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"SMBs need similar functionality, investment in IT as established ones"

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CIOL Bureau
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BANGALORE: SAS, a global leader in business intelligence, analytics software and solutions, has been a pioneer in the field with a strategy-focused view of customer behaviour and profitability, supplier spending, financial performance and internal processes.

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SAS, which is very strong in performance management area as well, has also been positioned in the Leaders' Quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms in the first quarter of 2007 by Gartner.

SAS has the distinction of being the only vendor that completely integrates leading data warehousing, analytics and traditional Business Intelligence applications to create intelligence for massive amounts of data.

Ashit Panjwani, Director - Marketing, SAS, shares his views with Usha Prasad on the utilization of IT solutions by small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) on par with large enterprises.

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Excerpts from an interview:

CIOL: What is the level of awareness among SMBs as regards various IT solutions in establishing and expanding their operations?

Ashit Panjwani: It would be more appropriate to identify small and medium businesses (SMBs) as growing businesses. The needs of a growing business are the same as those of an established enterprise. Growing businesses need the same kind of functionality and investment in IT as it is aimed at supporting the growth plan.

However, the key challenges before growing businesses are - managing growth; want to grow to become profitable; enriching customer experience and managing compliance.

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CIOL: How has SAS' solutions helped the SMBs?

AP: Our solutions cater to both growing and established businesses. However, here comes the biggest role of business intelligence, which has a great potential in helping the SMBs effectively meet up the challenges mentioned earlier.

While retailers use SAS to find profitable places to put stores and products within those stores, financial institutions use SAS to detect money-laundering, sniff out fraud and score credit applications.

Lot of organizations are becoming more tech savvy. They are becoming aware of what IT can do and the basic value any investment in IT brings with it.

CIOL: Does cost play an important role while offering solutions for a growing business?

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AP:  Whether it is a growing or an established business, each one looks at the cost-value alignment. Though price is a challenge for many vendors, communicating the value of a particular solution is very important.

CIOL: Would you like to comment on whether investments in multiple solutions always challenge the return on investment (RoI)?

AP: RoI is one form of assessing the value that a solution offers. However, the overall value of the solution needs to be established. For example, in banking industry, the customers are implementing the solutions much better than the established players.

Further, enterprises should leverage on the investments made on their IT infrastructure to derive more business value. They need to move beyond business intelligence.

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CIOL: SAS is strong in risk management and its Risk Intelligence has bagged the 2007 software product of the year award. Can you elaborate on this?

AP: As regards risk management, SAS Risk Intelligence has superior capabilities in addressing the Basel II accord. SAS Risk Intelligence helps organizations go beyond compliance and manage risk strategically through risk-based performance management.

SAS Risk Management delivers a consistent, transparent and auditable view of all the risk initiatives of the company, so that the risk can be effectively managed as part of the day-to-day business practices.

CIOL: How can SAS support with regard to performance management, which companies across the globe are looking at in a major way?

AP: SAS is undoubtedly a leader in performance management. We have a strategic offering in the performance management area. Our performance management capabilities help companies bring context and direction to their business intelligence initiatives and support a continuous process for improvement. In addition to helping the organizations manage their performance, we help them improve.