SAS Business Intelligence Drives Midsize Tech Staffing Firm

Dublin, Ireland, 22. Oct. 2008 -  Don’t tell the folks at Oxford Global Resources that business intelligence (BI) applications are only for mega-corporations. The IT and engineering consulting firm deployed SAS Enterprise BI for Midsize Business to create a Web-based portal to help field managers proactively track internal performance metrics. SAS, the leader in business analytics, partnered with a local reseller to deliver the solution to Oxford, which tallies over $200 million in annual sales with fewer than 500 employees.

 The Web portal to Oxford’s data warehouse, with over 125 people regularly accessing it, is so popular that the Windows Server 2003 hardware originally intended for 25 has proved insufficient.

 “We quickly escalated beyond the initial pilot group,” said Joseph Cofone, Data Mining Analyst at Oxford. “The biggest measure of success has been that when we asked the original users if we should push availability to more users in our regional offices, the response was, ‘Yes, yes, absolutely.’”

 Oxford, based in Beverly, MA, serves clients from 21 domestic and two European offices. Prior to SAS BI and analytics, managers in those offices viewed critical measurements too infrequently to achieve the desired business impact.

 “We review each office’s operations quarterly to identify areas of strength and areas in need of improvement. By the time our field managers discovered operational issues that needed to be fixed, three months had passed,” said Scott Beyer, Oxford’s Vice President of Strategy and Marketing.

 “To increase our competitiveness, Oxford needed a better way to put key office and individual performance information at managers’ fingertips in a timely fashion,” said Beyer. “The real benefit from SAS has been to improve our ability to see operational issues and address them as they are occurring, instead of waiting until a quarterly meeting.  As a result, we are more proactive and responsive to our clients.”

Boosting Performance

Oxford’s account managers, recruiters and others in the field now access key performance data at the company, office and even individual level.

 “As a results-driven organisation, we look at key performance indicators every day. Pushing this information from headquarters to the front lines has made our people more accountable and focused on high-priority activities that really drive the business,” said Beyer. “For a company our size in a highly competitive industry, these applications are vital.”

 In addition to SAS Enterprise BI for Midsize Business, Oxford uses SAS Enterprise Guide®, all supplied by Creative Computing Inc., a Lincoln, RI, software reseller and consultancy specialising in performance management and other BI offerings.

About Oxford Global Resources

Oxford Global Resources is a talent-driven consulting firm providing individual consultants, project teams, and strategic outsourcing services to clients in a wide range of industries. It delivers high-end consulting services for engagements in select information technology and engineering disciplines.  Oxford Global Resources is a division of On Assignment, Inc. 

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