Federal Execs and SAS Institute Show a Data Warehouse Solution for GPRA Compliance
ACTION ITEMS

At a GPRA (Government Performance Results Act) Open House in the Crystal City Marriott, Arlington, Va., leaders representing government contractors, vendors and government officials focused on the "how-to" of meeting the GPRA challenge. SAS Institute Federal Solutions demonstrated a data warehouse-based solution for federal performance management. The SAS(R) software solution begins with a data warehouse to help federal agencies achieve improved performance and results, and meet the requirements of GPRA. GPRA is the primary legislative framework through which federal agencies will be required to establish accountability for improving planning, budgeting, and evaluation of programs.

Sponsored by SAS Institute Federal Solutions, the GPRA Open House attracted government agency attendees from all 14 major U.S. federal departments and most subagencies and quasigovernment affiliates. The GPRA event featured speakers including: Steve App -- Deputy CFO for the Department of Treasury and a standing member of the Federal Government CFO Council as well as the Federal Government Council on GPRA; John Mercer -- author of the GPRA Legislation and currently a member of the "GPRA team" at Federal Data Corp.; and Kimberly Baker -- vice president and managing partner, NCR Government Systems.

Leveraging an organization's data warehouse and decision support base can greatly simplify the performance management challenge, from any starting point. The focus was on one complete, open and proven data warehousing solution, an integrated system with financial analysis and reporting, IT service management, data mining, and Web enablement capabilities, and a panel discussion with industry discussing the improvement of performance results. All of the speakers agreed that strategic planning requires identifying all alternative approaches, rating them in terms of their estimated cost-effectiveness in achieving a strategic objective, and selecting a set of strategies that best achieves the performance level specified in the strategic objective. Identifying and evaluating alternative strategies will set the basis for the tactical planning cycle that follows, where the organization describes how it intends to achieve the strategic objectives. Strategic planning is a continuous and systematic process that helps people make decisions about intended future outcomes, how outcomes are to be accomplished, and how success is measured and evaluated.

"While many technology vendors have entered into the GPRA fray, only SAS Institute and its technology partners represent an end-to-end integrated solution," said Jeff Mudd, manager of Federal Business Development for SAS Institute. "And, only this solution allows federal managers to attack the performance challenge by starting small and then building up, block by block, to as large a system as required." It offers fast, measurable results, and allows public sector strategic planners to answer, 'What do our customers want?...Or need?' 'What are their interests?' Once these questions are answered, they can begin to meet these needs based on realistic, measurable, results-oriented strategic objectives.

SAS software is used extensively in all 14 major U.S. federal departments and approximately 85 percent of the subagencies and quasigovernment affiliates. The SAS Institute Federal group is organized to effectively service the federal government, including the Department of Defense and civilian markets. SAS Institute's Federal Technology Center is dedicated to develop solutions related to federal government requirements. The Business Development Team is dedicated to creating the strategic partnerships to help bring these solutions to market. The core SAS software capabilities are now available through many different procurement vehicles - NIH ECS, I-CASE, and GSA contracts.

To make data useful, SAS software collects data from almost every platform and data format; cleans and transforms data into information that users will understand; and stores that information in an open and efficient data warehouse structure. To explore this information, SAS software includes OLAP, query and reporting, EIS, data mining, analysis, data visualization, and application-development interfaces. SAS software is client/server and Web enabled. SAS Institute also delivers business solutions that are complete packages for financial consolidation and reporting, clinical trials analysis, oil and gas analysis, and IT service management. Currently, SAS software and business solutions are being used at 31,000 business, government, and university sites in more than 120 countries.

For more information, see http://www.sas.com