Okay…I don’t usually do the rah-rah SAS stuff, but it was a really great week here and I wanted to share. The Analytic Cheerleader is getting out her pom-poms and cheering for SAS! Since I’ve been a SAS employee for exactly 3 months, I thought it was a good time to reflect:
First, as a member of a SAS business unit that supports our account executives, I attended our annual US sales kickoff meeting at the Cary, NC headquarters this week. It was a chance to interact with all the great people around the company you don’t see every day. There are many teams within SAS that help make analytics a reality for our customers: sales, marketing, sales support, technical support, professional services, event planners, statisticians and software developers to name a few! The fact that we can execute so well with a geographically distributed organization speaks highly of the company culture.
Over the three day event, senior leaders (including Dr. Goodnight) got the participants revved up about the great year we had in 2010 (more to come on that) and the great things to come in the months ahead. As organizations around the world are emerging from the economic malaise that’s plagued the globe, they’re making more strategic investments in SAS analytics. And with SAS continuing to plow 24% of revenue back into R&D, we’re making strategic investments in analytic technologies and solutions as well. Look forward to new market leading developments in analytics over the next year. If you'd like a taste of what's going in insurance, check out what's going on with fraud analytics. Second, SAS announced that 2010 revenue jumped 5.2% over 2009 to a record $2.43b! In the words of SAS Senior Vice President Jim Davis, "The long-term effects of the economic downturn still aren't known, but I feel confident about the future based on our revenue results this year and conversations we've had with customers in every industry about improving their business processes with analytics." The financial services vertical (of which my insurance vertical is a part) accounted for an amazing 41 percent of revenue! We're looking forward to an even better year in 2011!
Third, for the second year in a row, SAS ranks number 1 on the FORTUNE best companies to work for in America. In our press release: “SAS boasts one of the lowest employee turnover rates in the industry: 2.6 percent versus the industry norm of 22 percent. SAS realizes lower recruitment and retention costs, as well as closer customer relationships and continual product innovation.” And it’s not all about campus perks: Even remote employees like me are entitled to an unlimited supply of M&Ms. I will personally tell you that one of the greatest benefits is not all of the perks, but that SAS fosters a culture that thrives on collaboration and innovation, and allows us to individually influence decisions that make us the best analytic partner we can be for our customers.
Analytics = SAS. Go SAS!
