SAS ranked as a leader in self-service business intelligence report

PRLog (Press Release) - Jul. 19, 2012 - SAS®, the leading provider of business analytics software and services, has revealed that the latest edition of the 'The Forrester Wave: Self-Service Business Intelligence Platforms, Q2 2012' has named it as a leader. Forrester Research Inc., an independent technology and market research company that provides advice on existing and potential impact of technology to its clients and the public, has reported that SAS Enterprise BI was one of the evaluated products that demonstrated significant capabilities and was accompanied with a good balance of self-service BI features across most requirements.  SAS scored among the highest in nine areas including product direction and commitment as well as in key functional areas such as automodeling, calculated measures, prompt for columns, data virtualization, semantic layer and clicks / time to answer.

According to the report, SAS is one of the vendors that Forrester clients have frequently mentioned or asked about in the context of business intelligence (BI). The report further states, "SAS offers one of the top self-service BI choices for power users. Even though SAS has a broad BI platform that supports most BI use cases, it is mostly known for its advanced analytics. If you are already a user of SAS BI, look no further than the self-service advanced analytics features of SAS Enterprise Guide. The new Visual Analytics product from SAS also empowers users with visual self-service for big data exploration techniques and approachable analytics."

Comprehensive, easy-to-use SAS Enterprise BI Server integrates powerful SAS Analytics and SAS Data Management to provide insights that inform better decisions. The software includes role-based, self-service interfaces for all types of users within a well-defined IT governance framework from a centralized point of administration. This helps organizations simplify and speed business intelligence deployment.

Business-owned, self-service BI applications are crucial to BI success. IT no longer has exclusive control of BI platforms, tools and applications-- business users demand more empowerment and previously unshakable pillars of the BI foundation such as relational databases are quickly being supplemented with alternative BI platforms. It is no longer business as usual.

Self-service BI empowers business users to do more while allowing IT to maintain management and governance. Only the comprehensive, fully integrated business analytics framework from SAS addresses evolving needs across the organization. SAS makes it easier to share consistent, complete views of the business and improves decision making.

“Business Intelligence has long been seen as an important driver to any company's growth," said Shukri Dabaghi, General Manager, SAS Middle East. “In fact, for the Middle East alone, the demand for a strategic and highly effective BI product has grown, demonstrating the region's understanding of the significant role that these products play in company growth and development. Being named a leader by Forrester Research ultimately reinforces our efforts to increase our market presence in the region while also giving our users the confidence of using a world class fully reliable product.”