SMEs to Benefit from New SAS Integrated BI Offering

Within one week, SAS can deliver integrated portfolio of BI capabilities and predictive analytics to SMEs, helping them to make better business decisions

08 August 2006  –  SAS, the market leader in the new generation of business intelligence (BI) software, today announced that it has launched a quick to install, integrated approach to BI for small and mid-sized enterprises (SME) in the UK.

SAS now provides a package for integrating, managing and analysing data, and then deploying that intelligence across the business. SAS' package differs from other vendors' SME BI products, as its strategy is based upon providing SMEs with the bigger picture, rather than individual tools with different interfaces, which result in isolated solutions to isolated problems. Uniquely, SAS' offering comes with consultancy for implementation and support and training on the products, enabling the package to be easily installed, customised and ready to use within one week. SMEs will also be able to benefit from SAS' predictive analytical capabilities.

SAS already dominates the market at the enterprise intelligence level, and now aims to build upon this by transferring its experience into the SME market. SAS recognises that SMEs need the same level of decision-making as their larger counterparts. Without an integrated approach to data integration and BI, SMEs are being forced to make too many non-informed 'gut' decisions increasing their risks and decreasing overall performance.

Since its move into this space, SAS has already closed its first deal with investment management firm, Millennium Global Investments Ltd., to meet its complete BI needs. Richard Macaskill, Millennium Global's IT strategy manager states:

"As a rapidly expanding investment management firm, Millennium has had to address the scalability of its reporting, internal analytics and data processing across the enterprise. Where other BI providers offered solutions to only some of our challenges, only SAS had the breadth of tools and the consolidation of technologies to truly allow us to scale. The integrated environment provided by Enterprise Guide in particular allows us to concentrate on addressing the complexities instead of 'gluing' together the pieces. As we continue to grow and diversify our business, having SAS' enterprise class software gives us confidence that we will have the technologies to meet our needs."

James Allardyce has been hired by SAS to head up the new division and establish the SME practice. James is tasked with shaping SAS' SME strategy, driving SAS' penetration into the market and building a substantial team to push forward the initiative. James joins SAS following a sales career spanning 20 years, most recently as the SME focused sales manager at IBM and as sales manager for Wall Data. Whilst at Wall Data, he successfully implemented a channel model for mid-market companies, which was instrumental in increasing UK Sales from $4m to $9m in two years.

John Dalton, CEO of SAS UK said: "We are extremely excited about the move. This is about seeing an opportunity in the market and knowing that we can fill that gap with our technology. Benefiting from the use of business intelligence should not be limited to enterprise level companies. The demand from SMEs is there and we see that they want to get more out of the information they hold. Our technology will give them the ability to make the best decisions to positively impact their bottom line. James has an excellent background in selling into the SME market and we're confident that with his experience and SAS' advantageous offering we can certainly bring something new, and of value, to the market.

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