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On 15th October 2003, more than 200 SAS users, representing all industry sectors, attended the first in the series of two annual UK SAS User Forum. This initial event was held at the newly refurbished Hilton London Paddington. The second is to be run later in the month, in Cumbria. Delegates were hosted by SAS senior management, strategists, technology specialists and practitioners, as well as representatives from Customer Support and Education.

Customer Survey  
Customer Survey
As Alastair Sim, a director of SAS UK, said to users in his opening comments, "This is your day. It's an opportunity to hear about the latest developments, to swap stories and ideas with your peers, to talk about how you're using SAS and, we hope, hear about new ways to use SAS." He urged attendees to make the most of the opportunities available: to ask questions and interact, to talk to SAS people, and make their views felt with the online Customer Survey.

The SAS User Forum had two main themes: the SAS Intelligence Value Chain, and the 'uniqueness' of SAS technologies and the ways in which organisations use SAS. These were covered from different angles through a packed agenda. Attendees could also catch up with SAS Education and Customer Support in the User Forum's Knowledge Zone.

Introducing the SAS® Intelligence Value Chain
Allan Russell, Senior Vice President Strategy, SAS International, delivered the keynote presentation. He described how the tools and technologies provided by SAS enable organisations to add value at every stage of the SAS Intelligence Value Chain: from getting hold of raw data to providing intelligent information to users. Allan set the pace for the day with a highly informative and entertaining presentation. Dave Annis, Head of Technology at SAS UK, then explained the thinking (and technical development process) behind packaged SAS solutions for areas that include telecoms and finance. He presented a sound case, from both a technical and business perspective, for implementing such solutions, and assessed the various options in terms of 'build or buy?'

Customer Support in the Knowledge Zone
Customer Support in the Knowledge Zone

Data Integration and Information Exploitation in Focus
Following the general morning session, the forum split into two streams: Data Integration and Information Exploitation, focusing on components of the SAS Intelligence Value Chain. Together with presentations by SAS on topics including data quality, how to manage increasing data volumes and complexity, SAS Enterprise Guide® and how it can help the SAS user and optimisation tools to go 'beyond data mining', SAS users also described their experiences and the benefits of using SAS.

According to Tony Chong, Information Manager at Centrica Telecommunications, "It was a good experience presenting and I think my paper went down well. With a project like ours - providing management information in a very competitive business - there's so much you could have talked about. Afterwards, it was great that so many audience members came up and said they'd recognised the challenges we'd faced, and they agreed with the ways we'd overcome them." Other customers presenting included representatives from HFC Bank, British Telecom and Cheltenham & Gloucester.



Practical Hints and Tips
The SAS User Forum also presented the 'live version' of Hints & Tips, one of In The Know's most popular sections. Experts from SAS Education and Customer Support shared their insider knowledge on topics such as 'How to Advance Macros', 'Small (DATA) Steps to Great Things', an overview of AppDev Studio™ functionality, and making the most of SAS Enterprise Miner™.

"The Hints & Tips sessions were very useful, as was the booklet provided in the attendees' packs with some examples of SAS coding. It's sometimes difficult to see 'outside the box' when you're involved in day-to-day data processing and coding, so it's excellent to see some examples and what other people are doing", David Halse, Consultant, PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Closing with SAS® 9.1 in Action
SAS User Forum Attendees
SAS User Forum Attendees
The formal agenda was wrapped up by an hour-long presentation on SAS 9.1 before a capacity audience. Hosted by Leigh Bates, Product Manager at SAS UK and Emma Poulakas, SAS Consultant, attendees were taken on a step-by-step walkthrough of SAS 9.1, focusing on the new technology and capabilities it delivers at every stage of the Intelligence Value Chain. This involved using 'real' data from a fictitious company, Orion Sports & Outdoors Ltd, describing the impact of various different aspects of SAS 9.1 for different individuals.

This session also saw Adrian Jones, Manager of Business Information Systems at Barclaycard, provide fascinating insights into what lies in store for SAS users. A long-time SAS user, Barclaycard is an early adopter of SAS 9.1. "We've been fortunate enough to have a SAS 9.1 environment since this summer," said Adrian. "In our area, Customer Value Management, we use SAS to help optimise the financial value of our customers and prospects throughout their lifecycle. We've already proven the value of analytics at Barclaycard and the use of SAS in that - it's our strategic analytical toolset - so we were keen to know where SAS was going next - and with SAS 9.1, we like what we see."

For details and to register for the SAS User Forum 2003 in Penrith on the 28th October, please visit: http://www.sas.com/uk/events/userforum/index.html