Accurate forecasts allow decision makers to lead with confidence

08 November 2005 -  Accurate forecasts allow managers to reduce supply chain costs, respond quickly to dynamic market changes and meet performance management objectives better. For organisations that need to automate large numbers of forecasts without sacrificing accuracy, SAS, the leader in business intelligence, is now shipping its award-winning SAS® Forecast Server software to customers globally.

"Inaccurate forecasts result in higher costs and missed opportunities. SAS Forecast Server helps companies increase operational efficiency and improve corporate performance," said Anne Milley, SAS director of technology product marketing. "The beauty of this offering is its ability to produce large-scale, automatic and high-quality forecasts. The entire organisation benefits from greater forecast accuracy. SAS Forecast Server delivers cutting-edge forecasting capabilities including large-scale, automatic model creation and optimisation, which no other vendor can offer in a combined package."

According to a January 25, 2005 Alert, "How Do I Know That I Have a Good Forecast?" by Lora Cecere of AMR Research, "Forecast accuracy is the most important and advantageous supply chain metric. According to our benchmarking research, a one-point improvement in demand forecast accuracy could yield a two-point improvement in perfect order performance. Organisations with better forecasts gain competitive advantage with a 35% shorter cash-to-cash cycle time."

Patent-pending SAS Forecast Server automatically chooses the best forecasting model, optimises the model parameters and produces the forecasts, even accounting for seasonality and intermittent data, both of which are common in many industries. As an example, graphical displays offer retailers an understanding of the effects of holidays, marketing events, sales promotions and unexpected events such as weather, thus improving their ability to plan effective sales promotions and marketing events. The resulting forecasts better reflect the business and require less overriding and fewer manual interventions so decision makers can trust the accuracy of the forecasts.

Already a favourite with users, SAS Forecast Server was named one of the "Trend-Setting Products of the Year for 2005" by KMWorld magazine, highlighting innovative products that make a significant impact on the marketplace. SAS provides an integrated, open and extensible enterprise intelligence platform that serves as the foundation for creating and delivering accurate, in-depth intelligence.

"Telstra managers and senior leaders want accurate forecasts," said Terry Simmonds, national manager for strategy and marketing analysis at Telstra Country Wide. "No other software but SAS could cope with the volume of forecasts required to predict Telstra Country Wide's customer revenue. We selected SAS Forecast Server because SAS can do everything we need, including data integration, BI reporting and analytics. The reports that formerly took three to four weeks to accomplish, SAS now accomplishes in one day."

SAS Forecast Server is part of the SAS®9 Enterprise Intelligence Platform, an integrated, open and extensible foundation for creating and delivering accurate, in-depth intelligence. From data integration and storage capabilities to business intelligence and analytic intelligence tools, the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform helps decrease existing intelligence gaps and provides a solid business analytics architecture that supports business processes at any level of an organisation.

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