SAS Solutions Dominate the Forecasting Market

To get an accurate picture of the future, today’s organizations must be able to model and simulate any business process, as well as the factors that affect those processes, no matter how complex. And today’s organizations are turning to SAS for the forecasting that they need to do just that.

Based on published reports, SAS leads the forecasting software market with deeper penetration than other software vendors in such industries as consumer packaged goods, manufacturing, banking, pharmaceuticals, retail, utilities and higher education.

"No other software could do what SAS does for us," says Alan Gordon, director of sales forecasting at Staples. "SAS helps us calculate three years’ worth of sales forecasts for nearly 5,000 potential store locations each year. Staples executives use the results to help determine the best site for each new store. Our use of SAS reaches finance executives, marketing analysts and store managers throughout the company every day."

SAS currently has more than 6,500 licenses with 3,969 unique customers globally for just one of its forecasting products. In a survey of published 2005 Top 10 and industry lists, SAS forecasting solutions were licensed by a large percentage of companies in the following industries:

• 100 percent of the Top 10 consumer packaged goods companies.
• 90 percent of the Top 10 manufacturers.
• 90 percent of the Top 10 banks.
• 80 percent of the Top 10 pharmaceutical companies.
• 70 percent of the Top 10 retail companies.
• 60 percent of the Top 10 utilities companies.
• 30 percent of the Top 10 universities.

"With SAS forecasting technologies, decision makers accurately analyze and forecast processes that take place over time," says Jim Davis, chief marketing officer at SAS. "By identifying previously unseen trends and anticipating fluctuations, executives can more effectively plan for the future. Factors that affect business – including the economy, market conditions, customer demographics and such marketing activities as sales promotions – can be identified, quantified and included in the forecasting processes for improved results."

SAS solutions for forecasting help organizations across the industry spectrum plan at the most operational level – where day-to-day decisions take place. For example:

• Retail: To ensure that retailers take into account seasonal variations and promotions to reduce the risk of running out of products during periods of high demand, which can result in customer loss or overstocks that lead to cut prices and lost revenue.
  
  
• Manufacturing: To help consumer packaged goods and other types of manufacturers forecast product demand far in advance so they can plan more effectively – knowing what to produce when and avoiding the costly scenario of warehouses full of excess goods that must eventually be discarded.
  
  
• Banking: To help banks accurately plan for daily demands of multiple ATMs located throughout a specific location.

Globally recognized as an industry leader in analytics, SAS ensures accurate, consistent and reliable analysis of business information to produce insights that provide competitive advantage. Unlike competing offerings, organizations can use SAS solutions for forecasting to any scale they need, including enterprisewide, departmentally, and in conjunction with ERP and supply chain solutions.

"Forecasting at 75 percent accuracy versus forecasting at 90 percent accuracy can mean the difference in hundreds of thousands of dollars to the bottom line," says Charlie Chase, market strategy manager at SAS. "With SAS, our customers know they can trust the analytics, plus we provide a complete forecasting solution that includes data access, data cleansing, large-scale automatic statistical forecasting, and integration with planning and business systems. Other vendors’ solutions are limited to forecast creation only."