LAS VEGAS, Nevada, Oct. 26, 2005 -- SAS, the leader in business intelligence, today announced it is launching a global Business Intelligence Competency Center program. Designed to help organizations worldwide create a cohesive enterprise intelligence strategy for better decision making, the program will offer a comprehensive mix of services that will empower organizations to maximize their investment in BI technology and strengthen their competitive advantage.

"The SAS BI Competency Center (BICC) program addresses the business, organization and IT requirements of establishing and implementing a company's optimal enterprise BI strategy. A comprehensive suite of service offerings has been developed by SAS Consulting and SAS Partners to help our customers develop and own a BICC unique to their organizational culture, industry and business needs. A BICC enables an organization to coordinate and complement existing efforts, while reducing redundancy and increasing effectiveness. The centralization of these efforts ensures that information and best practices are communicated and shared through the entire organization so that everyone can benefit from successes and best practices," said Patricia Whitaker, strategic programs director, Customer Solutions & Alliances at SAS.

A BI Competency Center is a permanent formal organizational structure consisting of representatives from the business and IT that seeks to advance and promote the effective use of business intelligence to support the organization's business strategy.

Implementing an enterprise BI Competency Center provides multiple benefits including:

-- Heightened credibility and confidence in enterprise information

-- Increased use of business intelligence throughout the organization.

-- Accelerated and effective decision making.

-- Optimization of resources and decreased cost

-- Innovation of business processes through technology

The industry comments on the SAS BI Competency Center

-- "Companies are looking to gain greater visibility into their data to help them achieve greater competitive differentiation and efficiency. The growing demand for people with the appropriate skills to help drive data analysis, modeling and predictive analysis far outstrips supply," said Rich Jaso, managing partner, Business Intelligence, Unisys North America. "Establishing a BI Competency Center is the inevitable next step for companies to leverage their capabilities and value. SAS solutions provide a critical foundation to supporting these efforts. We work closely with SAS to help companies attain this visibility and achieve maximum benefit for their BI Competency Center investments."

-- "SAS' presence in the business intelligence industry is strong and growing. SAS has gone to great lengths to meet the needs of its various users, whether they are business analysts or IT managers," said Claudia Imhoff, Ph.D., president and founder of Intelligent Solutions, a leading consultancy on CRM and BI technologies and strategies. "The BI Competency Center consulting services SAS has put together take that customer service concept to a whole new level and provide a critical framework for companies that really want to take full advantage of all that data at their fingertips. I am excited to see SAS offer this BI service to companies globally and to see how these companies use it for their own benefit."

-- "Establishing a Business Intelligence Competency Center can help organizations to optimize their investment in BI technology and strengthen their competitive advantage," said Rich Cohen, principal and leader of Deloitte Consulting LLP's alliance with SAS. "As a member of the SAS Alliance Program, Deloitte Consulting is ready to complement SAS' BI technology with comprehensive organizational services to assist our customers in developing and improving their unique BI Competency Centers."

Earlier this year at the SAS Forum International 2005 users conference in Portugal, SAS announced that many European customers have set up BI competency centers or expressed an interest in creating one for their organizations. More information is available at www.sas.com/news/preleases/062205/news4.html.

Today's announcement was made at the BetterManagement LIVE Worldwide Business Conference, which addresses critical business management issues from around the world. BetterManagement LIVE brings together more than 1,000 attendees from the public and private sector to share insights and knowledge. More than 85 speakers in seven focused tracks represent a broad spectrum of executives, academics, consultants and financial experts. More information is available at www.bettermanagement.com/bettermanagementlive/worldwide.aspx.

About SAS

SAS is the market leader in providing a new generation of business intelligence software and services that create true enterprise intelligence. SAS solutions are used at 40,000 sites - including 96 of the top 100 companies on the FORTUNE Global 500(R) - to develop more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; to enable better, more accurate and informed decisions; and to drive organizations forward. SAS is the only vendor that completely integrates leading data warehousing, analytics and traditional BI applications to create intelligence from massive amounts of data. For nearly three decades, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know(R). Visit us at www.sas.com.

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. (R) indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.

Copyright (C) 2005 SAS Institute Inc. Cary, NC, USA. All rights reserved.

SAS Institute
Bill Rose, 919-531-9996
Bill.Rose@sas.com