LONDON, UK, June 23, 2008 -– Matalan, one of the UK's leading clothing and homewares retailers, has looked to SAS, the leader in business intelligence, to improve its ability to share vital sales information throughout its business and increase the speed at which it can be accessed. By speeding up the supply of correct data, SAS provides Matalan with the ability to make faster and more accurate business critical decisions, increase efficiencies, cut costs and reduce waste, translating to an increase in bottom-line profit.

SAS’ Enterprise Intelligence software provides Matalan with a complete platform for data integration, analysis and reporting. It was chosen for its superior data integration capabilities and its ability to cope with Matalan’s 466 million transactions per year. SAS will integrate data from Matalan’s disparate systems and improve the quality and timeliness of its information, providing the business with faster and more accurate decision making capabilities.

The company will benefit from having visibility of the previous weekend’s trading figures by the following Monday morning. The aim is for a traffic-light report covering size, colour and store performance, to be delivered electronically. This will provide detailed insight into the stores sales patterns enabling immediate response to trading performance. Using SAS, Matalan will be able to react more quickly to changes in individual stores’ sales patterns. The business will be able to order stock for each store that accurately reflects their customers’ buying behaviour, thus cutting down on excess stock.

Previously Matalan was unable to gain much of this valuable insight until later in the week, by which time the ability to impact the following weekend’s trading was missed. In the past, paper-based reports were manually pulled together and then analysed, taking up too much of the merchandisers’ time. The increased speed at which the information will be available and the added insight will now facilitate quicker and more accurate decision making.

Capgemini is working with SAS and Matalan as the consulting and implementation partner. The strong relationship between SAS and Capgemini brings a unique blend of domain and technology expertise to Matalan, enabling them to implement a single system for their data management needs.

Pete Trainer, IT and Logistics Director, Matalan states: “Matalan’s aim is to become a fact-based, data-driven organisation and SAS has helped us toward meeting this objective. SAS’ one version of the truth gives us the ability to optimally plan, execute on that plan and react quickly to changing conditions. Bringing all our data together means that we now have a platform to build upon for future developments in the areas of merchandise planning, supply chain management and marketing outreach.”

Ian Manocha, Managing Director of SAS UK adds: “This is a great win for SAS. Matalan is one of the biggest names in retail in the UK and this deal supports the view that SAS offers the most superior vision for business intelligence in the retail industry.”

About SAS

SAS is the leader in business intelligence and analytical software and services. Customers at more than 44,000 sites use SAS software to improve performance through insight from data, resulting in faster, more accurate business decisions; more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; compliance with governmental regulations; research breakthroughs; and better products and processes. Only SAS offers leading data integration, storage, analytics and business intelligence applications within a comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know® .