Business analytics for the CIO

WHITE PAPER

Business Analytics for the CIO
SAS provides a unified, agile and more effective information infrastructure
to support evidence-based decision making across the enterprise

BUSINESS ANALYTICS FOR THE CIO

Table of Contents

Executive summary......................................................................................... 1
The pressure is on IT....................................................................................... 2
Issue 1: upport sustainable growth while managing risk through the
S
innovative use of technology and information............................... 2
Issue 2: rovide an infrastructure to manage the growing appetite for
P
intelligence..................................................................................... 3
Issue 3: erive more value from existing technology and
D
information assets. ....................................................................... 3
The platform for SAS® Business Analytics..................................................... 4
A closer look at the platform.......................................................................... 5
.
Data integration........................................................................................... 5
Analytics...................................................................................................... 6
Reporting..................................................................................................... 8

Topping it off with SAS® business solutions.................................................. 8
Conclusion: Solve it today. Evolve it tomorrow............................................. 10
A case study: 1-800-FLOWERS.COM Grow .................................................. 12
About SAS...................................................................................................... 13

i


ii


Executive summary

Organizations today are dealing with increasingly complex issues, dynamic
changes and a systemic need for evidence-based decisions across a growing
range of decision makers. Meanwhile, organizations are producing and collecting
more data: structured data from databases and point-of-sale systems as well
as an avalanche of unstructured data from e-mail, call center transcripts and
collaboration tools.
■ are beginning to see a new
“We
wave of business analytics use
One of the key goals of IT is to consolidate all this data so that it can be that will be focused on two primary
analyzed to create timely, high-quality information to support proactive decision
demands: more data and more
making. But, with systems already stretched to the limit, managing, controlling
and monitoring incoming data presents immense challenges: insufficient data
users. At the same time, the number
quality processes, information silos, tight budgets, redundant tools and too of internal IT developers and
many spreadsheets. analytics experts doesn’t seem to
be keeping pace with the increased
CIOs realize they need to satisfy the ever growing demand for information that
demand from end users.”
leverages the past, monitors the present and predicts with accuracy, enabling
effective decisions and course correction. They want to enhance operations Source: Dan Vesset,
and achieve success by increasing data consistency, streamlining administration “Worldwide Business Analytics Software
and providing easy-to-use reporting tools backed by powerful analytics. They 2008-2012 Forecast and 2007
Vendor Shares Report,”
understand they need to empower the organization now and meet future needs November 2008, IDC # 214904
in a timely fashion.

SAS is here to help. The SAS® Business Analytics Framework maximizes the
value of technology and information assets — enabling organizations to address
critical business issues right away, with the flexibility to add new functionality
incrementally over time. As capabilities are added, the benefits continue to
multiply while total cost of ownership is reduced.

The SAS® Business Analytics Framework addresses the needs of executives faced with the
challenges of transforming data into information needed for proactive decision making.
1


Within this overall framework, the platform for SAS Business Analytics (including
capabilities for data integration, analytics and reporting), provides the foundational
technology on which individual SAS industry and line-of-business solutions are built.
SAS business analytics software and services enable technology executives to:

• Support growth of the business through innovative use of technology
and information. By providing the foundation for industry and line-of-business
solutions, SAS delivers business analytics that enable your organization to better
understand the past, monitor the present and prepare for the future.

• Provide a single, effective infrastructure for managing the increasing
appetite for intelligence. SAS can help you create a single environment that cuts
across organizational silos, diverse computing platforms, different data sources
and niche tools so the right level of information flows to each decision maker.

• Derive greater value from existing technology and information assets. The
platform for SAS Business Analytics optimally integrates individual technology
components so you can deliver the data and analytics needed top optimize
performance across your organization.

Find out how the platform for SAS Business Analytics can help you leverage your ■ ® Business Analytics deliver
SAS
existing IT infrastructure to deliver greater value to your organization, how you can competitive insights that are
add capabilities as business needs expand and ultimately, how business analytics
often hidden in data, enabling
can transform your data into competitive advantage.
organizations to reach evidence-
based decisions and confidently:
• Solve complex business problems.
The pressure is on IT • Manage performance to achieve
measurable business objectives.
CIOs and IT managers are under tremendous pressure to choose the right products, • Drive sustainable growth through
services and technologies that enable them to transform data into a competitive
innovation.
advantage – enabling strategic decisions that optimize performance. SAS provides a
• Anticipate and manage change.
flexible business analytics framework that can help organizations realize their business
analytics objectives. Our proven approach helps position organizations for long-term
success and transforms technology executives into business innovation leaders.

Issue 1: upport sustainable growth while managing risk
S
through the innovative use of technology and information

Change in business is inevitable – especially with the collapse and bailout of global
banking systems and the sudden instability of stock markets. These circumstances
and more have created a radically different context for economic growth. While the
dust settles, governance, risk and compliance will play major roles in transforming
organizations to reduce the possibility of further collapses. Technology and process
strategies will focus on rebuilding sustainable growth levels but within the constructs
of increased regulations, performance and risk management coordination, and
evolving expectations of corporate responsibility.

2


Organizations are continually searching for innovative ways to improve performance,
achieve greater top-line growth and maintain a competitive edge. To do so requires
decision makers being able to assess the impact of market dynamics more quickly, ■ “...organizations are facing pressures
explore different options, learn from experimentation and validate best approaches. to deliver information that is timely
SAS can help IT organizations by providing a flexible environment that allows the and effective in meeting business
organization to change or evolve as the need arises, while enabling centralized
goals. This requires companies to
control and management of data and information processes.
have access to the information, the
ability to combine, aggregate and
Issue 2: rovide an infrastructure to manage the growing
P integrate this information, and then
appetite for intelligence deliver it to people when, where and
More data, more users. These are the two primary demands facing most IT organizations. how they need it.”
And unfortunately, many CIOs admit they have the sense that managing the flow The Aberdeen Group,
“Beyond Spreadsheets:
of information into and throughout the business is not being done effectively. By
The Value of BI and Analytics,”
integrating your organization’s technology components (whether it’s an ERP system, January 2009
call center data, point-of-sale systems, etc.) within your IT infrastructure, SAS can
help you create a single environment that overcomes departmental information silos
and diverse computing platforms to deliver integrated intelligence that can make
a difference to your organization.

SAS provides an integrated suite of software that leverages domain expertise, best
practices and state-of-the-art business analytics that enable your organization not
only to understand the past and monitor the present, but optimize opportunities
for the future.

■
“SAS is able to handle millions of
Issue 3: erive more value from existing technology
D
and information assets. pieces of data. We tested several
software packages, and SAS best
Make the most of what you have, and do more with less. Particularly in this time met our requirements. With SAS
of economic strife, this is a mantra everyone hears. IT departments are no different.
predictive models, we’ve seen
Organizations expect IT to deliver more value while staying at or under budget.
At the same time, IT must mitigate the risks associated with managing information double-digit growth in overall sales
and security of the systems. This can be a difficult challenge when every department per catalog along with performance
and business unit is collecting, managing and analyzing data in silos with a heavy increases as much as 60 percent
dependence on spreadsheets for analysis.
from some of our retail fliers.”
Decision makers demand fast answers, and it is the job of IT to make sure everyone Corey Bergstrom,
has access to the information they need, at the right level of detail, when they need Director,
Marketing Research and Analysis,
it. To make the most of what you have, you must aggregate and cleanse your data,
Cabela’s
and ensure security processes are in place. You need a data integration environment
that is easily managed. You need the ability to apply analytics to gain predictive
insights and push appropriate information to decision makers so they can make
the most of it, whether they want to drill down and ask further questions or have
presentation-quality results at their fingertips. By improving data quality and security
processes, integrating information with business processes and providing data
that is easily understood at the right level of detail, SAS helps IT executives cost-
effectively achieve a strategic framework for business analytics.

3


The platform for SAS Business Analytics
®

The platform for SAS Business Analytics provides the foundational technology
on which the SAS Business Analytics Framework is built. It optimally integrates
individual technology components within your existing IT infrastructure into a
single, unified system. The result is an information flow that crosses organizational ■ platform for SAS® Business
The
boundaries and delivers new insights that drive value for your enterprise. The Analytics provides the foundational
platform for SAS Business Analytics extends the value of your existing systems,
technology on which the SAS®
while setting the stage for new levels of enterprise intelligence not previously
possible. It includes the following components: Business Analytics Framework is
built. It provides organizations with
• Data integration. SAS offers prebuilt, high-performance capabilities for data
connectivity, data quality, ETL (extract, transform and load), data migration, data the agility to integrate individual
synchronization and data federation. technology components into the
existing IT infrastructure as part of
• Analytics. SAS provides an integrated environment for predictive and descriptive
modeling, forecasting, optimization, simulation, experimental design and more. a unified system that cuts across
organizational silos.
• Reporting. Role-based interfaces enable different types of users to surface and
visualize meaningful intelligence from consistent, companywide data.

SAS components for data integration, analytics and reporting build on each other to
provide an integrated platform upon which SAS business solutions are built.

4


Using the platform for SAS Business Analytics as a foundation, SAS offers targeted
business solutions that support key areas of your business, such as customers,
finance, supply chain and more, as well as turnkey solutions for various vertical
markets, including financial services, life sciences, health care, insurance, retail,
manufacturing and more. These solutions incorporate our domain expertise as well as
data structures and analytic models tuned to specific business and industry needs.

As part of an integrated framework, all technology components and services are
managed from a single point. This reduces the administrative effort for maintenance
of solutions, users and security. Data consistency is assured because metadata is
stored in a single repository and is shared across all SAS technologies and solutions.

A closer look at the platform

Data integration

In most organizations, data is captured in a wide variety of sources and formats, ■ ® offers prebuilt, high-
SAS
including structured and unstructured data. It can be difficult to locate, identify and performance capabilities for data
select the data that needs to be extracted, transformed and moved from all the silos
manipulations, analysis, cleansing
of information. Data may be inconsistently represented among platforms, making
it difficult to produce accurate and reliable results. Expensive, high-maintenance, and integration.
customized interfaces may be required just to get reports from legacy and ERP
systems. This process might even call for shuttling data onto new platforms to be
digestible for analytical and business intelligence systems.

SAS has built a comprehensive data integration environment with capabilities that
include data connectivity, data quality, ETL, data migration, data synchronization,
data federation and master data management.

SAS can read and extract data from virtually all disparate, heterogeneous platforms.
In addition to support for SQL (Structured Query Language), SAS offers prebuilt,
high-performance capabilities for data manipulations, analyses, data quality and
integration. Desktop data cleansing tools provide the ability to quickly and effectively
analyze and resolve data quality problems and integrate the transformations into the
data integration environment, which translates into reliable information and faster
ROI. In addition, SAS’ leadership in data quality, data mining and text mining helps
identify patterns within the abundance of data.

SAS Data Integration is operating system independent and offers a range of
access engines, a multithreaded transformation engine, integrated data quality
transformations, end-to-end metadata management and an easy-to-navigate
graphical user interface for designing integration processes.

5


The benefits touch all facets of your data integration strategy, allowing IT to:

• Develop data integration processes faster at lower cost with easy-to-use
metadata management tools, full support for SQL capabilities, a wide range of
predefined transformations and out-of-the-box access engines.

• Reduce cost of ownership by taking advantage of standard and customized
data cleansing capabilities that resolve quality and consistency problems in near
real time and reduce the costs associated with the propagation of bad data.

• Ensure robust data delivery in multiple vendor environments with a single-
platform approach and powerful transformation language. Data integration
processes can take place on the platform where the data resides, thereby
reducing network traffic, data duplication and hardware requirements.

• Extend the value of legacy systems, hardware and ERP investments. There’s
no need to prematurely retire legacy systems or invest in customized interfaces
just to get reports from legacy data sources. SAS enables organizations to
leverage increasing data volumes while providing consistent, accurate and reliable
data for the enterprise.

Analytics

Once you’ve brought your data together, you can apply analytics to solve problems.
In addition to tools for standard reports, ad hoc reports, query drill-down and alerts
■
Compared to just analyzing historical
to help define what happened in the past, SAS provides predictive analytics that are
applied across all industry and line-of-business solution offerings. Predictive analytics information and using gut instinct,
allow organizations to be more proactive in their decision making – looking not just the ability to predict effectively
at what happened in the past but creating detailed forecasts to address what will gives organizations a competitive
happen in the future; and using SAS optimization capabilities, determine the best
advantage, lowers risks and provides
actions to take in a particular situation.
the insights needed to plan for the
With SAS Analytics, you can anticipate the future and tackle strategic policy future.
decisions such as “How are today’s actions likely to affect us tomorrow?” and “What
will the best ongoing course of action be?” Compared to just analyzing historical
information and using gut instinct, the ability to predict effectively gives organizations
a competitive advantage, lowers risk and provides the insights needed to plan for the
future. Organizations face numerous challenges in generating these forward-looking
insights:

• How do you design architectures and processes to tightly integrate modeling and
operations without affecting the performance of operational systems?

• Can one solution meet the diverse requirements of all types of users, let them
share modeling results and be open to third-party tools?

• What is the best way to model scenarios requiring access to old data (historical
trends) as well as new transactions to provide revenue forecasting, Web mining
of customer feedback studies, quality improvement, simulation and process
optimization?

6


SAS Analytics provide best-in-class modeling capabilities for discovering the
complex relationships between dynamic factors that impact organizations today.
The results from sophisticated analyses and the ensuing discoveries can be shared
with decision makers across the organization through open integration with reporting
applications.

SAS delivers the widest portfolio of analytics – state-of-the-art algorithms,
visualization techniques, interactive data exploration and manipulation capabilities –
to produce accurate models. These capabilities can be applied to a large number of
research and industry scenarios, enabling you to choose a targeted capability rather
than compromising by force-fitting lesser, poorly coordinated tools.

A range of client interfaces include “smart” defaults for nontechnical users and are
extendable so that advanced analysts and statisticians can incorporate advanced
modeling capabilities through the same interface. SAS minimizes cost of ownership,
delivers a familiar environment for all departments and levels of users, provides
consistent performance to end users, reduces IT overhead for maintenance and
minimizes training requirements.

In today’s business climate, you can’t afford not to ask the forward-looking
questions. The future of your organization rests on gaining predictive answers.

Software vendors provide a wide ranging set of analytics. Most can only answer questions
in the green area – a reactive way of making decisions. Your organizations will be much
more competitive if decision makers can ask and gain insights into proactive questions
such as “What will happen next?” and “What is the best that can happen?” SAS, the
leader in business analytics, can deliver the competitive insights hidden away in your data.

7


Reporting

IT and executive leaders everywhere are recognizing the need to push decision
making further down the organization. This means distributed teams, managers
and executives need accurate, up-to-date information and they need it faster than
ever. Having IT process all their queries creates expensive and time-consuming
bottlenecks. Using multiple solutions creates confusing and unreliable results
because intelligence is not based on a common model of corporate data or
corporate standards for surfacing information to business users.

SAS empowers all users by giving them role-based interfaces that deliver the right ■
Across the organization, users can
information at the right time so they can make the most knowledgeable decisions. generate their own answers and
SAS provides a full breadth of capabilities, including interactive visualization and
produce their own reports while IT
advanced data exploration, to meet differing user skill levels and needs. Across the
organization, users can generate their own answers and produce their own reports retains control over the quality and
while IT retains control over the quality and consistency of the data. consistency of the data.

Only SAS provides data integration, analytics and reporting as part of one seamless
business analytics framework. SAS can incorporate and integrate all data required
for analysis and reporting, regardless of data source or format. This integration
ensures that data used in analysis is complete, sequenced and properly cleansed —
without excessive proliferation of metadata, a common problem in legacy business
intelligence architectures. IT is able to deliver trusted information and build end-user
confidence.

SAS reporting interfaces can transparently reuse SAS Analytics without requiring
advanced skills in statistics or support from IT. Analysts and business managers
can seamlessly integrate analyses of the historical data into accurate models and
forecasts of the future. Decision makers can get answers to more sophisticated
questions, format presentation-quality results and easily share their findings.
Everyone is able to derive more value from your organization’s information assets.

Topping it off with SAS® business solutions

Data integration, analytics and reporting are core capabilities of the platform for SAS
Business Analytics. This platform is the foundation on which our targeted business
solutions are built. SAS business solutions incorporate the combined strengths of
SAS software, professional services, training and ongoing support to solve complex
business area and industry-specific challenges.

Line-of-business solutions address goals affecting every organization and provide
extensive domain expertise for areas such as customers, office of finance, supply
chain and more.

8


Industry-specific solutions surface information in the context of how a particular
industry needs to use it, based on business processes aligned with that area.
Turnkey solutions are available for a wide range of vertical markets, including financial
services, insurance, healthcare, life sciences, communication, media,
retail, manufacturing, hospitality and gaming, and more.

SAS business solutions incorporate the combined strengths of SAS software,
professional services, training and ongoing support to solve complex business area
and industry-specific challenges. For instance, SAS solutions for banking address the
business challenges encountered in every area of the industry, from market and credit
risk to financial consolidation and reporting to the key areas of customer management
and operations.

9


Conclusion: Solve it today. Evolve it tomorrow.

No matter where your organization is on the path toward evolving your IT
infrastructure to meet long-term business analytic needs, SAS can adapt to your ■
“With SAS, our business users are
situation. We can help drive your enterprise intelligence to the next level, while able to gain more value from the
leveraging and extending the value of your existing IT investments. SAS enables IT to
data, leading to better decisions and
effectively manage information with lower risk and shorter time to delivery by allowing
you to tap into only the SAS capabilities you need, when you need them. ultimately, better marketing ROI.”

• Collaborative data integration. Imagine giving users across your organization Jay Dittmann,
the ability to access and process all the data they need, no matter where Vice President of Marketing Strategy,
Hallmark Cards
it resides or what format it is in. SAS improves data integrity at the source
by embedding automated quality processes that consolidate, cleanse and
standardize data directly in your operational environments. A collaborative
environment with a common set of tools promotes reuse and sharing to achieve
faster results and lowers costs. It enables you to deliver consistent, trusted and
verifiable information across systems.

• Unmatched analytics. SAS offers an integrated suite of software for statistical
data analysis, data and text mining, forecasting, econometrics, quality
improvement and optimization. Compared to analyzing historical information
and using gut instincts, the ability to predict gives organizations a competitive
advantage, lowers risk and provides the insights needed to plan for the future.

• Reporting in more places. With SAS you can make information consumers
across your organization more self-sufficient with simple, role-based interfaces.
Enable right-time decision making through alerts and embedded analytics in
reporting applications and business processes. Deploy reporting across the
organization without further burdening IT resources.

• Integrated capabilities with common metadata. Data integration, analytics and
reporting are achieved through a robust environment that can be shared across
departments, without the cost and complexity of cobbling together a multivendor
solution. With SAS, information can be centrally managed and leveraged across
the entire organization at a lower cost of ownership – meaning decision makers
and departments can access and share consistent and reliable information.

• Industry and line-of-business solutions. Take advantage of packaged
applications built on the platform for SAS Business Analytics. These solutions
are tightly coupled with industry domain expertise and data models tuned to the
specific business and information technology processes used in each industry or
business function area. Solve critical business issues and achieve objectives more
quickly with less risk and at a lower cost.

10


• An agile framework. The SAS Business Analytics Framework has the agility
to grow over time to support performance objectives and changing market
dynamics. Unlike monolithic platforms, such as ERP systems, SAS delivers
results in months, not years. Organizations can start with the capabilities they
need now and add new functionality as needed over time. As capabilities are ■
Eventually, while solving more and
added, the benefits continue to multiply while the total cost of ownership is more business problems, improving
reduced. Eventually, while solving more and more business problems, improving
performance and evolving the
performance and evolving the business – an organization can grow the SAS
Business Analytics Framework into a platform tailored to its needs. business – an organization can
grow the SAS® Business Analytics
• Information Evolution Model. SAS provides a proven methodology designed
Framework into a platform tailored
to aid organizations in assessing how they use information to achieve their
information objectives. The model outlines how information is managed and used to its needs.
as a corporate asset. It enables organizations to objectively evaluate their use of
information and lay out a road map for improvements that maximize returns.

• Experience. SAS has broad and deep experience helping customers improve
the enterprise business analytics infrastructure. We help combine technology,
data models, methodologies, services and partnerships so you can reduce the
risk, complexity and burdens associated with managing and using information.
Based on more than 30 years of experience solving complex problems in multiple
industries, SAS offers proven technologies and services to help organizations
create an agile IT infrastructure that drives business innovation.

11


A case study: 1-800-FLOWERS.COM Grow

1-800-FLOWERS.COM is one of the best-known and most-successful brands
in gift retailing – and it just keeps getting better. Using SAS, 1-800-FLOWERS.
COM has increased its customer retention rate by 10 percent, increased its
customer base from 10 million to 30 million and increased the retention rate of
its best customer segment to more than 80 percent.

“SAS Business Analytics help us put a laser focus on knowing our customers,
reducing operating expenses and innovating for the future,’’ says Chris McCann,
President of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. “As our business has grown from one
flower shop to an online gift retailer serving more than 30 million customers, we ■
“SAS Business Analytics help us
need SAS’ abilities to really know our customers and turn that knowledge into put a laser focus on knowing our
action.”
customers, reducing operating
McCann’s company is a pioneer in direct-order e-commerce, opening its own expenses and innovating for the
Web site more than 14 years ago. The New York-based company continues future.”
to build on its roots with acquisitions of other direct-order gift companies and
Chris McCann,
now operates 15 separate brands offering popcorn, plants, gourmet food, wine,
President, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM
candies and gift baskets.

“SAS has given me the ability to grow my business, whether the economy has
been up or down,” says McCann.

To find out more about 1-800-FLOWERS.COM and its success with SAS,
please visit www.sas.com/success/1800flowers.html

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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
delivered within an integrated framework, SAS helps customers at more than 45,000
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®.

13

SAS Institute Inc. World Headquarters +1 919 677 8000 To contact your local SAS office, please visit: www.sas.com/offices
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 © 2009, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. 102405_531535.0309

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