This paper reviews a portion of the research done by BusinessWeek Research Services to determine the attitudes and opinions of C-level executives with regard to the use and value of business analytics and provides analysis and insights on the topic of business analytics.

This IDC paper, sponsored by Platform Computing and SAS, focuses on the value of deploying business analytics solutions on grid computing platforms. It discusses high-performance computing environments (evolution is moving from clusters to grids to cloud computing), the reasons for choosing business analytics software on grid computing platforms and the benefits achieved by three organizations. These case studies illustrate how SAS Business Analytics and grid computing technologies can enable competitive differentiation, even with increasing data volumes, challenging and ever-changing decision-support requirements, and pressure on IT departments to do more with less.

Executives charged with the task of putting banking on a safer, more promising footing in the wake of a global economic slowdown need to be armed with trustworthy, complete facts and analysis. This paper looks at how adopting a business analytics framework enables decisions to be based on true knowledge and predictive insight – adjusted for known risks, across the institution's business units, functional areas and channels.

This SAS-sponsored IDC white paper examines why organizations of all sizes and in all industries are turning to business analytics solutions to automate or support decision making. Based on user surveys and ongoing IDC coverage of the business analytics market, the report highlights how you can successfully deploy business analytics throughout your organization; retain customers, uncover cost-cutting opportunities and address compliance issues; use business analytics to give decision makers at every level quick access to accurate information; and ensure data quality and efficient data management within your organization. 

This article reviews a portion of the research done by BusinessWeek Research Services to determine the attitudes and opinions of C-level executives with regard to the use and value of business analytics for gaining insight into customers' motivations and behaviors. 

The Translation Layer is the first of a three-paper series titled Increasing the Business Impact of Customer Insights and Analytics. The translation layer is defined as the role that analytical people play, or ought to play, within organizations to bridge the gap between information and powerful business applications. This paper illustrates why the analytics community must evolve to increase the impact they have on the organizations where they work.

Surprise is never a good thing in finance. Unfortunately, anticipating market changes has always been a challenge for finance chiefs. Now, because of new regulations, companies must also improve their performance management capabilities to minimize the effects of material changes and performance shortfalls. CFO Research Services interviewed a number of finance executives to find out how they are stepping up to these challenges. This paper, written by CFO Research Services, outlines the results that emerged from their research — the performance management strategies that CFOs are using to cope with regulatory restrictions and ensure success for their companies.

Financial institutions must strengthen their anti-money laundering programs to identify and report suspicious activity, meet new regulatory mandates and manage compliance risk. Read this white paper to learn how SAS Anti-Money Laundering can help you detect unknown behavior patterns, gain a clearer view into transactions and report suspicious activity.

The federal government has enacted laws and standards making discrimination in lending illegal. To help financial lenders improve the accuracy of their disparate treatment testing evaluations, SAS has developed a methodology called the Dynamic-Conditional Process (DCP). This methodology dynamically classifies lending decision factors and captures variations in policy thresholds among loan products, markets and/or programs. Read this white paper for an introduction to the DCP methodology.

This paper discusses the role of quality in SAS products and services. You will learn about the importance of quality in every aspect of the company, from personnel to research and development, production and customer service. The paper also includes six appendices addressing specific issues such as FDA compliance and employee training.

This paper discusses the role of quality in SAS products and services, particularly as it relates to SAS 9.2. You will learn about the importance of quality in every aspect of the company, from personnel to research and development, production and customer service. The paper also includes six appendices addressing specific issues such as FDA compliance and employee training.

The successful implementation of information delivery solutions requires a structured approach that is flexible and scalable, and that ensures a quality outcome and managed risk. The SAS Methodology is a framework that incorporates knowledge and expertise from the world's foremost provider of information delivery solutions. This white paper specifically outlines the features and benefits of the SAS Methodology for implementing strategic solutions. Benefits include managed risk, quality results, scalability, and rapid delivery, among others. Features include an integrated project process, client-centered development and technology independence.

Accessible software is designed to be usable by people who have diverse impairments or disabilities and who use assistive technologies to meet their needs. SAS believes that we have a legal, economic, and moral imperative to deliver software that works with assistive technologies. Read this paper to learn about SAS' commitment to providing accessible software products and documentation through the ongoing evolution of our product lines.

What-if scenarios that predict what might happen given different business conditions and decisions are most enlightening when we understand the relationships between the variables that influence potential results. Data visualization expert Stephen Few describes the characteristics of good visual analytics and describes how to use the JMP Prediction Profiler to build predictive business models and interact with data and graphs to observe how changes in one variable influence changes in the others.

Statistical intervals can be confusing, even in the minds of those who use them often. This paper uses an easy-to-understand manufacturing example to describe the differences between confidence, prediction and tolerance (enclosure) intervals. The author provides formulas plus the simple steps for implementing each interval type using JMP menus.

By putting data in motion, people can spot trends and see details they might otherwise miss. That's a guiding premise of this white paper from data visualization expert Stephen Few. Find out how interactive graphs lead to valuable analytical insights, illustrating not just the degree of change from one point in time to the next, but also the shape, velocity and direction of change.

Visual Six Sigma is a practical and pragmatic approach to data analysis and process improvement. Visual Six Sigma deploys easy-to-use, highly visual software  that can accelerate the process of analysis and eliminate the need for advanced statistical analysis in all but the most complex situations. This paper uses as case study to describe and illustrate the Visual Six Sigma.

To measure the effectiveness of marketing investments, marketers must overcome numerous data challenges. This white paper describes, at a high level, a proven approach to data collection challenges that exist within large enterprises. It leads you through the entire process of gathering data, creating marketing mix models and implementing results.

This white paper describes a powerful and economical managerial accounting system that collects and transforms data at the detailed transaction level. You will learn about the structure and benefits of such a system, including its ability to scale to accommodate billions of transactions, access data from diverse sources, allow remote Web-enabled analysis and report profits at a moment's notice.

Companies are extremely vigilant about all spending. The budget expenditures for marketing should be subject to the same intense examination by the COO and CFO as any other spending program, but the ROI on marketing must be better projected using modern analytical techniques, fact-based logic and financial data. This white paper argues for the importance of calculating customer lifetime value (CLV) to use in important marketing decisions. The paper explores the difference between customer profitability and customer value, and you will learn why it is important to consider customers as investments. Ultimately, this paper suggests that, while it may be difficult, analyzing CLV provides significant benefits when used in addition to customer profitability.

Recently, the focus in banks has shifted from mergers and acquisitions to organic growth – attracting and retaining good customers. This white paper describes how to apply customer value to the retail banking business model as a continuous loop of insight, action, assessment and learning for continuous improvement. It also proves the advantage of a more interactive view of customer value.

To compete successfully, organizations need to operate effectively across multiple business channels to give customers the control they increasingly seek. This paper discusses how enterprise marketing solutions can help differentiate your customers' experiences across these channels. It details how and why technology will play an increasingly important role in the development of profitable, long-term customer relationships.

Enterprises long ago acknowledged the value of CRM and ERP systems for improving customer value and process efficiency. Many are now seeing additional returns by applying predictive analytics to customer data. This white paper explores the process of using customer data to drive profitability by creating a unified view of the customer, applying predictive analytics, turning insight into effective action, and aligning marketing, sales and service with enterprise goals.

Wealth management organizations must take a data driven, analytical approach toward building trust and loyalty with high net worth clients. This white paper highlights three essential elements needed to create a foundation for successful client communications. Also, it discusses a process for implementing these elements -- resulting in strong client relationships.

This paper illlustrates how Credit Scoring for SAS Enterprise Miner software is used to build credit scoring models for the retail credit industry. It discusses the benefits of performing credit scoring and the advantages of building credit scoring models in-house using SAS Enterprise Miner. It goes on to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of three important model types: the scorecard, the decision tree and the neural network. Finally, it presents a case study where an application scoring model is built with SAS Enterprise Miner, beginning with reading the development sample, through classing and selecting characteristics, fitting a regression model, calculating score points, assessing scorecard quality (in comparison to a decision tree model built on the same sample) and going through a reject inference process to arrive at a model for scoring the new customer applicant population.

SAS for Customer Experience Analytics is designed to enable retail banks to tailor every customer contact and optimize value at every opportunity, from visitor arrival through web site interaction to the business response. This white paper describes the technology landscape leading up to the current demand for true, actionable multi-channel intelligence, together with the key elements required for a successful customer experience analytics solution.

This white paper highlights how SAS for Customer Experience Analytics helps organizations optimize the Web experience for their customers and analyze customer data for more effective marketing. Ultimately, you will learn how SAS for Customer Experience Analytics allows you to gain deeper customer insights, choreograph more meaningful customer interactions and improve overall marketing performance.

Read this commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting to learn about the total economic impact and potential return on investment that organizations may gain by implementing SAS Marketing Automation. To conduct the report, Forrester used its Total Economic Impact methodology, which "not only measures costs and cost reduction (areas that are typically accounted for within IT) but also weighs the enabling value of a technology in increasing the effectiveness of line-of-business activities."

Marketing success in today’s tough environment is driven by making smarter choices when faced with the challenge of doing more with less. Now, more than ever, marketers have to plan and execute campaigns that are tightly aligned with corporate priorities and deliver clear results. This was the topic of a Webcast – presented in association with the American Marketing Association – that explored how successful companies are changing their approach to campaign management to operate more effectively, including segmentation techniques, contact policy management, and using predictive analytics to drive decision-making. This paper is a summary of that Webcast, which is part of a series of Webcasts on Smarter Marketing.

Organizations that are looking for a unique competitive advantage are using a real-time decision making strategy to help them improve the customer experience. This white paper explores why a real-time decision making approach can yield significant benefits versus traditional decision-making approaches. Also, it provides real-world examples of how real-time decision making works, and how it can help to coordinate interactive marketing across your inbound and outbound channels.

Alignment is the most significant benefit organizations seek in their performance management initiatives, but it is the least realized. This paper explains why alignment is so elusive and offers three steps to achieving it. It also includes a guide to the technologies that enable alignment throughout the enterprise.

Surprise is never a good thing in finance. Unfortunately, anticipating market changes has always been a challenge for finance chiefs. Now, because of new regulations, companies must also improve their performance management capabilities to minimize the effects of material changes and performance shortfalls. CFO Research Services interviewed a number of finance executives to find out how they are stepping up to these challenges. This paper, written by CFO Research Services, outlines the results that emerged from their research — the performance management strategies that CFOs are using to cope with regulatory restrictions and ensure success for their companies.

This white paper addresses the critical issues behind performance management, including how companies approach it, what obstacles they face in making it successful, what they hope to achieve and what seems to be working. It is a summary report of the online survey that was conducted among 1,143 cross-industry organizations worldwide.

While it is essential to employ customer-centric strategies to improve revenue, it is also necessary to balance customer needs with shareholder value. This white paper outlines a method for achieving this balance by tying retention spending to customer financial value. You will learn how to evaluate customers by combining financial value with loyalty, and about requirements for a properly customer-focused strategy.

Activity-based costing (ABC) has transformed from a tool that simply improves the accuracy of cost computations to one that adds immeasurable value to forward-looking government organizations. This white paper explores the transformation of ABC from a manufacturing tool to a management practice. You will also learn about the relationship between ABC and performance management. The paper also includes two real-world case studies.

Activity-based costing more accurately determines the actual costs of production and related services. The relatively higher accuracy and greater visibility achieved by ABC has helped organizations in service and manufacturing industries better understand and manage their indirect costs than was possible with traditional accounting methods. However, after proven success, ABC has recently come under fire. Robert Kaplan and others are promoting a new, time-driven methodology to presumably get strategic information faster and with less maintenance. Is this approach the panacea for reducing the efforts to calculate costs? This white paper takes an objective look at several questions and brings some new perspective to an issue that has been generating a lot of buzz but also involves a few misconceptions.

Companies are extremely vigilant about all spending. The budget expenditures for marketing should be subject to the same intense examination by the COO and CFO as any other spending program, but the ROI on marketing must be better projected using modern analytical techniques, fact-based logic and financial data. This white paper argues for the importance of calculating customer lifetime value (CLV) to use in important marketing decisions. The paper explores the difference between customer profitability and customer value, and you will learn why it is important to consider customers as investments. Ultimately, this paper suggests that, while it may be difficult, analyzing CLV provides significant benefits when used in addition to customer profitability.

Deregulation and competition have many telecommunications providers struggling to sustain or restore profitability. This white paper outlines ways that activity-based management reflects the actual costs involved in attracting, supporting and keeping a customer. You will learn about the shift from commodities to customers in the marketplace and the importance of customer profitability as a measure of economic value.

Government agencies are particularly susceptible to misappropriation of funds. Billions of dollars can be siphoned away from worthy programs due to process deficiencies, lack of transparency or outright fraud. This executive overview outlines five steps to identifying and preventing fraud, waste and abuse. These steps focus on gaining deeper insights into existing records of program activities and financial data.

For state governments, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is creating unprecedented management challenges in reporting, transparency and accountability. To meet the President's five crucial objectives for the stimulus funding, governors, state budget officers, controllers and stimulus czars can apply a business analytics approach to managing grants; SAS for recovery optimization and management for state governments provides data integration, reporting and advanced analytics that can be quickly deployed to complement existing grants management systems with minimum disruption.

Based on a 2007 survey of more than 100 insurance professionals, this report uncovers the true size and scope of today's claims fraud activity. You'll learn best practices for combating insurance fraud, methods for overcoming common obstacles and new tools/technologies for optimized detection and prevention efforts.

This white paper is intended to give existing and new customers and evaluators a brief overview of the JMP Genomics solution and an introduction to some of the new features for expression analysis in JMP Genomics 4.1.

This white paper, together with our live Web training sessions, is intended to give existing and new customers and evaluators a brief overview of the JMP® Genomics solution and an introduction to some of the features in JMP Genomics 4.1 pertaining to the import of genetics data from external sources and an introduction to the Basic Genetics Workflow and various analysis options, including principal components analysis, linkage disequilibrium and haplotype analysis.

JMP Genomics software from SAS provides a suite of comprehensive tools for dynamic exploration and analysis of data from traditional microarray studies or summarized data from second-generation sequencing platforms. Its unique pedigree combines the JMP statistical discovery platform with industry-leading SAS® Analytics tailored for processing large genomics data sets. With release 4.1, JMP Genomics adds a 64-bit edition, new import and expression analysis features, enhanced genome visualization capabilities and more. This white paper describes the new and enhanced tools.

Driven by regulation, restructuring, increased accountability and shareholder scrutiny, the CFO has become a key strategic decision maker who helps set company strategy. This white paper argues that financial professionals must do more than report on the past; they must interpret past results for their impact on the current business environment and affect on the future. The paper also discusses how SAS can help CFOs address key challenges as they adapt to their changing role.

Alignment is the most significant benefit organizations seek in their performance management initiatives, but it is the least realized. This paper explains why alignment is so elusive and offers three steps to achieving it. It also includes a guide to the technologies that enable alignment throughout the enterprise.

This white paper outlines the benefits of predictive modeling for HR departments. You will learn how such technology can be used to determine which employees are most valuable to the company and which of those are at risk of leaving. The paper also provides a basic modeling scenario to illustrate the power of SAS software for predicting employee turnover.

IT capacity management is a balance between service cost and capacity investment, and between supply and demand. This white paper explores how to move beyond the IT Infrastructure Library's (ITIL) best practices for capacity management. You will learn how to automate the capacity management process and use advanced analytics to align demand forecasts with business requirements.

This white paper illustrates a new patent-pending approach that may be helpful in certain new product forecasting situations.  It combines human judgment with time series mining and statistical modeling.  This "structured analogy" approach helps automate the selection of analogous products ("like items"), facilitates review and clustering of past new product introductions, and generate statistical forecasts.  Users can make manual overrides to the statistical forecasts, and get a better sense of the risks and uncertainties in new product forecasts through visualization of past new product introductions.

In June 2008, SAS brought together executives and consultants across a range of federal agencies to discuss their experiences with performance management initiatives. Some were planning and performance management executives within government agencies. Some were business or IT consultants working with federal agencies.  From all of their accounts, three key themes emerged. Successful performance management initiatives must realign the cultural framework, set the strategic vision and establish the supporting information infrastructure. This paper explores issues and best practices around performance management in government from the people who live and breathe it every day.  

By integrating predictive analytics into performance management activities, organizations can focus on their true key performance indicators and drive significant performance improvements. Read this white paper to learn about the five steps, supported by real-world examples, toward predictive performance management. The paper also includes a short guide to predictive analytics, which defines common types of analysis and the results they can provide.

This conclusions paper is derived from the Radical Times Require Radical Action dinner series presented by SAS' Jonathan Hornby that reached top executives in six U.S. cities. Attendees' concerns about the economic downturn and their strategies for adapting are offered here alongside 11 perspectives from Hornby's book (forthcoming August 2009), Radical Action for Radical Times. Ideas include viewing recessions as an opportunity to grow stronger, resisting the knee-jerk impulse to downsize, and embracing innovation to survive and thrive.

Driven by regulation, restructuring, increased accountability and shareholder scrutiny, the CFO has become a key strategic decision maker who helps set company strategy. This white paper argues that financial professionals must do more than report on the past; they must interpret past results for their impact on the current business environment and affect on the future. The paper also discusses how SAS can help CFOs address key challenges as they adapt to their changing role.

Being bound to a traditional, 12-month budget can create problems for organizations, problems such as an underutilized staff, inefficient use of resources and a lack of flexibility when economic circumstances change. Employing a 90-day budget based on processes and making better use of scenario planning and forecasting can make a difference. That is the commitment of this paper: to provide a catalyst for change and a road map for achievement to the financial planning and analysis manager who wants to shake up the status quo and get his or her team engaged at the high level of value they are capable of.

Alignment is the most significant benefit organizations seek in their performance management initiatives, but it is the least realized. This paper explains why alignment is so elusive and offers three steps to achieving it. It also includes a guide to the technologies that enable alignment throughout the enterprise.

Surprise is never a good thing in finance. Unfortunately, anticipating market changes has always been a challenge for finance chiefs. Now, because of new regulations, companies must also improve their performance management capabilities to minimize the effects of material changes and performance shortfalls. CFO Research Services interviewed a number of finance executives to find out how they are stepping up to these challenges. This paper, written by CFO Research Services, outlines the results that emerged from their research — the performance management strategies that CFOs are using to cope with regulatory restrictions and ensure success for their companies.

Imagine the benefits if your organization was certain that the performance factors and variables it monitored were actually the right ones – the ones that make a difference to financial success. These benefits are offered by analytical performance management, a quantitative approach to understanding and predicting performance that is a real possibility today for many firms.

In this research report, the concept of analytical performance management is described both in theory and in practice. The research provides insight into leading practices in analytical performance management and barriers to achieving it.   

This white paper addresses the critical issues behind performance management, including how companies approach it, what obstacles they face in making it successful, what they hope to achieve and what seems to be working. It is a summary report of the online survey that was conducted among 1,143 cross-industry organizations worldwide.

This paper explores the role that various performance management methodologies can play in helping private equity firms achieve and – ideally – exceed their targeted ROI. Starting with a basic primer about capital markets and the factors that have led to the growth in private equity funds, the paper discusses the importance of integrating various enterprise performance management improvement methodologies and embedding them with analytics of all flavors – especially predictive analytics.

In times of economic uncertainty, corporate decision makers need more high quality information to make well-informed decisions. So said the speakers and  delegates at CFO Publishing's recent conference, "Predictive Analytics in Perilous Times." The conference, held in San Francisco in February of 2009, featured leading voices in corporate finance -- including Thomas Redman, president of Navesink Consulting, Arthur Kordon, a leader in the data mining and modeling group at Dow Chemical and Dr. David Friend, chairman of Palladium Group Inc., among others. This conclusions paper presents the highlights of the conference program.

Current economic conditions heighten the need for financial services firms to accurately gauge required levels of regulatory compliance and economic capital to support business strategy and risk appetite. More regulations are on the way, demanding transparency, accurate information about company operations, robust and comprehensive risk management, regulatory compliance and efficient governance. What does this mean for many organizations? This paper takes a step back to examine how all components of a successful company must work in an integrated manner in order to produce the best results, and how SAS approaches governance, risk, compliance and performance management issues by providing a comprehensive framework for analyzing and managing risks in the context of corporate strategy and performance.

Asset-backed securities pose special problems for risk managers because of their contingent, path-dependent cash flows. This paper provides a high-level, conceptual view of 1) the difficulties involved in measuring the risk of asset-backed securities, 2) a methodology for overcoming those difficulties and 3) a software solution that can implement the chosen methodology for projecting potential profit-and-loss distributions of asset-backed securities at various future points in time or horizons.

Financial institutions must strengthen their anti-money laundering programs to identify and report suspicious activity, meet new regulatory mandates and manage compliance risk. Read this white paper to learn how SAS Anti-Money Laundering can help you detect unknown behavior patterns, gain a clearer view into transactions and report suspicious activity.

Executives charged with the task of putting banking on a safer, more promising footing in the wake of a global economic slowdown need to be armed with trustworthy, complete facts and analysis. This paper looks at how adopting a business analytics framework enables decisions to be based on true knowledge and predictive insight – adjusted for known risks, across the institution's business units, functional areas and channels.

There are some factors that require careful consideration before the development and implementation of a risk-based pricing framework. This paper outlines those factors and provides a quick methodology to begin instantiating risk-based pricing when other processes, such as an economic capital framework, have not yet been implemented.

An industry best practice for estimating the market risk of trading operations involves projecting profit-and-loss distributions of portfolios of financial instruments over short time horizons and then summarizing that information into single numbers, such as value at risk (VaR) and expected shortfall. Easy to understand and conceptually straightforward, VaR has long been an industry standard for estimating market risk. The means by which it is calculated and used in practice to manage risk, however, present a number of modeling, data management and reporting challenges. This paper addresses ways in which SAS can help clients overcome these challenges to better measure and manage their market risk.

A global survey of 316 financial services executives conducted in July 2008 by the Economist Intelligence Unit on behalf of SAS reveals that over 70 percent of respondents believe that losses stemming from the credit crisis were largely due to failures in addressing risk management issues. Read this paper to learn more about implications for how financial organizations approach risk management, and about the future of ERM in light of the ongoing credit crisis.

For some time, liquidity risk has been treated as a second-order or consequential risk, in the sense that liquidity issues only arise from problems in other primary risk areas where the risks are not well controlled and managed - such as market, credit or operational risk. With the materialization of the credit crisis, it has become evident that liquidity risk must be measured and managed as an independent risk. This paper will discuss liquidity risk and how SAS Risk Management for Banking gives institutions the ability to address liquidity risk right now, as well as the ability to evolve as needs change over time.

In times of market turmoil, several weaknesses of risk management systems that had been developed in relatively benign market environments have become apparent. As a consequence, the challenge today consists of refining and enlarging the traditional credit risk management repertoire on the one hand, and being more creative in the modeling and management of innovative credit products on the other hand. Furthermore, a successful risk management system will allow for the interdependencies between credit risk, liquidity risk and market risk and will contrast various quantitative analyses with qualitative considerations. This white paper focuses on the credit risk management part of an integrated enterprise risk management system.

The federal government has enacted laws and standards making discrimination in lending illegal. To help financial lenders improve the accuracy of their disparate treatment testing evaluations, SAS has developed a methodology called the Dynamic-Conditional Process (DCP). This methodology dynamically classifies lending decision factors and captures variations in policy thresholds among loan products, markets and/or programs. Read this white paper for an introduction to the DCP methodology.

This white paper is an excerpt from the book Credit Risk Assessment: The New Lending System for Borrowers, Lenders, and Investors by Clark R. Abrahams and Mingyuan Zhang. In this paper, the authors survey various opinions concerning the causes of the current financial crisis; its impact, consequences and implications; and the role of loan underwriting, which they see as being at the core of the problem. The authors also share their ideas for a new, comprehensive and systematic approach to credit granting that combines the best of science, proven credit principles and common sense.

This paper attempts to answer a series of practical questions that typically confront CROs in small institutional settings, including: How do I quantify the benefits of making an investment (say a technology investment) to reduce the current amount of capital assigned to operational risk? How do I provide greater internal and external transparency around the cost of capital attributed to operational risk? Further, how do I explain these benefits to the management committee or to a board of directors in order to obtain funding for that investment?

The difference between a good service chain and a great one typically lies in a company's ability to respond to key activities within their operations, predict future demand and performance, and optimize the various service elements. This paper describes the importance of, and the methodology behind, optimizing service operations to improve operational efficiencies, profitability, customer satisfaction and loyalty levels.

For the past several decades, organizations have focused heavily on improving their supply chains. Best-in-class companies are now turning their attention to the extended supply chain, the service chain, to further improve customer service, reduce costs and boost net profits. This white paper discusses the emerging concept of "service intelligence" and shows how the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform provides an integrated foundation for the SAS Service Intelligence software suite.

World-class organizations have realized that the service supply chain is different than the traditional production supply chain. This white paper examines the difference between these two supply chains. You will learn how some organizations are developing service supply chain techniques to solve their unique challenges. You'll also learn which business methodologies foster the best return on investment in service supply chain improvements.

World-class organizations have realized that the service supply chain is different than the traditional production supply chain. This white paper examines the difference between these two supply chains. You will learn how some organizations are developing service supply chain techniques to solve their unique challenges. You'll also learn which business methodologies foster the best return on investment in service supply chain improvements.

Many companies are beginning to realize that warranty data is an integral part of the customer's voice. It is essential not just to the bottom line, but to customer satisfaction and brand reputation. To understand how companies analyze warranty data, SAS commissioned a study to look at the warranty reporting and analysis systems of 20 companies. This paper summarizes the study and provides three case studies of companies that are now reaping the benefits of automated analytics.

In June 2008, SAS brought together executives and consultants across a range of federal agencies to discuss their experiences with performance management initiatives. Some were planning and performance management executives within government agencies. Some were business or IT consultants working with federal agencies.  From all of their accounts, three key themes emerged. Successful performance management initiatives must realign the cultural framework, set the strategic vision and establish the supporting information infrastructure. This paper explores issues and best practices around performance management in government from the people who live and breathe it every day.  

In times of economic uncertainty, corporate decision makers need more high quality information to make well-informed decisions. So said the speakers and  delegates at CFO Publishing's recent conference, "Predictive Analytics in Perilous Times." The conference, held in San Francisco in February of 2009, featured leading voices in corporate finance -- including Thomas Redman, president of Navesink Consulting, Arthur Kordon, a leader in the data mining and modeling group at Dow Chemical and Dr. David Friend, chairman of Palladium Group Inc., among others. This conclusions paper presents the highlights of the conference program.

Alignment is the most significant benefit organizations seek in their performance management initiatives, but it is the least realized. This paper explains why alignment is so elusive and offers three steps to achieving it. It also includes a guide to the technologies that enable alignment throughout the enterprise.

At a time when many organizations are outsourcing to save money, the quality of your relationships with suppliers can have a critical impact on the success of your company.

This paper will explore how SAS' solution for analytic supplier relationship management can be used to create a competitive advantage from a company's procurement activities. The paper also looks in more detail at SAS' closed-loop process for strategic sourcing and at the process for creating and maintaining a single, reliable view of procurement spend throughout the enterprise.

Manufacturing and supply chain organizations must not only optimize resources and minimize waste, but also predict future growth and demand. Event-handling and transactional systems cannot merge data into an integrated source of business intelligence; organizations need adequate data management, forecasting, optimization and modeling techniques to bring disparate data together and gather useful intelligence from it. With key performance indicators and process metrics that span functional areas, managers and other stakeholders can see changes and trends as they occur and make business decisions based on those indicators.

This white paper looks at a proof-of-value (POV) process that a pragmatic organization embarked on with SAS to better understand how SAS forecasting and inventory optimization could improve the results from an already installed enterprise resource planning system. It not only shows surprising results, it provides a layman's pathway to attaining those results.

World-class organizations have realized that the service supply chain is different than the traditional production supply chain. This white paper examines the difference between these two supply chains. You will learn how some organizations are developing service supply chain techniques to solve their unique challenges. You'll also learn which business methodologies foster the best return on investment in service supply chain improvements.

Economic conditions are reinforcing the mandate for tighter, more demand-driven supply chains.  Supply chain executives are searching for new value-add and cost reduction vehicles. In this paper, experts from SAS and HAVI Global Solutions argue that because demand management has become such a critical tool for carving out economic value, companies whose core competency is not supply chain management should outsource their demand management functions. The authors explain the benefits, discuss the conditions and technologies that have converged to make those benefits significantly outweigh the risks, and provide tips on assessing if outsourcing demand management is the right strategy for your organization.

This white paper discusses the critical elements of a supplier risk solution that integrates sustainability factors into a holistic supplier analysis, necessitating not only a thorough analysis of a supplier's financial track record, but also environmental and social performance as well.

A global survey of 183 executives by the Economist Intelligence Unit on behalf of SAS asked respondents about the importance of sustainability to corporate strategy. The survey revealed that sustainability remains an important issue for businesses today precisely because companies have discovered that success can lead to good financial performance, no matter the economic climate.

Sponsored by SAS and conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, this research paper conveys results from a survey and in-depth interviews of 226 senior executives worldwide with sustainability policies and practices in place. Addressing sustainability priorities with a globally unified program or a regionally focused approach and the distinct challenges and advantages for each are presented.

MIT Sloan Management Review conducted a global sustainability survey. This paper discusses the results of the survey and provides insights on how business managers are dealing with the barriers to pursuing and achieving sustainability and how they perceive that sustainability will have an increasingly large impact on the business landscape of the future.

With millions of customers willing to use a most inexpensive contact channel, online channel has been one of the few bright spots, and retailers stand to benefit from growth in this channel in a big way. How can companies reap the full potential of their Web channels in the context of the total marketing strategy? How can they fully exploit the power of the Web to build the brand, to contribute to overall corporate marketing programs — not just add incremental sales as an adjunct channel? How can you move beyond click-stream tracking and counts of page hits to deliver truly meaningful and useful insights? An entire field of Web analytics has emerged to sort out the answers. This was the topic of a Webcast hosted by SAS and the American Marketing Association, bringing thought leaders together to discuss challenges and best practices in the industry.