SAS INSTITUTE EXPANDS PARTNERSHIPS WITH GLOBAL ORGANIZATIONS
SAS Institute announced fourth-quarter 1999 customer wins in its key initiative areas of data warehousing and data mining, as well as in its new e-business initiative. These customer agreements helped Institute revenues top $1 billion for the year. Revenue figures will be released next month.
Iron Trades Insurance, an employee liability insurance provider and one of the U.K.'s top 20 general insurers, licensed SAS software to profile customers visiting its e-commerce site, Ironsure.com, and to analyze click-stream data in order to improve the site structure.
"SAS software is crucially important to the success of Ironsure.com," said David Shelley, general manager of Iron Trades. "The Internet is a highly dynamic environment, and being able to track the business and analyze trends is vital. The extraction of data, and its presentation as information in meaningful reports that are immediately available, is absolutely key to our management decision-making process. In this context, our SAS software-based system is one of the key components that we need in order to use the Internet to achieve our strategic goals."
ENGEN Petroleum Ltd., the second-largest integrated oil company in South Africa, licensed SAS/Warehouse Administrator software to build a data warehouse and subsequent data marts as part of a Web-based balanced scorecard project. By using Warehouse Administrator, knowledge workers with no formal IT experience can access and manage the data needed to support more than 100 balanced scorecard measures.
MD Foods, Denmark's largest industrial company and processor of more than 70 percent of the milk produced in the country, entered a multi-year global agreement with SAS Institute. Now, company employees worldwide will gain access to a SAS software-based data warehouse and advanced budgeting system currently being used only in Denmark.
Queensland Rail (QR), a provider of public and freight transportation for the state of Queensland, Australia, recently purchased SAS software to enhance its data warehousing capabilities. The corporate data warehouse provides QR with a consolidated and integrated view of organizational information, helping it excel in meeting customer needs. The QR data warehouse is not limited to one functional area, but caters to financial, employee relations, and operationally based business areas as well.
Rosina Food Products Inc., the family-owned manufacturer of frozen Italian specialty products based in Buffalo, N.Y., selected a SAS data warehousing and reporting solution. From IT users to executives, the solution will be used for a variety of reporting needs, such as profitability by region or by customer. In addition, Rosina will use SAS software to determine productivity and efficiency within its manufacturing production lines.
Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc., one of the world's leading hotel and leisure companies, turned to the SAS intelligent warehousing solution and multidimensional database (MDDB) software to step up the performance of its ad hoc financial query and reporting systems. Starwood, which operates St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, Westin, Sheraton, Four Points, and W brands, could not easily access and report on data in its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system in a timely fashion. Now, Starwood can combine and report on information from its SAP R/3, Hyperion, and externally purchased data in a fraction of the time it previously took to complete this task.
Enterprise Miner - a key player in customer relationship management U.S.-based Bell Atlantic, a premier provider of advanced wireline voice and data services, the market leader in wireless services, and the world's largest publishers of directory information, recently selected SAS Enterprise Miner as an integral part of its Galaxy project, a major effort to revolutionize its customer relationship management (CRM). Initially, Bell Atlantic will use Enterprise Miner to segment its customer base, determine what package of products and services best fit their needs, calculate churn, and estimate the lifetime value of a customer.
Cecile, a major Japanese mail-order firm, began implementing Enterprise Miner to analyze its 17 million customer database, one of the largest in the mail-order industry. The company plans to segment its customer base into more than 100 groups based on purchasing habits, trends, and tastes. With Enterprise Miner, Cecile can prepare individualized catalogs, direct mail campaigns, and marketing activities that offer better cost performance.
France Telecom, the leading telecommunications company in France, has licensed SAS software, including Enterprise Miner, for churn management, marketing campaign targeting and price simulation, as well as for non-CRM applications such as human resource analysis. Specifically, the France Telecom Cartes group is using SAS software to combat churn, or customer defection, among its telecom card users. France Telecom customers can charge calls directly to their bank accounts or telephone bills by using a card number and identification code.
"We can anticipate cancellations now," explained Catherine Simon, the company's market segmentation manager. "As soon as we notice certain indicators such as a regular or massive decrease in the use of the card, we can identify those customers and take steps to keep them. At the other end of the chain, we also model prospective customers in order to offer them the most appropriate products."
T-Mobil, the mobile telephone arm of Europe's leading telecommunications provider Deutsche Telekom, has chosen Enterprise Miner for its customer relationship management applications, including churn management.
Japan's Toppan Printing Co., Ltd., has selected Enterprise Miner to power marketing services offered by Toppan I.D.M. The SAS solution will help Toppan I.D.M., Japan's first comprehensive database marketing business, provide marketing, consulting, and technical support services to clients. These new marketing services will employ data-mining techniques to measure the results of marketing promotions.
Valassis Communications, a leading American marketing-services company, provides products and services to consumer package-goods companies and franchise retailers. Valassis, whose products include free-standing newspaper inserts, sampling programs, and other consultative marketing services, recently began implementing the SAS Solution for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to assist with a new service: direct-mail database marketing. With the SAS Solution for CRM, Valassis will be able to offer this service to a variety of business segments, including restaurant franchises, retail stores and automotive dealerships.
For more information, visit http://www.sas.com.