retailers constantly deal with too many stock-outs. Read this white paper to learn how SAS software helps retailers create size profiles that translate into more accurate purchase orders. The paper also includes a detailed case study featuring Kohl's.

For state governments, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is creating unprecedented management challenges in reporting, transparency and accountability. To meet the President's five crucial objectives for the stimulus funding, governors, state budget officers, controllers and stimulus czars can apply a business analytics approach to managing grants; SAS for recovery optimization and management for state governments provides data integration, reporting and advanced analytics that can be quickly deployed to complement existing grants management systems with minimum disruption.

Statistical intervals can be confusing, even in the minds of those who use them often. This paper uses an easy-to-understand manufacturing example to describe the differences between confidence, prediction and tolerance (enclosure) intervals. The author provides formulas plus the simple steps for implementing each interval type using JMP menus.

This paper describes how colleges and universities can use strategic enrollment management to improve relationships with students, alumni, donors and others. You will learn about the importance of information in each phase of the enrollment management life cycle, and about the specific benefits that strategic enrollment management can provide.

Organizations are getting much more interested in how analytical decisions can be embedded into everyday business processes. But where do you start? This white paper, based on research by nGenera Corporation, provides practical advice on how businesses can identify the best opportunities for making their processes more analytical, and how to assess whether a proposed business analytics application will succeed. 

Despite a dizzying rush of fresh technological innovation, old-fashioned customer development strategies remain key determinants of success in the newest round of competition between communication services providers. This white paper explores the potential of "bundling" services in the communications industry. Specifically, it addresses the implications of bundling for the customer experience and how it can impact customer lifetime value.

Economic conditions are reinforcing the mandate for tighter, more demand-driven supply chains.  Supply chain executives are searching for new value-add and cost reduction vehicles. In this paper, experts from SAS and HAVI Global Solutions argue that because demand management has become such a critical tool for carving out economic value, companies whose core competency is not supply chain management should outsource their demand management functions. The authors explain the benefits, discuss the conditions and technologies that have converged to make those benefits significantly outweigh the risks, and provide tips on assessing if outsourcing demand management is the right strategy for your organization.

Sponsored by SAS and conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, this research paper conveys results from a survey and in-depth interviews of 226 senior executives worldwide with sustainability policies and practices in place. Addressing sustainability priorities with a globally unified program or a regionally focused approach and the distinct challenges and advantages for each are presented.

This paper discusses the role of quality in SAS products and services, particularly as it relates to SAS 9.2. You will learn about the importance of quality in every aspect of the company, from personnel to research and development, production and customer service. The paper also includes six appendices addressing specific issues such as FDA compliance and employee training.

For some time, liquidity risk has been treated as a second-order or consequential risk, in the sense that liquidity issues only arise from problems in other primary risk areas where the risks are not well controlled and managed - such as market, credit or operational risk. With the materialization of the credit crisis, it has become evident that liquidity risk must be measured and managed as an independent risk. This paper will discuss liquidity risk and how SAS Risk Management for Banking gives institutions the ability to address liquidity risk right now, as well as the ability to evolve as needs change over time.

Imagine the benefits if your organization was certain that the performance factors and variables it monitored were actually the right ones – the ones that make a difference to financial success. These benefits are offered by analytical performance management, a quantitative approach to understanding and predicting performance that is a real possibility today for many firms.

In this research report, the concept of analytical performance management is described both in theory and in practice. The research provides insight into leading practices in analytical performance management and barriers to achieving it.   

This paper investigates how innovative IT can help companies transform themselves into high-performance organizations (HPOs). Having surveyed organizational performance literature and conducted interviews of leaders at 16 major HPOs, the author identifies 12 HPO characteristics that can be positively influenced by IT. He applies them to the IT Practices Capability Framework to produce a new framework for guiding decisions about IT investment and implementation. 

This white paper provides an overview of SAS Analytics, one component of the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform. The paper first outlines the primary challenges that business must overcome to gain meaningful insight into the future. You will then learn about the predictive technologies SAS offers to help organizations gain more value from their analytic initiatives.

Read this white paper to learn about SAS Business Intelligence, a component of the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform. The paper outlines the challenges to delivering true business intelligence and then discusses the benefits of business intelligence technology from SAS. Benefits include faster, better decisions aligning IT and business, data consistency and control, vendor consolidation, and lower total cost of ownership.

The successful implementation of information delivery solutions requires a structured approach that is flexible and scalable, and that ensures a quality outcome and managed risk. The SAS Methodology is a framework that incorporates knowledge and expertise from the world's foremost provider of information delivery solutions. This white paper specifically outlines the features and benefits of the SAS Methodology for implementing strategic solutions. Benefits include managed risk, quality results, scalability, and rapid delivery, among others. Features include an integrated project process, client-centered development and technology independence.

Based on a 2007 survey of more than 100 insurance professionals, this report uncovers the true size and scope of today's claims fraud activity. You'll learn best practices for combating insurance fraud, methods for overcoming common obstacles and new tools/technologies for optimized detection and prevention efforts.

Read this commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting to learn about the total economic impact and potential return on investment that organizations may gain by implementing SAS Marketing Automation. To conduct the report, Forrester used its Total Economic Impact methodology, which "not only measures costs and cost reduction (areas that are typically accounted for within IT) but also weighs the enabling value of a technology in increasing the effectiveness of line-of-business activities."

The Translation Layer is the first of a three-paper series titled Increasing the Business Impact of Customer Insights and Analytics. The translation layer is defined as the role that analytical people play, or ought to play, within organizations to bridge the gap between information and powerful business applications. This paper illustrates why the analytics community must evolve to increase the impact they have on the organizations where they work.

This white paper addresses the critical issues behind performance management, including how companies approach it, what obstacles they face in making it successful, what they hope to achieve and what seems to be working. It is a summary report of the online survey that was conducted among 1,143 cross-industry organizations worldwide.

Metadata provides a means for both the technical documentation of data and the business communication of its meaning. In an integrated metadata environment this information is automatically used to drive your applications, without having to replicate this information for various applications.

This white paper discusses the role of metadata, or "data about data," to create a single version of enterprise truth and shows how to reduce the total cost of ownership for IT by leveraging a SAS metadata framework.

With millions of customers willing to use a most inexpensive contact channel, online channel has been one of the few bright spots, and retailers stand to benefit from growth in this channel in a big way. How can companies reap the full potential of their Web channels in the context of the total marketing strategy? How can they fully exploit the power of the Web to build the brand, to contribute to overall corporate marketing programs — not just add incremental sales as an adjunct channel? How can you move beyond click-stream tracking and counts of page hits to deliver truly meaningful and useful insights? An entire field of Web analytics has emerged to sort out the answers. This was the topic of a Webcast hosted by SAS and the American Marketing Association, bringing thought leaders together to discuss challenges and best practices in the industry.

Marketing success in today’s tough environment is driven by making smarter choices when faced with the challenge of doing more with less. Now, more than ever, marketers have to plan and execute campaigns that are tightly aligned with corporate priorities and deliver clear results. This was the topic of a Webcast – presented in association with the American Marketing Association – that explored how successful companies are changing their approach to campaign management to operate more effectively, including segmentation techniques, contact policy management, and using predictive analytics to drive decision-making. This paper is a summary of that Webcast, which is part of a series of Webcasts on Smarter Marketing.

Along with the financial crisis of 2009 comes an opportunity for funding through the federal stimulus package. This white paper explores the foundation for education's successful future by outlining a model for sustainable education. It also details four key areas (instructional methods, campus operations, workforce development and infrastructure) essential to reshaping the US educational system in response to this crisis and in preparation for a bright future. Tomorrow is today, and extraordinary things are about to happen. Let’s get started!

Enterprises long ago acknowledged the value of CRM and ERP systems for improving customer value and process efficiency. Many are now seeing additional returns by applying predictive analytics to customer data. This white paper explores the process of using customer data to drive profitability by creating a unified view of the customer, applying predictive analytics, turning insight into effective action, and aligning marketing, sales and service with enterprise goals.

Understanding customer comments is a hot topic in the text mining world, and mining audio data is gathering momentum. Combining voice capture data with business intelligence, analytics and text mining provides valuable customer intelligence for marketing and competitive intelligence. This paper helps you understand how to take advantage of analytical technologies that combine data mining methods with emerging linguistic techniques to find patterns and meaning in the words captured in conversations and documents. The case study presented in this paper is based on MSNTV call center audio data. A sample of more than 10,000 individual audio files and their associated transcriptions were used to understand customer issues and the likelihood that customers would cancel their MSNTV subscriptions.

This paper shows how to access large-scale automated forecasting and strong analytics through a Microsoft Office interface. SAS Forecast Server can be easily accessed from Microsoft Excel using three new forecasting wizards in SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office (included with SAS Enterprise BI Server). These wizards provide users with an alternative to SAS Forecast Studio to drive and automate the forecasting process.

Design of experiment (DOE) was utilized to optimize a peptide microarray to test autoantibodies in serum against various components of the myelin sheath. Incorporating the ideal assay conditions from a single DOE experiment versus multiple sequential experiments resulted in a reproducible serum assay with low variability, low nonspecific background, and a high level of distinction between multiple sclerosis (MS) and normal samples. A minimum set of peptides was found that achieved a sensitivity of 90 percent. Autoantibodies against each individual peptide were elevated in at least 35 percent of the individual MS patients tested.

Every relationship between a business and a customer is best viewed as an ongoing conversation. This white paper provides an overview of Behavior Maps, a concept unique to SAS Interaction Management that allows businesses to conduct more meaningful conversations with their customers. Key topics include the importance of context, the structure of Behavior Maps and the use of Behavior Maps to complement traditional predictive models.

In an increasingly dynamic marketplace, organizations can no longer stay ahead of the competition by using only a product differentiation strategy. Instead, organizations that use a real-time decision making strategy to enhance the customer experience are leading the way. This white paper discusses four key components of a successful real-time decision strategy, and how SAS Real-Time Decision Manager helps organizations successfully implement such a strategy. Additionally, it provides a technical overview of SAS Real-Time Decision Manager.

Migration of the SAS 9.1.3 platform environment to SAS 9.2 requires careful and deliberate planning, which includes a migration process to introduce SAS 9.2 into your computing environment. Ideally, you should configure SAS 9.2 on different physical servers from your 9.1.3 environment to ensure your existing production environment remains stable and available. However, if additional hardware is not available, you can configure SAS 9.2 on the same machine(s) that are running SAS 9.1.3. It is also possible to utilize virtualization technologies to simulate the use of different hardware. This paper provides an example of how virtualization can be used to support migration to SAS 9.2 on the same hardware that is running SAS 9.1.3

Visual Six Sigma is a practical and pragmatic approach to data analysis and process improvement. Visual Six Sigma deploys easy-to-use, highly visual software  that can accelerate the process of analysis and eliminate the need for advanced statistical analysis in all but the most complex situations. This paper uses as case study to describe and illustrate the Visual Six Sigma.

This paper explores the role that various performance management methodologies can play in helping private equity firms achieve and – ideally – exceed their targeted ROI. Starting with a basic primer about capital markets and the factors that have led to the growth in private equity funds, the paper discusses the importance of integrating various enterprise performance management improvement methodologies and embedding them with analytics of all flavors – especially predictive analytics.

Wealth management organizations must take a data driven, analytical approach toward building trust and loyalty with high net worth clients. This white paper highlights three essential elements needed to create a foundation for successful client communications. Also, it discusses a process for implementing these elements -- resulting in strong client relationships.

There is no shortage of articles, books, consultants and vendors telling you (or selling) their version of forecasting best practices. This white paper takes a different angle. Instead of talking about the so-called "best practices" in forecasting, we will instead expose the seamy underbelly of the forecasting profession. Rather than asking you to implement all the various things that really good forecasting organizations do, we want to help you avoid the really bad forecasting practices that some organizations fall prey to. Perhaps the surest way to achieve process improvements is by identifying and eliminating the worst practices in forecasting.