SUBWAY® Stays Fresh and Healthy with SAS

At the Retail Systems 2006 Conference & Exposition in Chicago, it was announced that SUBWAY restaurants, North America's largest restaurant chain, is using SAS Enterprise BI Server to assess costs and analyze store performance.

SUBWAY restaurants, with more than 25,000 locations in 83 countries, chose SAS because of its proven reputation for working with the extraordinarily large volumes of data generated in the restaurant business. 

Improving sales, profitability
"We have data streaming in from thousands of stores across North America and many distributors and suppliers," says Thomas J. Coba, Chief Operating Officer for the SUBWAY brand.

"All that data was becoming cumbersome and difficult to manage. We needed to monitor in-network buying, customer behavior and supplier behavior," continues Coba. "And, we needed to better understand areas for improvements and cost reductions. Now that the SAS implementation is up and running, we're already experiencing better visibility into our supply chain and realizing savings."

Coba says SAS allows SUBWAY restaurants to achieve a strategic goal: providing the tools and systems to improve franchise sales and profitability.

Partnering for success
SAS was introduced to the SUBWAY chain using the Supply Information Management System (SIMS), a product developed for Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) by SAS Partner, Oak Brook Associates Inc.

Says Thys Van Hout, founder and CEO of Oak Brook Associates: "I admire Tom Coba and his team for their commitment to help build the business success of entrepreneurs operating SUBWAY restaurants and look forward to working with them. I could not operate my business, nor offer the SIMS product designed for the QSR industry without the 'power to know' of SAS."

In addition to SUBWAY restaurants, SAS customers include hundreds of leading retailers worldwide, such as:

• 1-800-FLOWERS.COM  
• Brooks Brothers
• Bakers Footwear
• Burger King  
• Carrefour
• Casino 
• Casual Male 
• The Children's Place 
• Circuit City
• Fakta
• Federated Department Stores  
• Karstadt
• Kohl's
• Li & Fung Retailing Group 
• The Limited   
• Lowe's Companies
• Luxottica Retail 
• Marks & Spencer   
• Newport News   
• Northern Tool & Equipment  
• Office Depot   
• Sainsbury's   
• Sport Chalet  
• Staples
• Tesco  
• Too Inc.
• Waitrose Limited  
• Williams-Sonoma

SUBWAY, the world’s largest submarine sandwich chain, uses SAS BI Server to assess costs and individual store performance.