sascom

special business intelligence supplement

INTEGRATED BI FROM SAS:

Accelerating time to intelligence

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE COMPETENCY CENTERS

How and why to get started

BRIGGS & STRATTON

Empowering executive decisions with SAS

BETTER ANSWERS, FASTER

THE POWER TO KNOW

Business intelligence is valuable only if you can access, process and use it

or in the hands of business analysts. By contrast, todays business intelligence solutions span the entire breadth of a company. From the supply side to the customer side and everything in between, BI now reaches every functional area within an organization.

n the past, many companies kept business intelligence (BI) applications locked away inside IT departments

Likewise, decision making now transcends all organizational levels. With interfaces that can be tailored for each users needs, employees can become more efficient, and top executives can spend less time reacting to tactical issues and more time driving strategic goals. >>

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faster

Better answers,

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The result of SAS Business Intelligence is a faster time

to intelligence delivering business-critical answers ahead of the competition.

Business intelligence is knowledge, and the value of that knowledge is in how quickly and accurately it can be applied to a business problem or an emerging opportunity, explains Jim Davis, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for SAS. However, generating true BI becomes possible only when every piece of the BI platform is fully incorporated into every aspect of the business and that requires the ability to integrate, store, analyze and deploy critical information. While many vendors have been scrambling to the BI space with end-to-end integrated BI platforms, what theyre actually doing is cobbling together links of a BI platform through a series of acquisitions and alliances. SAS, on the other hand, has spent the past three decades developing the end-to-end, fully integrated SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform, which combines business intelligence with data integration, intelligence storage and advanced analytics. The complete SAS platform provides the foundation for moving beyond simply gathering and storing data to building information systems that serve members at all levels of the enterprise. As part of that platform, SAS Enterprise BI Server makes it faster and easier for companies to create and distribute intelligence among all users, at all skill levels. Read on to learn how SAS defines

the demands of the new BI landscape with better answers, faster and to discover how SAS provides the only integrated solution that addresses those demands. Defining the BI landscape Organizations continue to face the pressures of constantly changing market demands, increasing regulatory requirements, fiercer competition, sluggish economies and the need to do more with less. BI software helps businesses face those challenges with query-and-reporting capabilities to help process and utilize strategically the vast amounts of data collected across enterprises. SAS Business Intelligence builds on years of development and use. In particular, the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform underpins every SAS Business Intelligence solution and helps to deliver accurate, consolidated enterprise information at the right time, to the right people, in the format they can best use. As more and more vendors throw their hats in the ring to offer BI solutions, it becomes increasingly difficult for prospective BI customers to determine which vendor can provide a competitive advantage. The result is a general level of indistinguishable BI white noise. Savvy professionals will look beyond the hype and focus on the critical details. A true business intelligence plat-

form should satisfy all these criteria: BREADTH: It integrates functions and technologies from across the enterprise. Truly integrated business intelligence brings together data from every corner of the organization from operational and transactional systems, multiple databases in different formats, and all contact channels. Information flow can then transcend functional silos and computing platforms so that accurate intelligence can be created and shared. DEPTH: It reaches all who need it, in a way that is relevant to them. A comprehensive BI solution provides appropriate interfaces and tools for users with profoundly different needs at all levels of the organization. Such a solution makes it easy to disseminate analytic results across functional areas and levels, enabling everyone to contribute to the organizations success. COMPLETENESS: It is an integrated, comprehensive, end-to-end platform. Business intelligence success doesnt just happen at the application layer. And it isnt just query and reporting. It depends on a chain of applications and technologies working together from a common data foundation to create a single, verifiable version of the information. ADVANCED ANALYTICS: It delivers predictive foresight, not just hindsight. Going beyond traditional BI requires predictive analytics, such as forecasting, scenario planning,

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optimization and data mining. These analytic capabilities, along with data management and query-andreporting technologies, comprise analytic applications that solve key business pains, such as misalignment within the organization, lack of customer knowledge and slow response rates to market shifts. These applications bring business and industry context to the specific use of analytics for better business planning and strategy implementation. Collectively, these attributes define a platform that goes beyond reporting to help companies genuinely differentiate themselves. SAS delivers BI with an eye to the future Other vendors provide business intelligence solely in the form of historical reports that give you hindsight, but limited insight. SAS raises the bar by helping professionals understand the past, monitor the present and predict outcomes the foresight that has heretofore been missing in BI offerings. SAS delivers this through technology and expertise in data integration, analytics, targeted business solutions and specific industry solutions. By employing advanced analytics with business intelligence, companies can scrutinize every facet of the organization and determine how to respond faster and more creatively to new challenges. Not only is the information interchangeable across the enterprise, but the process is seamless, efficient and rapid. SAS Business Intelligence gives executives more time to react to changing markets, provides a jump on identifying patterns that drive new markets, and offers support for alignment with the constantly changing global arena. The result is

a faster time to intelligence delivering business-critical answers ahead of the competition. Sharing the intelligence: SAS Enterprise BI Server SAS not only supports traditional business intelligence capabilities, it is the only vendor on the market that can provide these advanced analytics. And now this power can be shared

tion to standard interfaces, query and reporting, and a common metadata layer, SAS Enterprise BI Server empowers organizations with true analytics and predictive intelligence. Key capabilities of SAS Enterprise BI Server: REPORTING FOR THE MASSES. Easy-to-use Web and desktop reporting interfaces enable different types of users to create and distribute ad hoc reports selfsufficiently. Out-of-the box integration with Microsoft Office lets business users interact with the power of SAS from within familiar Microsoft Office environments, while an enhanced portal/dashboard environment provides secure distribution of consistent, high-quality information, applications and reports from the boardroom down. In addition, high-volume production reporting capabilities include advanced formatting, report generation and a powerful, scalable distribution engine. An extensive suite of graphical presentation options allows users to see information the way they want to and uncover relationships that are not easily discovered by looking at tables. QUERY AND ANALYSIS. Webbased, wizard-driven query capabilities hide the complexity of the data structures and make it easy for users to ask new questions and get their own answers with minimal training and little involvement with IT. Interfaces are available for different users based on needs and skills, so that anyone can combine and query data across multiple data sources. Users across the enterprise can now include and run SAS analytic models directly from their reports and from the familiar environment of Microsoft Excel. An integrated infrastructure spreads the

SAS positioned in Gartners Leader Quadrant for BI Platforms

In its Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, 1Q06 report, leading technology and analysis firm Gartner Inc. positions SAS in the Leaders Quadrant. According to Gartner, leaders demonstrate reasonably strong breadth and depth of BI platform capabilities and deliver on enterprisewide implementations that support a broad BI strategy. Also, leaders successfully articulate a business proposition that resonates with buyers, supported by the viability and operational capability to deliver on a global basis.
View the full Magic Quadrant report:

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http://www.sas.com/news/ analysts/by_firm_gartner.html

via SAS Enterprise BI Server. Built on a complete foundation of SAS technologies, SAS Enterprise BI Server forms an integrated, enterprise system that delivers the power of BI to the desktop of every user who needs it. Armed with this power, individuals at all levels of an organization can make decisions more efficiently and with less risk. In addi-

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power of SAS analytics across the enterprise. THE REAL-DEAL OLAP. As data volumes continue to increase, a storage solution that is designed to handle intense BI and analytic applications becomes critical. SAS Enterprise BI Server includes online analytical processing (OLAP) storage that is optimized to presummarize and store large amounts of data at different levels of detail. This results in a faster response time for intelligence applications and facilitates complex calculations. A Web OLAP viewer enables analysts to explore large amounts of data quickly from multiple angles. Users can view increasing levels of detail and add linked graphs to gain greater insights into trends, exceptions and opportunities. AN OPEN, INTEGRATED METADATA FOUNDATION. With SAS Enterprise BI Server, metadata can be shared across the enterprise from a centralized repository, ensuring that business intelligence is consistent, accurate and, most importantly, a trustworthy strategic asset. A new interface created especially for data architects lets them quickly map business and technical metadata to terminology that is easily understood by the various types of business users across the organization, allowing business users to run queries and create reports all by themselves. CENTRALLY MANAGED BI. SAS is the only BI vendor to offer a single interface for easily managing and configuring an organizations entire intelligence environment. The integrated management of data, metadata, security and BI resources is an important factor in lowering total cost of ownership. INTEGRATION, INTEGRATION, INTEGRATION. Other vendors claim to have integrated solutions, but beware! Only SAS offers an end-to-end integrated intelligence platform that encompasses ETL and data quality, centralized metadata, integrated BI capabilities and wordclass predictive business analytics. With SAS Business Intelligence and the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform, companies can connect directly back to the operational infrastructure, share strategic information across the enterprise, make accurate predictions about the future and ensure that everyone is working from the same, strategic information source for better answers faster.

WORD
THE BI CAPABILITIES YOU NEED NOW

What people are

SAS brings to the table in-depth analysis, text mining and other capabilities we need now. Our use of SAS business intelligence tools helps Whirlpool bring new innovations to our customers more quickly and in ways that create real brand value. Our application of these tools is another example of Whirlpools continuing efforts to differentiate itself in a competitive global industry.

John Kerr, General Manager of Global Quality and OPEX, Whirlpool Appliances, North America, a global manufacturer and marketer of major home appliances

BI REDUCES REPORTING COSTS

With the SAS Enterprise BI Server, we will be able to reduce the complexity of our BI architecture, providing information on every aspect of Frankfurt International Airports operations. By consolidating our BI applications, we significantly reduce the cost for providing reports to various business departments. The integrated business intelligence environment will also reduce reporting cycles better meeting business users information needs.

Dr. Roland Krieg, Senior Vice President of Information and Telecommunication, Fraport AG, an international airport company that owns and operates Frankfurt Airport

SAS OFFERS BROADEST SCOPE IN BUSINESS ANALYTICS

[SAS] has tools and applications in all nine segments of the business analytics market, but also holds leading positions in several of these segments, resulting in the broadest scope.

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Source: IDC, Worldwide Business Analytics Software 2004 Vendor Shares, Doc #33756, July 2005

Take the SAS Business Intelligence tour:

http://www.sas.com/technologies/bi/tour/ itour_flash.html

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ON THE STREET
saying about SAS Business Intelligence

DONT TAKE OUR WORD FOR IT. INSTEAD, TAKE A LOOK AT WHAT ANALYSTS, CUSTOMERS, THOUGHT LEADERS AND INDEPENDENT TECHNOLOGY PUBLICATIONS ARE SAYING ABOUT SAS BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE.

THE ONLY INTEGRATED BI OFFERING

REPORTING FOR BUSINESS AND IT

To continue our ongoing success in strengthening the ability of individuals and companies to stay connected locally, nationally and globally, we needed to better understand the needs of our customers. To successfully achieve this goal required a robust and integrated solution, and, based on our research, SAS was the only provider in the marketplace with an integrated business intelligence offering.

We have been using SAS for years for its sophisticated analytics. Theyve added some nice enhancements with SAS BI Server, and we can now provide high-end multiple query and reporting interfaces for different types of users at both the business and IT levels. By successfully combining these analytic capabilities with reporting, OLAP and other conventional BI tools, SAS has made it easy for us by providing a helpful solution on one single, comprehensive platform.

Gabriel Toichoa Director of Pricing and Modeling, Canada Post

SAS CHALLENGES BI COMPETITORS

Business Objects and Cognos are the most well-known suppliers in the business intelligence space and are perceived to be the market leaders. However, arguably the biggest threat in the traditional OLAP space is coming from SAS, which is a bigger company than either Business Objects or Cognos, and which is making a determined (and apparently successful) attempt to challenge Business Objects and Cognos in their heartlands.

Christophe Ponsart Marketing Information System Manager, Sofinco, a consumer finance organization

SAS WINS BEST ENTERPRISE SERVER

For the second consecutive year, business intelligence leader SAS won a Datamation Product of the Year Award, which recognizes achievement and innovation in enterprise software and hardware products. The 2006 award named SAS as leader in the Enterprise Server category, for SAS Enterprise BI Server. Dan Vesset, an analyst with IDC, an industry analyst firm based in Framingham, Mass., says, Because of its background in advanced analytics, SAS is able to present to the market a compelling solution that combines advanced analytics with a broad portfolio of other related business analytics software. SAS Enterprise BI Server meets the BI needs of the entire organization providing fast, easy access to multiple data sources, a consistent view of information across the organization, simple deployment of information for users at all skill levels, and more accurate, reliable insights.
Read more at: www.sas.com/sascom-server

Philip Howard Research Director, Technology, Bloor Research IT-Director.com, The Pressures on Business Objects and Cognos, June 17, 2005

SAS THE CLEAR LEADER IN BI

SAS, the only BI vendor surveyed in previous years, is the clear leaderand SAS is the eighth-ranked company overall [among all technology vendors] for solving business problems.

Allan E. Alter CIO Insight 2005 Vendor Value Survey, Excelling in Spots: Customer Evaluations by Category December 15, 2005

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