SAS evolves into a business consulting company

MANILA, Philippines - Unlike most business software developers that offer run-of-the-mill services like database, data extraction/data mining and reporting, SAS Global (and its Philippine subsidiary) offers a complete problem-solving and risk-analysis services that enabled the company to evolve into a business consultancy outfit.

“This unique feature of our service provides assurance to our clients that they can call on our people the moment they smell risks or adverse conditions in their environments just like the current global financial crisis that highlighted the superiority of SAS business solutions altogether,” said SAS Philippines managing director Emmanuel Halili.

SAS Philippines’ sales went up by 22 percent while its revenue climbed by 40 percent in a very tight year in 2008.

SAS has been very strong in banking and finance, telcos, manufacturing and retail. For this it was awarded the Top Performing Country of the Year in 2009 by SAS Global for the fourth time in a row under the emerging markets category.

Among SAS Philippines innovations, best practices and recognitions are: The 3-year old Bootcamp training program offering free education and training to deserving students; the SAS center of excellence; and the “Firsts” in Asia — Risk, AML, quality analysis.

Halili said the Bootcamp involves three weeks of intensive training plus two months of on-the-job training plus another three months of OJT servicing SAS clients. They “graduate” at each level and if our clients want them and they decide to stay with the clients, they are hired. But if they want to stay with us, SAS hires them.

Despite the global financial crunch, SAS Global posted an unbroken chain of 33 years of growth, logging revenues of $2.26 billion in 2008 or a growth of 5.1 percent from the 2007 level.

This growth is a direct result of being a stable privately-held company which allows it to invest in long-term relationships with their employees and clients.

Its strongest growth is in analytics, data mining and solutions that help clients keep their current customers and win new ones, manage risks and optimize processes.

And with the challenges of the first semester of 2009 expected to linger until the last semester, SAS will continue to invest in technology enhancements and newer solutions to help customers improve performance particularly in the areas of fraud, customer insight, risk and analytics as part of the business analytics framework.