BPM Partners Survey Ranks SAS Highly for Performance Management

Business Wire, Feb 5, 2007

Customers rate SAS higher than "core" vendors Hyperion, Cognos, Business Objects and others

CARY, N.C. -- SAS, the leader in business intelligence, announced BPM Partners' Pulse Survey findings ranked SAS higher in overall customer satisfaction than other core vendors in performance management, beating out Hyperion, Cognos, Business Objects, OutlookSoft and Cartesis. Specifically, early results show SAS scoring 4.0 on a 5-point scale in overall customer satisfaction, citing strength in SAS' product functionality and product quality. BPM Partners is the leading independent authority on business performance management. The 2007 BPM Pulse Survey included more than 500 responses across industries and geographies. Final results of the survey will be published in April.

"SAS is one of the core vendors that offers a complete solution on a proven technology platform," said Craig Schiff, CEO of BPM Partners. "SAS' offering of business intelligence, profitability management, human capital management and predictive analytics extends beyond the traditional budgeting, planning and financial consolidation components of performance management, enabling clients to leverage operational analytics as their BPM activities extend throughout the enterprise."

While other vendors in the survey have just acquired activity-based management, data quality and operational analytics vendors to complement their offerings, SAS has had these capabilities for years.

Among the 17 applications and tools vendors, only SAS, Hyperion, Cognos and Business Objects include all of the core and BPM 2.0 ready capabilities listed in the Annual Business Performance Management Software Buyers Guide. Of the four, SAS distinguished itself by rating the highest of these in customer satisfaction.

In the analyst firm's newly published Buyers Guide, SAS covers all the components BPM Partners considers essential in a performance management offering. In fact, SAS([R]) for Performance Management links SAS business solutions with industry-specific solutions, supported by prebuilt data models, processes and techniques in banking, insurance, communications, retail, manufacturing and others. SAS business solutions span finance, customer and IT intelligence, and include solutions for marketing performance management, profitability management, human capital management and others. These solutions share a common business intelligence infrastructure. And the entire performance management process can be monitored and managed through SAS' industry-leading scorecarding capabilities. Benefits include:

Better align resources with strategies. Predictive scorecarding capabilities tie traditional scorecard features such as traffic lights and speedometers to powerful predictive analytics.

Synchronize financial and operational strategies. With one integrated solution for financial consolidation, planning, budgeting, reporting and dashboards, SAS provides financial transparency, allows companies to link budgets with strategic goals, and improves the speed and quality of their reporting and decision making.

Respond quickly to business and market changes. At-a-glance dashboard visuals ensure efficient access to an organization's current status, and strategy maps set up cause-and-effect relationships based on the company's unique environment.

Ensure a single view of enterprise information. SAS for performance management offerings are all built on the SAS BI platform, which offers unmatched data integration, storage, business intelligence and analytics, so decision makers can be confident that their choices are made using accurate information, thus better delivering expected results.

Identify the true value of customers, products and channels. Profitability management creates highly accurate profitability metrics from detailed transactional data that drive strategic decision making and instill confidence in performance management programs.

Reduce costs without compromising profitability. SAS provides activity-based management to deliver a complete operational view of cost and cost drivers.

"Among the best-of-breed vendors, Hyperion Solutions, Cognos Inc. and SAS Institute Inc. are ranked the top three in terms of revenue size," according to Kathleen Wilhide, Research Director of BPM and Compliance at IDC in Framingham, MA.1

About SAS

SAS is the leader in business intelligence software and services. Customers at 40,000 sites use SAS software to improve performance through insight into vast amounts of data, resulting in faster, more accurate business decisions; more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; compliance with governmental regulations; research breakthroughs; and better products. Only SAS offers leading data integration, intelligence storage, advanced analytics and business intelligence applications within a comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW([R]). www.sas.com

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. [R] indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.[c] 2007