CIOL: To what extent is enterprise search helpful in data access and utilization, and what are its constraints?      

SS: We believe that as the reporting needs of an organization grow, the capability to provide free form text searching can provide users with accurate information without having to search through a maze of reports to get the relevant information.

SAS has announced a partnership with Google as of April last year to provide the familiar Google search interface to connect business users directly to the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform. Users of all skill levels will be able to search SAS and get real-time information, including data, analyses and reports, directly in Google search results pages.

CIOL: What are the most critical components to be considered in BI?

SS: Successful companies recognize that BI as more than technology, and this is where people, process and culture come in to play. Do you have people who are committed to fact based decision making? Do you have processes in place to make data readily available? Do you have a culture that's going to take on the change necessary to adopt a culture of fact-based decision making? Most importantly, does an organization accept change only or does it also embrace it? Companies who are able to harness data and commit to fact-based decision making are the ones that are going to be quicker in market and ultimately have competitive advantage.

CIOL: Now that, you have come out as a leader in BI space, tell us about your key products?   

SS: SAS solution portfolio is rich and is backed by our 30 years of experience of dealing with our customer across the segments. Not only we provide strong intelligence foundation in form of our enterprise intelligence platforms, we also provide various functional solutions like financial intelligence (deals with challenges like Consolidation & Reporting, Budgeting and Planning, Strategic Performance Management, Activity Based Management etc); customer intelligence (addresses issues like customer segmentation, churn management, cross-sell/up-sell, customer profitability etc); risk intelligence (BASEL II, AML etc); manufacturing intelligence (enabling organizations in areas of warranty analysis, service part optimization, production quality etc). On top of our functional solutions, we have customized industry frameworks for 16 industry verticals, which reduce time to intelligence for our customers.

CIOL: How did you manage to get leadership in BI software market?        

SS: SAS has always been a leader in the business intelligence and analytics space. We are very happy to be again recognized as the leader in the business intelligence applications market. Our unabated growth demonstrates that customers are demanding proven solutions from stable partner which focuses on delivering business value to them.

CIOL: What trends do you foresee for BI in the future? 

SS: The future of BI involves things like consistency of information across the organization and predictive analytics that will support proactive decision making. Combine this with some of the technology developments and infrastructure issues that are taking place around us globally. Wi-Fi is becoming prevalent, for example. So, a user is not going to be tethered to his desk. BI already is mobile, but is going to become even more mobile, and people are going to be comfortable with it. Therefore, the opportunity to get BI closer to the point of interaction will be realized.

Secondly, organisations will increasingly move away from transactional database systems to implement fully integrated enterprise intelligence platforms that can efficiently disseminate intelligence across the organizations. Just as an ERP platform is needed for the operational side of the business, an enterprise intelligence platform with all componenets fully integrated is and will continue to be needed for the intelligence side of the business.

Thirdly, organisations will increasingly demand industry solutions – from telecom to banking to manufacturing that will be at the heart of their enterprise intelligence strategies.