SAS® Business Analytics SMB Sales Jump 42 Percent

CARY, N.C. -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- With tight credit, radical changes in customer behavior, large competitors invading their turf, and volatile markets, smart small to midsize businesses (SMBs) are turning to the same innovative analytics technologies relied upon by their larger rivals.

Year-to-date SMB sales at business analytics leader SAS are up 42 percent over the same period in 2010. This jump demonstrates that enterprises of all sizes are seizing business analytics as a vital competitive tool.

“Among the 2011 Fortune Global 500^®, 93 of the top 100 companies benefit from SAS Business Analytics,” said Kevin Garabedian, SAS Senior Director for Small and Midsize Business. “Mega-corporations use this technology widely to understand customers, optimize supply chains, manage risk and much more.

“But today, companies of all sizes need new ways to do business. Affordable SAS solutions for SMBs are easy to use and deploy, and meet the data management, analysis, forecasting and reporting needs of SMBs. Now SMBs can stop guessing and start knowing,” he said.

The rush of SMBs to SAS is facilitated by a new generation of SAS technologies, providing the world’s most popular business analytics in formats aimed at SMB business professionals. SAS SMB offerings include:

• SAS Analytics Pro for Midsize Business – Enables business users to access, analyze and present all types of data directly from their PCs, without IT support.
• SAS BI for Midsize Business – Provides self-sufficiency and reduces costs through fully integrated capabilities.
• SAS Data Integration for Midsize Business – Ensures data credibility and consistency by making it easy to access and integrate quality data across multiple sources.
• SAS Desktop Data Mining for Midsize Business – Helps users visually explore data to spot trends and uncover relationships using predictive analytics and data mining on their desktops.
• SAS Office Analytics for Midsize Business – Delivers the power of SAS Analytics directly within a Microsoft Office environment, so users can readily access, analyze and report on organizational data.
• SAS Visual Data Discovery for Midsize Business – Enhances analytic effectiveness by providing a point-and-click interface to advanced analytics.

Next-Generation Analytics

Managing more than 900 vacation properties on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, family-owned Twiddy and Co. has always used innovative technology, capturing volumes of data through reservations, maintenance and other systems. The family-owned company knew that to move forward, it needed strategic business planning and optimized operations.

“We wanted to make our data more intelligent and automate cost analysis, to reduce manual processes,” said Operations Manager Clark Twiddy.

“For example, with about 1,200 vendors, we want to assign work as efficiently as possible," said Twiddy. "SAS tells us dynamically what is and isn’t working. We've reduced our invoicing error rate and we’re catching costs that lie outside the average before a homeowner sees the bill. That way we can show them their expenditures are in line with market averages. That’s a tremendous competitive advantage.”

Twiddy and Co. also uses SAS software to automatically scan and distribute sensitive risk mitigation information to several groups within the company on a daily basis.

“As a small company, the ability to automatically distribute critical information to the right people at the right time has gone a long way to helping our company reduce day-to-day risk profiles in terms of safety and market agility. We sleep better at night with SAS,” said Twiddy.

In 2011 hundreds of SMBs in addition to Twiddy and Co. deployed SAS Business Analytics, including consultants Health Data Essentials and Northwest Federal Credit Union. Many other midsize businesses benefit from SAS Business Analytics, including: digital marketing agency 89 Degrees; online retailer Gilt Groupe; North Carolina Electric Membership Corp.; Oberweis Dairy; and online car buying service TrueCar.

About SAS

SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. Through innovative solutions, SAS helps customers at more than 50,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW^®.

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright © 2011 SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved.