SAS plans to expand India operations

SAS plans to expand India operations

Coimbatore: SAS, the world's largest privately held software company in the business intelligence space is contemplating to expand its India operations and strengthen its ties with leading IT firms here.

We intend to build on the complementary strengths of Indian companies and SAS' global leadership, to deliver industry-specific capabilities and solutions. These partnerships will enable organisations to improve efficiencies and increase competitiveness in today's knowledge economy, both in India and abroad," Dr James Goodnight, Chief Executive Officer, SAS, said.

SAS India Private Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of the US-based SAS. The Indian operations, established in 1997 have, according to Dr Goodnight, seen growth both in terms of office and people.

The company currently has two wholly owned subsidiaries in the country. While SAS India Private Ltd headquartered at Mumbai with regional offices at Bangalore and New Delhi is driving the business intelligence market, SAS Global Services (SGS) is the key resource arm for the global SAS community.

SGS focuses on research and development and Industry Intelligence Solutions development. The R&D centre at Pune is said to be the largest one outside of the US.

According to a Frost & Sullivan report, SAS India leads the business intelligence market with a market share of 22.5 per cent and top-of-mind recall at 70 per cent.

Responding to an e-mailed interview on SAS' plans for India, Dr Goodnight said the company was optimistic about achieving a triple-digit growth rate from its India operations this year.

"At SAS, we use every opportunity to learn from our customers, to understand their businesses, and to solicit feedback. We've used this outside-in approach for nearly 30 years. And in that time, we've grown every single year, achieving $1.53 billion in revenue in 2004. Customer loyalty is very high. Our customer retention rate is rising year-on-year, more than revenue, underlining our success," he said.

From its India operations, the company would attempt to help organisations create business value on top of their existing IT infrastructure, be in customer retention initiatives in the telecom sector, risk management and customer intelligence in the ever-competitive financial services arena or clinical trials in the burgeoning and innovative pharmaceutical industry.

To complement its solution offering, SAS India took to building a network of partnerships over the past four years, he said and recalled the company's consulting alliances with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Infotech, MindTree Consulting and Satyam and hardware alliance partners such as Hewlett Packard, Sun Microsystems and IBM.

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