Business Analytics for the CIO - ITO America - Business ... · Business Analytics for the CIO ... Executive summary ... “Worldwide Business Analytics Software 2008-2012 Forecast

WHITE PAPER

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

i

BUSINESS ANALYTICS FOR THE CIO

Table of Contents

Executive summary ........................................................................................ 1The pressure is on IT ...................................................................................... 2

Issue 1: Support sustainable growth while managing risk through the innovative use of technology and information .............................. 2

Issue 2: Provide an infrastructure to manage the growing appetite for intelligence .................................................................................... 3

Issue 3: Derive more value from existing technology and information assets. ....................................................................... 3

The platform for SAS® Business Analytics .................................................... 4A closer look at the platform .......................................................................... 5

Data integration .......................................................................................... 5Analytics ..................................................................................................... 6Reporting .................................................................................................... 8

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


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.

One of the key goals of IT is to consolidate all this data so that it can be analyzed to create timely, high-quality information to support proactive decision making. But, with systems already stretched to the limit, managing, controlling and monitoring incoming data presents immense challenges: insufficient data quality processes, information silos, tight budgets, redundant tools and too many spreadsheets.

CIOs realize they need to satisfy the ever growing demand for information that leverages the past, monitors the present and predicts with accuracy, enabling effective decisions and course correction. They want to enhance operations and achieve success by increasing data consistency, streamlining administration and providing easy-to-use reporting tools backed by powerful analytics. They understand they need to empower the organization now and meet future needs 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.

1

■ “We are beginning to see a new

wave of business analytics use

that will be focused on two primary

demands: more data and more

users. At the same time, the number

of internal IT developers and

analytics experts doesn’t seem to

be keeping pace with the increased

demand from end users.”

Source: Dan Vesset, “Worldwide Business Analytics Software

2008-2012 Forecast and 2007 Vendor Shares Report,”

November 2008, IDC # 214904

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


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 existing IT infrastructure to deliver greater value to your organization, how you can add capabilities as business needs expand and ultimately, how business analytics can transform your data into competitive advantage.

The pressure is on IT

CIOs and IT managers are under tremendous pressure to choose the right products, services and technologies that enable them to transform data into a competitive advantage – enabling strategic decisions that optimize performance. SAS provides a 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: Support sustainable growth while managing risk 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

■ SAS® Business Analytics deliver

competitive insights that are

often hidden in data, enabling

organizations to reach evidence-

based decisions and confidently:

• Solve complex business problems.

• Manage performance to achieve

measurable business objectives.

• Drive sustainable growth through

innovation.

• Anticipate and manage change.


3

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, explore different options, learn from experimentation and validate best approaches. SAS can help IT organizations by providing a flexible environment that allows the organization to change or evolve as the need arises, while enabling centralized control and management of data and information processes.

Issue 2: Provide an infrastructure to manage the growing appetite for intelligence

More data, more users. These are the two primary demands facing most IT organizations. And unfortunately, many CIOs admit they have the sense that managing the flow of information into and throughout the business is not being done effectively. By integrating your organization’s technology components (whether it’s an ERP system, 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.

Issue 3: Derive more value from existing technology and information assets.

Make the most of what you have, and do more with less. Particularly in this time of economic strife, this is a mantra everyone hears. IT departments are no different. 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 and security of the systems. This can be a difficult challenge when every department and business unit is collecting, managing and analyzing data in silos with a heavy dependence on spreadsheets for analysis.

Decision makers demand fast answers, and it is the job of IT to make sure everyone has access to the information they need, at the right level of detail, when they need it. To make the most of what you have, you must aggregate and cleanse your data, 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.

■ “SAS is able to handle millions of

pieces of data. We tested several

software packages, and SAS best

met our requirements. With SAS

predictive models, we’ve seen

double-digit growth in overall sales

per catalog along with performance

increases as much as 60 percent

from some of our retail fliers.”

Corey Bergstrom,Director,

Marketing Research and Analysis, Cabela’s

■ “...organizations are facing pressures

to deliver information that is timely

and effective in meeting business

goals. This requires companies to

have access to the information, the

ability to combine, aggregate and

integrate this information, and then

deliver it to people when, where and

how they need it.”

The Aberdeen Group, “Beyond Spreadsheets:

The Value of BI and Analytics,” January 2009

4


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 boundaries and delivers new insights that drive value for your enterprise. The platform for SAS Business Analytics extends the value of your existing systems, while setting the stage for new levels of enterprise intelligence not previously possible. It includes the following components:

• Data integration. SAS offers prebuilt, high-performance capabilities for data connectivity, data quality, ETL (extract, transform and load), data migration, data synchronization and data federation.

• Analytics. SAS provides an integrated environment for predictive and descriptive modeling, forecasting, optimization, simulation, experimental design and more.

• 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.

■ The platform for SAS® Business

Analytics provides the foundational

technology on which the SAS®

Business Analytics Framework is

built. It provides organizations with

the agility to integrate individual

technology components into the

existing IT infrastructure as part of

a unified system that cuts across

organizational silos.


5

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, including structured and unstructured data. It can be difficult to locate, identify and select the data that needs to be extracted, transformed and moved from all the silos of information. Data may be inconsistently represented among platforms, making it difficult to produce accurate and reliable results. Expensive, high-maintenance, 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.

■ SAS® offers prebuilt, high-

performance capabilities for data

manipulations, analysis, cleansing

and integration.

6


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 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 allow organizations to be more proactive in their decision making – looking not just at what happened in the past but creating detailed forecasts to address what will happen in the future; and using SAS optimization capabilities, determine the best actions to take in a particular situation.

With SAS Analytics, you can anticipate the future and tackle strategic policy 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:

• Howdoyoudesignarchitecturesandprocessestotightlyintegratemodelingandoperations without affecting the performance of operational systems?

• Canonesolutionmeetthediverserequirementsofalltypesofusers,letthemshare modeling results and be open to third-party tools?

• Whatisthebestwaytomodelscenariosrequiringaccesstoolddata(historicaltrends) as well as new transactions to provide revenue forecasting, Web mining of customer feedback studies, quality improvement, simulation and process optimization?

■ Compared to just analyzing historical

information and using gut instinct,

the ability to predict effectively

gives organizations a competitive

advantage, lowers risks and provides

the insights needed to plan for the

future.


7

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.

8


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 information at the right time so they can make the most knowledgeable decisions. SAS provides a full breadth of capabilities, including interactive visualization and 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 while IT retains control over the quality and 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.

■ Across the organization, users can

generate their own answers and

produce their own reports while IT

retains control over the quality and

consistency of the data.


9

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.

10


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 situation. We can help drive your enterprise intelligence to the next level, while leveraging and extending the value of your existing IT investments. SAS enables IT to 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.

• Collaborative data integration. Imagine giving users across your organization the ability to access and process all the data they need, no matter where 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.

■ “With SAS, our business users are

able to gain more value from the

data, leading to better decisions and

ultimately, better marketing ROI.”

Jay Dittmann,Vice President of Marketing Strategy,

Hallmark Cards


11

• 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 added, the benefits continue to multiply while the total cost of ownership is reduced. Eventually, while solving more and more business problems, improving performance and evolving the business – an organization can grow the SAS Business Analytics Framework into a platform tailored to its needs.

• Information Evolution Model. SAS provides a proven methodology designed to aid organizations in assessing how they use information to achieve their information objectives. The model outlines how information is managed and used 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.

■ Eventually, while solving more and

more business problems, improving

performance and evolving the

business – an organization can

grow the SAS® Business Analytics

Framework into a platform tailored

to its needs.

12


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 need SAS’ abilities to really know our customers and turn that knowledge into action.”

McCann’s company is a pioneer in direct-order e-commerce, opening its own Web site more than 14 years ago. The New York-based company continues to build on its roots with acquisitions of other direct-order gift companies and now operates 15 separate brands offering popcorn, plants, gourmet food, wine, 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

■ “SAS Business Analytics help us

put a laser focus on knowing our

customers, reducing operating

expenses and innovating for the

future.”

Chris McCann, President, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM


13

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®.

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

Business Analytics for the CIO - ITO America - Business ... · Business Analytics for the CIO ... Executive summary ... “Worldwide Business Analytics Software 2008-2012 Forecast

Documents