Brief

SAS eyes emerging sectors for growth

Having made its mark in the competitive business intelligence segment, the company is targeting emerging sectors to enhance revenues, , says Srikanth R P

Sudipta Sen Managing Director and CEO, SAS India

After leading the Indian business intelligence market with a market share of 22.5 percent, SAS India now wants to aggressively go after other emerging sectors. The BI major is betting on its recently launched SAS9 Intelligence Platform, a platform that supposedly enhances data integration, business reporting and analytics. Sudipta Sen, who has recently taken over as the managing director and CEO of the company wants SAS to expand beyond its traditional domain of the banking and telecom industry. SAS India is eyeing growth opportunities in emerging sectors such as retail, BPO and CRO (contract research organisation).

Many Indian BPO firms are venturing into third party data analytics that involves services such as research, data cleaning and tabulation and report writing. The use of analytical tools in capturing accurate data for creating research reports is on the rise. SAS wants to tap this emerging market by offering its BI tools. Another big opportunity area is the CRO market. A CRO offers clinical studies, monitoring, regulatory and compliance services for new drug development. SAS is looking at capturing a major chunk of this market with a host of solutions such as SAS discovery solutions, drug discovery and patent portfolio management. Retail is another sector that is emerging in India where organisations can use BI solutions to ascertain customer profitability, product profitability and promotion profitability. For example, banks can use SAS’ campaign management solutions to know the impact of a particular campaign.

But the biggest sector that is virtually untapped by most BI vendors is the government. As government departments typically generate a lot of data, BI tools could be used for extracting intelligence. Says Sen, “Most state governments are keen on driving e-governance projects. An improved access to data can mean greater efficiency and planning. Additionally, trends and even problems can be identified at an earlier stage enabling the concerned department to make better use of funds.”