SAS hoping manufacturers will buy preconfigured, vertical solutions

Business intelligence software supplier SAS trusts that developing pre-configured solutions for specific industries will make it easier for business executives—not just IT professionals—to see value in the vendor's technology.

SAS displayed its line of manufacturing solutions at a recent conference for manufacturing executives at its Cary, N.C. headquarters. The solutions carry names like Supplier Relationship Management (SRM), Process Intelligence, Demand Intelligence, and Warranty Analysis.

ABB, a well-known manufacturer of industrial automation equipment, uses SAS SRM to grade suppliers before signing purchasing contracts. Says Benny Östh, a purchasing manager with ABB Power Technologies, Ludvika, Sweden, "If I get a call from a supplier [rep] who tells me he's already doing business with ABB, I can quickly look him up and see who in ABB he's [working] with, and how much business he's doing. I also can compare that supplier's performance against his competitors."

Dennie Norman, an SAS solution strategist, describes SAS SRM as "an intelligence platform" that complements, rather than competes with, ERP-based and best-of-breed sourcing applications. Norman says SAS connects an extraction, transformation, and loading tool to a company's procurement system. The tool pulls procurement-related data, cleanses it, and places it in a data warehouse where it is available for users wishing to do various types of analysis.

With SAS SRM, users can evaluate current spend patterns and grade suppliers' performance, among other things. They then can create procurement strategies that will be carried out in the procurement application.

Pierre Mitchell, a VP with Boston-based AMR Research, says SAS SRM does allow for more detailed analysis than an ERP-based sourcing application, and even most offered by stand-alone vendors. But he's not convinced that all companies need to conduct that level of analysis to meet their procurement goals.

"If you're looking for a system to streamline your purchasing processes, then you probably will want an ERP-based system or a best-of-breed application," Mitchell says. "But if you truly want to look at sourcing from a strategic standpoint, for things like minimizing the risk of not getting the right parts when you need them, that's where SAS shines."

Still, Mitchell says it's too early to tell whether building prepackaged solutions will indeed help SAS sell more software.