SAS® software supports governance, risk and compliance (GRC)

New solutions to be added to strong software lineup; will help businesses grow and avoid disaster

06 May 2009 -  With the global economy ailing, businesses need to actively manage risk, accurately track regulatory compliance and precisely measure and forecast economic capital to support business strategies. To avoid potential disaster but also uncover opportunities for growth, an effective governance, risk and compliance (GRC) programme is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity.

SAS, the leader in  business analytics, can assist with this business need. SAS helps organisations proactively manage enterprise-wide risk, while complying with regulations and tracking and enhancing overall corporate performance. SAS offers existing and new software solutions to tackle the three parts of GRC, all built on a flexible and integrated business analytics framework.

In October 2008, SAS ranked first in the operational risk and GRC categories in  Chartis Research’s RiskTech 100 report. “SAS brings together best-in-class qualitative and quantitative risk assessment and reporting to be a natural market leader in GRC,” said Helen Townsley, Director of Research at Chartis Research. “SAS continues to innovate to solve customers’ evolving needs. After the credit crisis and global meltdown, organisations need to adhere to regulations, manage their risk and act in a transparent and consistent way through stronger GRC systems. It is clear SAS is committed to help.”

Governance

Governance begins with strategy, process and oversight – ensuring organisations and employees “do the right thing,” follow ethical standards and comply with appropriate regulations. It’s about creating transparency and setting direction so that any numbers an organisation communicates to stakeholders and regulators are accurate, and auditable. SAS provides critical coverage for:

• Strategy Management – helps organisations focus on developing and implementing an effective  strategy that can be detailed, communicated, validated, analysed and modified for effectiveness.
• Corporate Social Responsibility – provides the ability to model and report on workforce diversity and other  human capital measures, and create  predictive retention models to determine which employees are likely to leave; and also the ability to accurately measure and manage environmental impact in areas such as  greenhouse gas emissions.
• Financial Management – using generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP) and international financial reporting standards (IFRS) in the preparation of  financial statements.
• Cost and Profitability Management – modeling and managing how  costs flow through the entire value chain to better understand the drivers of cost,  profit and value by offer, channel, customer and transaction. In the public sector, this helps show how taxpayers’ money is used for specific activities.
• Operational Risk Management – providing a framework and process to document, test and assess the effectiveness of controls that  mitigate risk.

New Performance Management Software Coming in Q4

SAS will release updated software for SAS Strategic Performance Management, SAS Financial Management and SAS Human Capital Management later this year. The new versions will feature enhanced analytics that will enable faster and more accurate business planning and decision-making. By quickly delivering insights into operations, financials and human resource information, organisations will be better positioned to adhere to GRC efforts.

Risk

SAS provides a firm-wide platform to automate the collection, analysis and monitoring of risk-related information. SAS for  Enterprise Risk Management tracks systems and actions across business processes to aid in real-time identification and management of priority risks. Risk evaluation is incorporated into corporate strategy and planning so business units have visibility into key risks early enough to avoid pitfalls and recognise opportunities. SAS’ risk management offerings provide:

• Proactive and risk-adjusted management of enterprise performance, delivering the tools organisations need to compete effectively.
• A management system where all compliance and risk structures – policies, processes, risk monitoring, controls, test plans, remediation cases, and documentation – are centrally monitored and controlled to remove obstacles that might hamper integrated risk management.
• A strong governing framework that balances opportunities with financial, legal and operational risks in a transparent manner.

Wescom Credit Union, one of the nation's largest credit unions, is using SAS to help improve its credit risk management programme. "With SAS, we are able to more accurately assess how much current and future risk we have embedded in our individual loan portfolios and determine where adjustments may be needed," said Anna Mendez, Chief Credit Officer at Wescom.

By using SAS software to track, monitor, and even model key risk indicators directly against business performance, organisations can increase efficiency and improve business processes. This translates into cost savings, improved profitability, better operational and financial performance, and enhanced competitiveness.

“SAS provides a framework for analysing and managing risks in the context of corporate strategy and performance,” said Allan Russell, Head of SAS Global Risk Practice. “As noted in a recent  global enterprise risk management survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit for SAS, risk-based performance management helps organisations understand their true exposures and achieve more complete transparency so that risks can be effectively managed at the right time.”

New Risk Offerings Later This Year

To help financial services customers proactively manage enterprise risk, SAS recently released an enhanced version of  SAS OpRisk Management, featuring new approaches for certain risk and incident assessments, better workflow management, and revised control testing.  In Q4 2009, SAS will also offer two new risk solutions:

• SAS Risk Management for Banking helps organisations achieve comprehensive risk governance by incorporating a performance management approach into all areas of risk. The solution addresses key requirements for financial institutions, including: a quality integrated risk data infrastructure with timely access; the ability to measure exposure and risk across all risk types and books of business; and the ability to distribute incentives for consistent optimisation of risk-adjusted returns throughout the organisation. Organisations can deploy specific risk applications such as asset and liability management, market risk, credit risk and firmwide risk.
• SAS Risk Management for Insurance is designed to meet the risk-analysis and risk-capital-calculation needs of both life insurance and property and casualty (P&C) insurance companies, and features data integration, risk analysis and reporting. The first release of the software will support the Solvency II regulatory standard model approach. Included in this release will be modules for market risk, actuarial risk (life and P&C) and firmwide risk, and for the calculation of the solvency capital required (SCR) and minimum capital required (MCR) measures.

Compliance

Governance and  compliance go hand in hand. Regulations such as Basel II and Sarbanes-Oxley were developed to improve ethical behaviour and governance. SAS solutions not only help monitor and manage, they help an organisation report against many regulations and voluntary standards, providing the facts and methods to demonstrate compliance, or in the case of sustainability, ensure their programmes are more than just “green washing.” Within financial services, SAS also helps organisations comply with  anti-money laundering and  fair banking regulations.

SAS’ risk, financial and performance management solutions enable organisations to pull together complex compliance data from multiple systems and then quickly analyse it, report on it and deliver the required information to regulators. In the wake of the financial meltdown and the global recession, new and strengthened regulations are being rapidly adopted in many countries and by global regulatory bodies.

Business Analytics Framework

All SAS software is built on the SAS  Business Analytics Framework, a powerful blend of data integration, analytics and reporting capabilities. These core technologies are imbedded in every one of SAS’ ever-expanding range of industry and line-of-business solutions. Through SAS’ business analytics framework, organisations can quickly address their most immediate business issues, and then expand their use of SAS capabilities over time by adding other integrated software solutions to achieve continuous performance improvements.

This announcement was made today at  The Premier Business Leadership Series event in London. Presented by SAS, The Series brings together hundreds of public and private sector attendees to share ideas and knowledge on critical business management issues.

About SAS

For further information, please contact the team at the SAS press office on:
Tel: +44 (0) 1628 490490
e-mail saspressoffice@suk.sas.com
For more information on SAS, please visit www.sas.com/uk

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