New analytics software from SAS

Our Corporate Bureau
01 April 2004

Mumbai: SAS India has unveiled SAS9, complete with a new platform, enhanced analytics and refined user interfaces that provide fresh insights for solving business problems and driving competitive advantage. SAS9 is claimed to be faster, more efficient and easier to use than its predecessors. The new platform connects all SAS applications so they work together transparently, and it also communicates with other data sources and programmes.

Announcing this at a press conference in Mumbai, Vivek Gokarn, managing director and chief executive officer, SAS India, , "We grew 30 per cent last year and SAS 9 is expected to drive this pace of growth to an even higher level of 40 per cent by actually expanding the market for business intelligence solutions. For our customers this will be a key turning point in the quest for more informed business decisions".

Addressing the media, Don Cooper Williams, director - marketing and alliances, SAS Asia-Pacific, said, "SAS 9 includes the SAS intelligence platform, a broad set of integrated software for unmatched data integration, easy-to-use business reporting and unparalleled analytics. It also boasts enhancement of the most tightly integrated optimisation and predictive analytics capabilities available, making it easier to answer complex questions that cannot be addressed by traditional business intelligence (BI)."

To support this growth, SAS India aims to expand its direct customer facing team and also alliance partners. This is in line with the overall strategy of expanding the industry and solution domain expertise. In the past, SAS India has made successful inroads into the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance segment) telecom and pharmaceutical verticals where there has been high demand for BI solutions. Going forward, SAS India expects retail and manufacturing to be the additional growth drivers. The new expansions are expected to be line with growth expectations in these verticals.

To further augment SAS 9 knowledge among its extended team, SAS India plans to impart training on SAS 9 solutions to core members of its Alliance partners who in turn would train close to 100+ executives in SAS implementation across the country through the year.

SAS India currently has consulting alliances with, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Infotech, Satyam and MindTree Consulting. Its hardware alliance partners constitute Hewlett Packard, Sun Microsystems and IBM.