Welcome to the Christmas edition of In the Know, the newsletter for the SAS user community.

In keeping with the seasonal spirit, we’re offering you the In the Know Christmas Quiz. Take part - it’s your chance to demonstrate your knowledge of SAS and how well you have read In the Know this year. Three lucky winners will receive free entry to the SAS User Forum 2004 and a bottle of champagne and twenty runners up will win SAS goodie bags!

This month, Barclaycard, Europe’s leading issuer of credit cards and a customer of SAS UK, received a Commendation for the Premier Project Award at the prestigious Information Management (IM) 2003 Awards. The IM Awards recognise excellence and innovation in the management of business information. Barclaycard were commended for its successful use of technology that, with the help of SAS software, provides a coherent and detailed view of prospects as individuals to support their customer acquisition strategy.

This issue also features HFC Bank in the customer spotlight and how the SAS® Intelligence Architecture Blueprint (IAB) is being used to support its marketing function. The Data Integration series continues with a focus on Data Quality where we discuss the second step of the process and how the SAS Data Quality solution and methodology can accelerate the development and deployment of quality rules, saving a huge amount of time and effort while improving accuracy.

We wish all of our readers a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

SAS Acquires Marketmax in Move to Dominate Retail Intelligence Market
SAS has announced the acquisition of Marketmax, the leading provider of advanced retail planning and merchandise intelligence software with a customer base that includes The Home Depot, Lowe’s and Marks & Spencer plc. With this acquisition, SAS adds Marketmax’s complete suite of integrated Retail Merchandise Planning applications and its team of retail industry experts to SAS’ robust set of retail business intelligence offerings and expertise.

Christmas Quiz
Enter the In the Know Christmas quiz for the opportunity to be one of three lucky winners who will receive free entry to the SAS User Forum 2004 and a bottle of champagne! The SAS User Forum provides the perfect opportunity to hear about the latest SAS technology developments, exchange best practices with other users and learn how they are using SAS software. Twenty runners up will receive a SAS goodie bag. The closing date for entries is the 15th January. All correct entries will go into a prize draw and the winners be notified by email and announced in the February/March issue of In the Know. CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT

HFC Bank – A Blueprint for Successful Marketing
HFC Bank’s implementation of SAS® Intelligence Architecture Blueprint (IAB) enables rapid delivery of data marts for effective marketing analytics. "SAS is the platform of choice at HFC Bank because of its analytical power. IAB will significantly increase the return on investment we get from SAS, because it enables us to put data marts in place quickly and reliably to support effective marketing analytics" - Nikkie Windsor, Information Infrastructure Team Leader. TECHNOLOGY & SOLUTIONS

Cleaning Up: Turning Data into Valued Information
Following last issue’s look at Data Profiling, this issue covers the second and arguably most important stage in achieving successful data integration: taking appropriate corrective action to clean your data before you can identify matching and duplicate records.

SAS Enterprise Miner™, an Analyst’s View by Bloor Research
According to Bloor Research, a UK-based analyst company: “SAS Enterprise Miner is one of the leading data mining and predictive analysis products available on the market. There really isn’t much more to say about it; if you are in the market for this sort of product, or you want to build any sort of specialised application that requires data mining capability, then SAS Enterprise Miner should be on your short-list”. We are offering our readers the opportunity to download and view a free copy of this report online.

Distance Learning: The SAS® MSc in Business Intelligence
The SAS MSc in Business Intelligence at Sheffield Hallam University provides a unique way of acquiring BI skills — and its new distance learning option makes it even easier for students to access the course.

Behind the Scenes of SAS Customer Support
SAS Customer Support is supplied at no additional charge to all customers and we’re determined to ensure it meets the highest standards. We obtained ISO 9000 registration in 1994 and SAS Customer Support is considered to be among the best in the industry. So what goes on behind the scenes?

SAS® Education: Register for the New 2004 Brochure
The 2004 SAS Education brochure contains information on all new and updated courses and offerings together with the standard schedule of favourites including SAS System Essentials, Programming and Macro Language. To ensure that you receive your free copy, please register your details online.

How Can I Increment a Macro Loop by Non-Continuous Values?
Find out how to increment a macro loop by non-continuous numeric or a list of character values supplied as a parameter to the macro.

Where Can I Find an Index of SAS Books with Online Sample Code?
Books written by SAS users cover a wide range of topics such as programming, report writing, applied statistics, econometrics and graphical techniques. A selection of these books is available on the SAS UK web site together with online sample code used within the documentation, which can be cut and pasted into your SAS programs. Bookmark this site for a selection of pre-written SAS code to help with everyday SAS programming.

SAS Forum International – Copenhagen, 15-17 June
Seugi has a new name! SAS Forum International is the official title of the premier international event for enterprise intelligence in Copenhagen on the 15-17 June 2004. The Forum provides a fantastic opportunity to hear about new technologies and solutions, to meet your industry peers, share best practice and learn from the experts. Following the success of seugi 21, the agenda will once again be split into three days, SAS in the Boardroom, SAS in Practice and a whole day focused on SAS Expertise. SAS Expertise will feature presentations of current and future technologies and solutions by SAS experts together with sessions on migration to SAS 9. Register online today to take advantage of the early bird offer, available until 31st December!

More SAS UK Events DID YOU KNOW?...

Nestlé has Christmas All Wrapped Up
Italy’s biggest food company, Nestlé Italiana SpA, is saving a small fortune on inventory costs with the help of SAS. Changes in seasonal demand can have a major impact on organisations, especially those providing consumer products like confectionery. It’s all about matching supply with demand. Nestlé Italiana’s Confectionery Division now uses SAS for sales forecasting. “It's a complex marketplace that includes ‘permanent’ products like biscuits and chocolate and seasonal offers tied in to special occasions like Christmas,” says Guelfo Zanini, IT systems manager. At Christmas, Nestlé has only a few weeks to gather revenue from its seasonal products. According to Zanini, “SAS helps ensure sales forecasting and demand planning are closely aligned with production plans, procurement and distribution. Using SAS has led to a reduction in inventory surpluses of 40 percent for finished products and 30 percent for packaging materials. Supply chain service levels improved and product losses were halved."