cio-insights-special-report

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cioinsights

High-performance computing Operational insights Sustainable growth Business and IT alignment Doing more with less

Imperatives for the new CIOHow to manage data and apply analyticsfor efficiency and change


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Editor-in-Chie

Kelly LeVoyer

kelly.levoyer@sas.com

Managing Editor

Alison Bolen

alison.bolen@sas.com

Copy Editors

Amy Dyson

Trey Whittenton

Chris Hoerter

Editorial Contributors

Anne-Lindsay Beall

Lori Bieda

Rockwell C. Bonecutter

Keith Collins

Tony Fisher

Russell Gardner

Barry Gay

Suzanne Gordon

Dale R. Hersch

Anne Milley

Kate Morton

Stephen Nunn

Cathy Traugot

Patrick Van Deven

Ed Walker

Aiman Zeid

Design

Ashley Campbell

Circulation

Ellen Brandt

Production

Melody Fountain

Copyright 2010 SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA. All rights reserved. Limited copies may be made or internal sta use only. Credit must begiven to the publisher. Otherwise, no part o this publication may be reproduced without prior written permission o the publisher and copyrightowner. SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks o SAS Institute Inc. in the USA andother countries. indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks o their respective companies. S62016.1010


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www.sas.com/cioinsightsContents|P1

2 CIO imperativesOptimization and innovation

3 Executive summary

4 Managing the data assetHow to treat your data like the high-value business asset that it is

8 Three CIO challenges you can solve todayOvercome your biggest issues with a framework for business analytics

11 Why IT cant ignore social mediaSocial data is not an island but part of a larger consumer ecosystem

12 More government intelligence or lessBelgian public sector CIO taps into analytical creativity andmaximizes resources

16 Make the most o your analytical talentTips for establishing an analytic center of excellence

20 Good news or retail CIOsBusiness analytics technologies are more than just a trend

24 How to transition IT rom cost center to value centerData integration and language translation bring efficiencies

26 Running IT as a businessSeven steps to aligning IT with the business

29 The CIO as eco-championFive ways IT can contribute to a companys green agenda

32 Four methods or high-perormance computing

How to choose the right high-performance computing methodfor your business analytics scenario

36 Top 5 reasons why CIOs want business analyticsSAS executive explains how to bring efficiency to IT

contents

ACCESS THIS REPORT ONLINE

www.sas.com/cioinsights


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www.sas.com/cioinsightsP2|CIO imperatives: Optimization and innovation

CIO imperatives:Optimization and innovationBy Suzanne Gordon, CIO, SAS

In a struggling economy and even in

an unsettled period o recovery the

words optimization and innovation orm

the basis o nearly every executives

rallying cry around the world. The in-

tent, or rather the goal, is to inspire

employees to streamline operations,

reduce costs and increase productiv-

ity, while laying down a solid ounda-

tion or growth in advance o better

economic times.

As the CIO o SAS, I witness every day

how these themes orm the nucleus o

our IT departments strategic plan and

guide my management teams actions.

I view the role o CIO as being similar

to that o a ships head engineer, who

manages the technical operations o a

large vessel. Its a critical organizational

role; even more so in stormy waters.

With this in mind, the alignment, e-ciency and ocus o my team plays an

essential role in maintaining SAS market

leadership, by applying high standards

o service to meet internal and external

customer expectations. I expect many o

you are in the same boat.

Today, as CIOs, we must approach

optimization and innovation rom

three standpoints: people, process and

technology. In terms o people and pro-

cess, we need to ocus on things such as

eciency, agility, change management

and productivity, and every employee

should be empowered to nd ways o

improving and innovating each day.

Where technology is concerned, cost-

eectiveness, integration, consolidation,

globalization, operational insight and

virtualization will be critical to achieving

more with less and, ultimately, improving

organizational perormance.

The issues we ace today as CIOs are

truly global in nature. Collaboration

and sharing o best practices amongst

senior IT executives will provide

a ertile ground or achieving our

mutual goals o optimization andinnovation and its in this spirit that

the current CIO Insights report has

been compiled. In these pages we

address some key challenges and

opportunities or CIOs today. The

articles and case studies, gathered

rom around the world, are meant to

inorm, inspire and to motivate you as

IT leaders, in your ongoing eorts to

optimize and innovate in waters both

calm and rough.

Chie Inormation Ocer Suzanne Gordon oversees

the IT inrastructure and support services at SAS

A pastComputerWorldPremier 100 IT leader, Gordo

has held a number o IT and consulting leadership

positions in her 30-year tenure at SAS.

suzanne.gordon@sas.com


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Executive summary

Executive summary|P3

As a modern-day Renaissance leader, todays CIO inuences a more varied agenda than ever rom an organiza-

tions IT strategy to its proftability and customer service to its impact on the environment. This CIO Insights report shares

strategies or managing data, resources and innovative technologies to enable growth, proftability and agility. Explore

high-perormance computing or greater analytic perormance; learn how a business analytics architecture can help

deliver on business unit demands; read best practices or building an analytics center o excellence all while running as

a proftable and environmentally conscious IT organization. To share this report online, visitwww.sas.com/cioinsights.

Un peu limage dun leader de la Renaissance des temps modernes, le directeur dessystmes dinormation (DSI) daujourdhui voit ses responsabilits plus nombreuses etplus varies que jamais ; de la mise en uvre de la stratgie de systmes dinormationdune organisation leur rentabilit, en passant par la gestion de son service clientou encore son impact environnemental. Le prsent rapport CIO Insights (Le point surle DSI) vous propose des stratgies de gestion de donnes, ressources et nouvellestechnologies qui vous ouvriront les portes de la croissance, de la rentabilit et deladaptabilit. Dcouvrez ce que des perormances inormatiques suprieurespeuvent vous apporter en termes de perormance analytique ; apprenez tirer parti dunearchitecture danalytique de gestion pour rpondre aux besoins des divisionsoprationnelles ; consultez les meilleures pratiques pour mettre en place un vritablecentre dexcellence en matire danalytique... le tout, en poursuivant vos activitsdorganisation de technologies de linormation la ois rentable et cosensible. Pourpartager ce rapport en ligne, consultez le site www.sas.com/cioinsights.

Como lder renacentista moderno,el director general de inormacin(chie inormation ocer, CIO) de hoyinfuye en una agenda ms variadaque nunca, desde la estrategiade tecnologa de la inormacinde una organizacin hasta surentabilidad, servicio de atencinal cliente e impacto en el medioambiente. El inorme de opinionesdel CIO comparte estrategiaspara administrar datos, recursosy tecnologas innovadoras parapermitir el crecimiento, la rentabilidady agilidad. Explore una inormticade alto rendimiento para lograrun mayor rendimiento analtico;aprenda sobre cmo la arquitecturaanaltica de un negocio puede ayudara cumplir con las exigencias de lasunidades comerciales; interpretelas metodologas acertadas paraconstruir un centro analtico deexcelencia. Logre todo esto mientrasadministra una organizacin detecnologa de la inormacin rentabley con conciencia ecolgica. Paracompartir este inorme por Internet,

visite www.sas.com/cioinsights.

RsumResumen ejecutivo

Die Augaben des heutigen CIO umassen ein breiteres Spektrum als je zuvor von der IT Strategie eines Unternehmenszu seiner Protabilitt und dem Kundenservice bis hin zu seinen Auswirkungen au die Umwelt. Dieser CIO Insights-Bericht zeigt Strategien r die Verwaltung von Daten, Ressourcen und innovativen Technologien au, die Wachstum,Protabilitt und Flexibilitt untersttzen. Entdecken Sie High Perormance Computing r hhere analytische Leistung;lernen Sie, wie eine Business-Analytics-Architektur den Anorderungen von Geschtseinheiten gerecht werden kann;lesen Sie ber beste Vorgehensweisen zum Aubau eines Analytik-Kompetenzzentrums... und all das, whrend Sie alsprotable und umweltbewusste IT-Organisation ihre Geschte hren. Um diesen Bericht online zu lesen, besuchen Siewww.sas.com/cioinsights.

Zusammenassung


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www.sas.com/cioinsightsP4|Managing the data asset

Managing the data assetHow to treat your data like the high-value business asset that it is

By Tony Fisher, President and CEO o DataFlux

Data is now collected and saved rom

every conceivable source Internet

applications, ront-oce and back-oce

systems, trading networks, social media

and such complexity requires a sophis-

ticated, deliberate process or managing

this vital inormation. Ater all, data holds

the key to sales, marketing, customer

support, production and other initiatives.Without an accurate view o customers,

products, materials, locations and

assets, how can a company compete in

todays marketplace?

Organizations must approach data

management in the same ashion that

they manage any process with a

well-dened, repeatable methodology.

To accomplish this, you need a data

management liecycle methodology

to manage, monitor and maintain

data to benet every phase o the

business. DataFlux recommends this

six-phase process:

1. Dene. 4. Execute.

2. Discover. 5. Evaluate.

3. Design. 6. Control.

Lets look at each step in detail.

Defne

The Dene phase o the data manage-

ment methodology is just as important

as mapping out a journey. The deci-

sions made at this phase will guide the

collection, organization, enhancement

monitoring and retirement o your data

assets throughout the process. While

you dont need all the answers at the be-ginning, you need a solid plan on how to

proceed and what the ultimate success

indicators will be. Also, these success

indicators have to map to the business

problem identied earlier; the reason

or the project (cut costs, mitigate risks

enhance revenue, etc.) provides a crucia

guide or the Dene phase.

During the Dene phase, an organi-

zation should rst answer a series o

questions about:

People. Whos involved? And or what

purpose? This step outlines everyone

involved in the data management

process, including executive sup-

port, manager/director sponsorship

and business and IT involvement

Organizations also set up steering

committees and/or stewardship

teams to acilitate collaboration on

cross-unctional issues.


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www.sas.com/cioinsightsManaging the data asset|P5

Road map

. Where are we now?Where do we want to go? What ob-

stacles are in our way? Oten, the rst

task ater selecting the right people is

to determine a path to a successul

outcome including the denition o

a successul outcome.

Source systems. What data will we

need? Where is that data coming

rom? The road map tells the story o

where the project is intended to go.

This part o the Dene phase will in-

orm the team on the source systems

and which data will play a role in the

data management project.

Business processes. Which busi-

ness processes will be aected?

How will better data enhance the

way the organization operates? This

part o the Dene process maps the

data management strategy to exist-

ing business processes. Better data

can ultimately streamline business

processes, as less time is spent rec-onciling conusing views or managing

poor-quality data.

Business rules and data defnitions.

How do we dene customer? How

do we want to optimize procurement

and spending? This phase seems

simple enough, but it can be decep-

tively dicult. Billing might dene

customer as anyone that receives

an invoice, while customer support

may only want to know who the useris. These decisions will orm the basis

o business rules and data denitions

that will guide later phases.

Discover

Data can only be useul i you understand

where it is, what it means to your organi-

zation and how it relates to other data in

your organization. The Discover phase is

designed to do just that.

Every new application implementation,

data warehouse development, data mi-

gration or consolidation initiative should

start with data discovery. Additionally,

any time that new data sources enter

your organization, start with data discov-

ery. Data discovery has several compo-

nents to it, and each prepares you or

your data initiatives:

Data exploration. This diagnostic

phase is concerned with document-

ing the data in your organization and

the characteristics o that data. Datadiscovery arms you with inormation

about the accuracy, consistency and

reliability o your data.

Data profling and auditing. Data

proling alerts you to data that does

not match the characteristics dened

in the metadata compiled during data

exploration. But, more importantly,

data proling can also tell you i the

data meets the business rules and

denitions established in the Denephase. In addition, data proling can

help you determine the relationships

across your data sources where you

have similar data, where data is in

confict, where data is duplicated and

where data may be dormant.

Data cataloging and business

vocabulary. You need a development

environment where data sources

can be combined and rationalized

A place where you can group data

sources into projects to allow you to

work across your data sources and

develop a consistent environment o

managing your data. Data catalog-

ing lays the groundwork or all data

management tasks to ollow. Data

catalogs must be augmented with

business denitions and vocabular-

ies, allowing the business user to

comortably navigate the landscape.

Design

Ater completing the rst two steps o

the data management methodology, you

will be able map your strategy, identiy

sources, understand the underlying or-

mats and structures, as well as assess

the relationships and uses o data. Now

you ace another challenge taking all o

these dierent structures, ormats, data

sources and data eeds, and creating

an environment that accommodates the

needs o your business.

Data can only be useul i youunderstand where it is, what

it means to your organization

and how it relates to otherdata in your organization.


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www.sas.com/cioinsightsP6|Managing the data asset

The Design phase requires consolidation

and coordination, all the while concen-

trating on three major imperatives:

1. Consistency o rules. Ultimately, anorganization needs one set o busi-

ness rules that can be stored centrally

but deployed across all data sources,

applications and lines o business.

2. Consistency o the data model. The

data model is the single, denitive

source or how your data maps to

your business. Through the process

o creating a well-structured data

model, you identiy the appropriate

source systems and begin to reconcilemultiple views, i required.

3. Consistency o business pro-

cesses. During the Dene and

Discover phases, you will identiy pro-

cesses that are potentially aected.

Now, the task is to provide consis-

tency across these processes. When

creating business rules, you have to

know how to reconcile questions like

Is this a new customer or an existing

customer? or Is this a customer ingood standing? By understanding

the processes that are aected, you

can design more eective rules to

automate business processes.

Execute

Now that the business users have es-

tablished how the data and rules should

be dened, it is up to the IT sta to en-

sure that databases and applicationsadhere to the denitions. There are

many types o architectures involved

in this phase: enabling ERP and CRM

applications via proprietary interaces,

enabling data marts and data ware-

houses via extraction, transormation

and loading (ETL) fows, enabling MDM

systems via service-oriented architec-

ture (SOA)/ETL or other technologies.

The method and management o en-

abling the data in any o these environ-ments is a decision that IT has to make in

order to ensure the integrity and integra-

tion into the various systems.

One potential pitall in the Execute phase

is to duplicate the rules and standards

rom the Design phase or each applica-

tion or data source. When duplicating the

rules and denitions across siloed, unre-

lated systems, multiple, point-to-point

interaces are inadvertently created.

These rules denitions must then beupdated, separately, each time a rule or

business initiative changes.

Naturally, this approach is highly imprac

tical or the IT team to manage. A better

solution is to build the denitions once

and ensure that you have the ability to

collectively apply those denitions across

your organization. As one IT director put

it: We want to build our standards and

rules once and then have the ability to

use them repeatedly and propagate to

the entire organization seamlessly.

For each data source, each business

process and each application that is

modied to the new data denitions

you need to:

Understandtherequirements. Validate that the new integration

meets the requirements.

Deploytheinterfaceintoproduction.

By repeating this process during

the execution phase, you can create

the data management rules to guide

the collection and organization o data

test its integrity, and move to the next

phase o the process.


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www.sas.com/cioinsightsManaging the data asset|P7

Tony Fisher is President and CEO o DataFlux, a

wholly owned subsidiary o SAS, which enables

companies to analyze, improve and control their

data through an integrated technology platorm. He

has guided DataFlux through tremendous growth as

it became a market-leading provider o data quality

and data integration solutions.

Evaluate

A healthy data lie cycle requires a robust

monitoring and reporting system. The

data needs to be consistently monitored

so it remains t-or-purpose or your

organization. Why is this so critically

important? Ater all, you just spent lots o

time, energy and resources to get your

systems to a point where the business

users have a consistent and validated

view o your organization. Isnt it time to

just enjoy the success o all this eort?

Actually, the opposite is true. Very ew

organizations are static they are orever

growing and evolving. For example, you

add new partners that bring new data tothe table. Your business changes, sales

regions are created or modied, you take

on new initiatives and you develop new

products. All o these changes must be

refected in your data, which makes the

Evaluate phase so important.

Your mantra or success at this point

needs to be: 1. Monitor; 2. Review; and

3. Optimize. Data should be monitored

and validated as it enters your organi-

zation to veriy it is meeting your rules.Those rules need to be constantly moni-

tored to ensure they are still meeting the

needs o your business. Eorts in dis-

covery, design and execution will allow

you to consolidate the rules and require-

ments into a single environment. With

the ability to centralize the required data

management rules, the changes can be

immediately propagated across the or-

ganization, without duplication o eort.

Monitoring is a joint activity between

IT and business users. IT monitors and

validates that systems are running within

their required service-level needs. Busi-

ness users also benet rom the moni-toring reports constantly reviewing the

reports and validating that business

needs are being met while making chang-

es when the business needs change.

Control

One thing is certain in todays inormation

age: A wide variety o data will continue

to quickly pour into your organization.

It is easy to see why data is a key asset.

However, it is also important to recog-

nize when data needs to be retired. TheControl phase is about reassessing data.

I data is no longer useul to your organi-

zation, you must be able to retire the data

appropriately. This allows you to ree

up resources that are being expended

maintaining the data environment.

For example, lets look at a common data

problem acing nancial services rms.

When mergers, acquisitions and divesti-

tures occur, you need the ability to purge

or re-categorize data. You dont want to

spend resources managing the data o a

company that no longer exists.

Lastly, it is important to promote yousuccesses across your organization

When you began your lie cycle, you

were solving a business problem. By the

time you have reached this phase in the

lie cycle, you should have improved you

business. Communicate and evangelize

these messages to help everyone rom

senior management on down recognize

that the eorts were successul and the

business is improved. This demonstrates

the business benets o a sound data

management methodology across theorganization, and it paves the way o

support o uture initiatives.

Very ew organizations are static. You addnew partners that bring new data to the table.

Your business changes. Sales regions arecreated or modied. You take on new initiativesand develop new products. All o these changesmust be refected in your data.

ONLINE

One solution for data quality, data integration

and MDM:

www.sas.com/cio-datafux

Data integration 101 webinar:

www.sas.com/cio-dicast


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Three CIO challengesyou can solve todayOvercome your biggest issues with a ramework or business analytics

CIOs and IT managers are under tre-

mendous pressure to choose the right

products, services and technologies that

can transorm data into a competitive

advantage enabling strategic deci-

sions that optimize perormance. Theywant to enhance operations and achieve

success by increasing data consistency,

streamlining administration and provid-

ing easy-to-use reporting tools backed

by powerul analytics. To empower the

organization now and meet uture needs

in a timely ashion, CIOs and IT manag-

ers should address these three issues.

Issue 1: Support sustainable

growth while managing risk throughthe innovative use o technology

and inormation

Change in business is inevitable

especially with the collapse and bail-

out o global banking systems and the

sudden instability o stock markets.

These circumstances and more have

created a radically dierent context or

economic growth. While the dust set-

tles, governance, risk and compliance

will play major roles in transorming

organizations to reduce the possibility

o urther collapses. Technology and

process strategies will ocus on rebuild-

ing sustainable growth levels but withinthe constructs o increased regulations

perormance and risk management

coordination, and evolving expecta-

tions o corporate responsibility.

Organizations are continually searching

or innovative ways to improve peror-

mance, achieve greater top-line growth

and maintain a competitive edge

To do so requires decision makers be-

ing able to assess the impact o market

dynamics more quickly, explore dier-

ent options, learn rom experimentation

and validate best approaches. SAS

can help IT organizations by providing

a fexible environment that allows the

organization to change or evolve as the

need arises, while enabling centralized

control and management o data and

inormation processes.

P8|Three CIO challenges you can solve today


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www.sas.com/cioinsightsThree CIO challenges you can solve today|P9

Issue 2: Provide an inrastructureto manage the growing appetite

or intelligence

More data, more users. These are the

two primary demands acing most ITorganizations. And unortunately, many

CIOs admit they have the sense that

managing the fow o inormation into

and throughout the business is not be-

ing done eectively. By integrating your

organizations technology components

(whether its an ERP system, call center

data, point-o-sale systems, etc.) within

your IT inrastructure, SAS can help

you create a single environment that

overcomes departmental inormation

silos and diverse computing platormsto deliver integrated intelligence that can

make a dierence to your organization.

SAS provides an integrated suite o sot-

ware that leverages domain expertise,

best practices and state-o-the-art busi-

ness analytics that enable your organiza-

tion not only to understand the past and

monitor the present, but optimize oppor-

tunities or the uture.

Issue 3:Derive more valuerom existing technology and

inormation assets

Make the most o what you have, and

do more with less. Particularly in thistime o economic strie, this is a mantra

everyone hears. IT departments are no

dierent. Organizations expect IT to de-

liver more value while staying at or under

budget. At the same time, IT must miti-

gate the risks associated with managing

inormation and security o the systems.

This can be a dicult challenge when

every department and business unit is

collecting, managing and analyzing data

in silos with a heavy dependence on

spreadsheets or analysis.

Decision makers demand ast answers,

and it is the job o IT to make sure inor-

mation is accessible at the right level o

detail when it is needed. To make the

most o what you have, you must ag-

gregate and cleanse your data, and

ensure security processes are in place.

You need a data integration environment

that is easily managed. You need the

Decision makers demandast answers, and it is the jobo IT to make sure inormationis accessible at the right levelo detail when it is needed.


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www.sas.com/cioinsightsP10|Three CIO challenges you can solve today

Business analytics drives savings and revenues or1-800-FLOWERS.COM

Steve Bozzo, the CIO at 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, uses SAS to provide a

360-degree view o more than 30 million customers and help 15 business

units derive the inormation they need to grow revenues and reduce costs.

1-800-FLOWERS.COM has grown its amily o git brands to more

than 14 through a combination o internal development and strategic

acquisitions in the past nine years. This presents Chie Inorma-

tion Ocer Steve Bozzo with a monumental task: aggregate

inormation across multiple platorms to provide a 360-degree view o more

than 30 million customers, help 15 separate business units derive

the inormation they need to grow revenues and reduce operatingcosts and do it all on a tight budget. SAS solutions cut the task

down to size, helping the CIO o the largest forist and git shop

in the world meet his objectives.

There has never been a SAS solution weve added

that hasnt resulted in double-digit ROI, says Bozzo.

I would tell other CIOs that are thinking about

buying SAS: Youre going to be pleasantly

surprised. And that doesnt happen

oten or CIOs.

ONLINE

White paper: Business Analytics for the CIO:

www.sas.com/cio-paper

White paper: Architecture for Business Analytics:

www.sas.com/cio-bapaper

Reporting. Role-based interaces en-

able dierent types o users to surace

and visualize meaningul intelligence

rom consistent, companywide data.

Using the platorm or SAS Business

Analytics as a oundation, SAS oers

targeted business solutions that supportkey areas o your business, such as cus-

tomers, nance, risk and supply chain

plus turnkey solutions or various vertical

markets, including nancial services, lie

sciences, health care, insurance, retail,

ability to apply analytics to gain predic-

tive insights and push appropriate inor-

mation to decision makers so they can

make the most o it, whether they want

to drill down and ask urther questions or

have presentation-quality results at their

ngertips. By improving data quality and

security processes, integrating inorma-tion with business processes and provid-

ing data that is easily understood at the

right level o detail, SAS helps IT execu-

tives cost-eectively achieve a strategic

ramework or business analytics.

Data integration, analytics

and reporting

The platorm or SAS Business Analytics

provides the oundation needed to solve

your top issues. It integrates individualtechnology components within your

existing IT inrastructure into a single,

unied system. The result is an inor-

mation fow that crosses organizational

boundaries and delivers new insights

that drive value. SAS Business Analyt-

ics extends the value o your existing

systems, while setting the stage or new

levels o intelligence. It includes the ol-

lowing components:

Data integration. SAS oers prebuilt,

high-perormance capabilities ordata connectivity, data quality, ETL

(extract, transorm and load), data

migration, data synchronization and

data ederation.

Analytics. SAS provides an inte-

grated environment or predictive and

descriptive modeling, orecasting,

optimization, simulation, experimen-

tal design and more.

manuacturing and more. These solu-

tions incorporate our domain expertise

as well as data structures and analytic

models tuned to specic business and

industry needs.


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www.sas.com/cioinsightsWhy IT cant ignore social media|P11

Why IT cant ignore social mediaSocial data is not an island but part o a larger consumer ecosystem

By Lori C. Bieda, Marketing Executive, SAS Canada

The mention o new data sources cap-

tures the ear o IT executives. And it

should, as IT inherits the implications o

new data rom nding a home in the

corporate IT structure or the data, toputting in place the appropriate policies

to manage it.

Consider social data, surpassing

1.2 zettabytes in size and sourced

rom millions o online sites, blogs

and tweets with applications ranging

rom marketing and public relations to

customer service, market research and

human resources. With 90 percent o

executives saying social media will have

a potential impact on their corporatebrand, organizations are siting through

the opportunities or this new medium,

according to a recent study rom SAS

Canada and Leger Marketing. Why then

are less than 7 percent o IT proession-

als engaged?

New to the medium and daunted by

the sheer volume o data, most organi-

zations have outsourced the collection

and management o social inormation

to analytics and sotware rms. Lead-

ers whove either been appointed

heads o social media (typically digital

marketers and PR proessionals), or

those whove stepped orward vol-

untarily to claim that unclaimed land,

are working with vendors to pull social

ragments and sentiment into busi-

ness taxonomies, and striving to make

sense o the chatter.

Yet, data begets data. The more o it that

gets analyzed, the more opportunity the

marketer will see and the greater the ten-

dency to combine data sources to create

a uller picture o the business. Call cen-ter records, corporate e-mail, customer

satisaction data all rich data sources

are likely siblings to social data.

For example, when the inamous

YouTube video showing a Bic pen

opening a Kryptonite Lock reached

critical mass online, I bet a food o con-

cerns came pouring in to Kryptonite call

centers and sites. Consumers know no

corporate boundaries. Like water run-

ning through all available cracks, theypenetrate the organization on multiple

ronts, their pathways oten only evident

in post-analysis. A uller picture in real

time allows us to properly sta call cen-

ters or escalating issues, adjust Web and

call scripts to eld inquiries, and respond

to growing issues beore they swell to un-

manageable proportions and risk brand

damage or customer satisaction.

Beore companies launch their socia

media strategies and IT inherits the

implications, its best i IT leaders inser

themselves into the discussion. Socia

data, while indeed a new data source, isno island. Used strategically, it is an es-

sential part o a consumer ecosystem

Ater the preliminary listening is done

marketers will graduate to more sophis-

ticated needs and demand connectiv-

ity to rich internal data sources. Theyl

expect there to be bridges traversing

the islands, and IT will be essential o

tapping into internal sources and ensur-

ing accurate, timely inormation fow to

marketers desktops.

Itd be a shame, or a medium whose

very power is dened by speed, to not

build the underlying inrastructure in

a way that enables superior precision

and a speed to market that makes

competitors wince.

Lori Bieda is a marketing executive with 19 years o

experience helping companies leverage analytics and

client insights to drive protable business decisions.

Formerly Vice President o Client Insights and Database

Marketing at a major bank, Bieda is now a SAS con-

sultant helping organizations across Canada, US, Latin

America and the Caribbean improve their analytics and

marketing eectiveness.

ONLINE

SAS Social Media Analytics demo:

www.sas.com/cio-smademo

Survey says 90 percent of Canadian

organizations use social media:

www.sas.com/cio-smasurvey


14/40


More government intelligence or lessBelgian public sector CIO taps into analytical creativity and maximizes resources

Frank De Saer, CIO at Belgiums Federal

Public Service Economy, which includes

the very important National Institute o

Statistics (NIS), recognizes that an e-

ective inormation delivery strategy is

driven by business needs. His challenge,

as he sees it, is to increase the quality

o government inormation and services

while driving down its cost.

Achieving this objective means ocus-

ing on three distinct requirements: datastandardization, more ocused use o IT

human resources; and, most importantly,

putting inormation and analytics in the

hands o the users.

The need or standardization exists or

a number o reasons that have evolved

over the years: the need to access data

rom various sources, the end users

need or ocused expert support with-

out buck-passing, the economic ben-

ets such as reduced maintenance eesand the desire to ensure that analytical

reporting is based on one version o

the truth.

Nowhere is it more important to ensure

that analytics is based on a consistent

and accurate pool o inormation than

in the area o economic statistics, which

serves as a basis or planning at macro-

P12|More government intelligence or less

The integrated SASsolution was technicallysuperior and promised

to be more stable,guaranteeing integrated

security and metadatain both the short and

the long run.

Frank De Saer,CIO, Belgiums Federal

Public Service Economy

and microeconomic levels. Our core

business is delivering high-quality, reliable

inormation to our customers: govern-

ment ministers, civil servants, enterprises

and private citizens, says De Saer.

Public Service Economy is composed o

167 business units and services cover-

ing areas as diverse as the Belgian En-

terprise Register, the calculation o ue

prices and intellectual property. These

units require 24/7 access to businessintelligence. Thats what De Saers team

provides, but he goes even urther: He

sees the contemporary CIOs challenge

as increasing the quality o governmen

inormation and services while driving

down its cost.

Fewer employees, alling budgets

I you could travel back in time 15 years

and see how things worked at the NIS

then, you would appreciate the pace

o change. Back then, all data had tobe manually input into the fat les on

the mainrame, and statistics were then

laboriously compiled and published in

hard copy. On the other hand, the NIS

had enough human resources to cope

with the task. Since then, headcount has

been reduced steadily. For every three

employees who retire, De Saer can re-

cruit only one.


15/40

www.sas.com/cioinsightsMore government intelligence or less|P13

Budgets have likewise come under pres-

sure. We ace a situation that is amiliar

to many CIOs in both the public and

private sectors, says De Saer. Most

o our annual budget is spent on xed

operational costs (OPEX). That means

unds or new projects are diminishing

every year i we do not succeed in reduc-

ing our OPEX.

Empowering employees

and customersAt the same time, the demands o end

users at the NIS have changed dramati-

cally. To keep up with expectations,

we need to stay ahead o the curve,

says De Saer.

Printed stats are no longer acceptable.

Users want inormation that is delivered

t or purpose and ready to use.

I eel we are at the oreront o a revolu-

tion in the way IT unctions in the publicsector, says De Saer. Essentially, the

new way o working is to help employees

and customers to help themselves.

Each government department, institu-

tion, company and individual now wants

to use inormation in their own particular

way. They want to apply their own lters,

and they want to be able to download

digital les with data that can be eas-

ily extracted and loaded into their own

systems. They want the data in a wide

variety o ormats such as Excel, XML,

XBLR, HTML and Open Oce. But they

also want the inormation to be stamped

with the ocial seal o ederal govern-

ment approval.

For example, the NIS publishes inorma-

tion about business start-ups and bank-

ruptcies in Belgium. An end user can goin and drill down and lter on the data,

or example, to nd out detailed inorma-

tion about start-ups and bankruptcies

by locality in a particular sector such

as hotels, restaurants and catering. He

can then order the delivery o the same

report on a monthly basis, in the ormat

o his choice.

We are delivering inormation that en-

ables the ederal and regional govern-

ments to understand, regulate and boostthe countrys economic perormance,

says De Saer.

For the most part, the inormation is

provided reely on a sel-serve basis.

External customers include large direct

marketing companies, but more typi-

cally they are people working in regional

I eel we are at the

oreront o a revolutionin the way IT unctionsin the public sector.

Frank De Saer, CIO, BelgiumsFederal Public Service Economy


16/40

www.sas.com/cioinsightsP14|More government intelligence or less

branches o government who need inor-

mation to support policy decision mak-

ing, and managers in companies who

need to make investment decisions or

support business strategy. The problem

is that the inormation resides on various

IT systems, and packaging it in meaning-ul ways is not always straightorward.

Its many times easier and quicker than

in the days when we relied on manual

eort, but the more users see the pos-

sibilities, the more sophisticated their

demands, De Saer says.

Rationalize and standardize

De Saer believes that to deliver maxi-

mum value, an Inormation and Commu-

nications Technology department must

ocus on its core business o deliveringinormation. It must also rationalize and

standardize. He has reorganized the ICT

department at the Federal Public Service

Economy around three competence

centers, each using standard sotware:

Java or business-critical development,

Microsot SharePoint or oce and

document management, and SAS or

business intelligence. We oered our

users an inormed choice on business

intelligence. Once they had made their

choice, we standardized. SAS is the only

BI sotware we used.

The NIS now has a growing body o

power users who not only extract data

but combine data rom dierent sources,

slice and dice it according to their lo-

cal needs and oten enrich it with their

own in-house data. We also decided

to standardize on just one tool or these

SAS more stableand secure

According to De Saer, the NIS attached

great importance to controlling and mini-

mizing operational and technical riskswhen choosing and deploying a platorm.

SAS was the only supplier to oer a com-

pletely end-to-end integrated system, he

emphasizes, including OLAP unctional-

ity, comprehensive reporting capabilities,

ETL, data integration and Web solutions.

Other suppliers oered a collection o

tools rom dierent vendors, requiring ad-

ditional interacing eorts. The integrated

SAS solution was technically superior and

promised to be more stable, guaranteeing

integrated security and metadata in boththe short and the long run.

power users, says De Saer. That way

we could ensure quality o support rom

our BI Competence Centre. The tool they

selected was SAS Enterprise Guide, a

graphical interace that exploits the pow

er o SAS and enables users to publish

dynamic results in a Microsot Windowsclient application.

Originally we oered less sophisticated

options. But SAS Enterprise Guide has

really unlocked the creativity o ou

internal customers and is now the pre-

erred choice or business analysts and

statisticians alike.

From civil servant to public

services counsel

De Saer believes business intelligenceand analytics are critically important

to any organization that is trying to do

more or less. With online business

intelligence, you can outsource a lot o

IT unctions in much the same way that

banks outsourced transaction process-

ing by outsourcing it to their customers

So long as they have the right analytic

sotware, our employees and customers

can do more useul and creative things

with inormation than my colleagues in

ICT, or the simple reason that they know

their own requirements best.

Unleashing their creativity has helped

transorm the employees at Public

Service Economy rom the traditiona

image o civil servants into proessiona

advisors on all aspects o public services

and government.


17/40

www.sas.com/cioinsightsMore government intelligence or less|P15

ONLINE

Global government transformations:

www.sas.com/cio-transorm

More SAS customers in the public sector:

www.sas.com/ps-cust

Statistics ofces around the world

More than 75 dierent countries use SAS in their

statistics oces or programs that range rom census

analysis and government reporting to nancial plan-

ning and resource planning. Continue reading to learnabout some o them.

The Australian Bureau o Statistics uses SAS to

ensure the integrity o data and statistical outputs

across many divisions. John Preston, an Assistant

Director in the Methodology Division says, Many

o our collections have thousands o units a unit

being an individual or business and with such a

high number o records, SAS makes our tasks more

ecient, especially as many o the procedures we require are already pre-programmed into SAS.

Read more:www.sas.com/cio-abs.

Statistisches Bundesamt, the German Federal Statistics Oce replaced older, non-portable mainrame programs with SAS products, including customized applications.

The SAS solutions covered both our basic types o work short-term ad hoc analyses as well

as periodic evaluation processes better than all other products available on the market.

Read more:www.sas.com/cio-statisticsche.

Statistics Denmark uses SAS to collect and analyze census data without knocking on

doors or asking any questions. Instead o a traditional household-based census, Denmarks

tallies are completely register-based. We run SAS on all o our systems and it plays a vital

role in our processes, says Lars Thygesen, Director or User Services at Statistics Denmark.

Read more:www.sas.com/cio-statisticsde.

The US Census Bureau uses SAS to create person-level and household-level les or each US

state and to merge records so analysts can look at components o a household. Next, analysts

merge that data with geographical inormation so they can analyze by geographical hierarchy.

Read more: www.sas.com/cio-uscensus.

De Saer believes there is still some

distance to travel on this mission. The

new philosophy is that government intel-

ligence belongs to the public. Our uture

challenge is to do even more to unlock

that asset through open services that

acilitate collaboration between govern-ment, citizen and enterprises.

Our philosophy is also to oer ull

transparency and multichannel ac-

cess, putting the customer in control.

This approach accelerates innovation

while reducing the burden on IT a win

or everyone!


18/40

www.sas.com/cioinsightsP16|Make the most o your analytical talent

Make the most o youranalytical talentTips or establishing an analytic center o excellence

By Anne Milley, Senior Director o Analytic Strategy, SAS with Aiman Zeid, Senior Business Consultant at SA

What is an analytic center

o excellence?

An analytic center o excellence is

an internal organization that specically

ocuses on promoting the use o analytics

within an organization to achieve business

objectives. It is a central point or:

Developingandevolvingtheanalytic

inrastructure.

Promotingcollaborationandanalytic

best practices.

Drivinggrowth,costreductions

and protability.

The center is ultimately a means to sup-

port strategy and operations through

objective analysis. This organization

or team o experts, must include repre-

sentatives with business knowledge as

well as analytical expertise. The team is

permanent with well-dened roles and

responsibilities; it is not a temporary

group that gets called on an ad hoc basis

to address a specic request requiring

analytical resources. An initial, tempo-

rary structure may be used as the rst

phase to justiy moving to a permanent

CoE team. The temporary structure may

include virtual teams, outsourced services

or other arrangements based on the spe-

cic requirements o each organization.

As the use o analytics in many sectors

o the economy increases, business

leaders are developing a greater ap-

preciation or the value and power o

analyzing data and making better deci-

sions. Likewise, the advances in many

types o analytical technologies have

encouraged organizations to make more

and better act-based decisions, validate

assumptions and identiy root causes o

business problems.

However, a large percentage o organi-

zations are still struggling with several

aspects o using analytics, including how

and where to start, how to take the next

step and how to change their internal

culture so that analytics becomes inte-

gral to the decisions that matter most.

Analytic centers o excellence (CoEs) can

help organizations deal with these chal-

lenges. Regardless o how much or howlittle analytic competency an organiza-

tion may have, analytic centers o excel-

lence provide a means to derive more

value through greater insight and better

decisions. Lets explore the structure and

role o analytic CoEs, and the various

organizational aspects that need to be

considered to eectively deploy analytics

in an organization.


19/40

www.sas.com/cioinsightsMake the most o your analytical talent|P17

It is important to point out that there are

many types o CoEs (also called com-

petency centers or centers o expertise),

depending on the ocus and scope.

Some o the ocus areas or these

teams include:

Enterprise information manage-ment, which covers all aspects o

inormation management across

the organization.

Dataintegration.

Information delivery (reporting and

perormance management).

Analytics.

Specic technologies,suchasSAS

centers o excellence or ERP types

o CoEs.

Specicbusinessfunctions,suchas

customer insight or nance CoEs.

Analytic center o excellence tasks

A well-implemented analytic CoE should

be a permanent, ormal organizational

structure (team) with support and spon-

sorship rom executive-level managers.

It should be owned and staed by the

organization and include representation

rom business, analytical experts and IT

with well-dened ocus or roles, respon-

sibilities and processes.

Collaboration with all appropriate stake-holders is essential especially the IT

and enterprise data warehouse (EDW)

teams to infuence the structure o the

current EDW environment in support o

analytics and analytic best practices.

The team should be committed to pro-

viding and managing robust analytical

development environments, including

data marts, and to providing and man-

aging processes to push results and

decision-making logic to production/operational environments.

It is important to structure the data and

processes to acilitate the application

o analytics, provide the appropriate

level o governance (or repeatability,

auditability, knowledge management,

etc.) and enable closed-loop learning or

continuous improvement.

Build your A-team

In data there is opportunity. However, a

gap is growing between our vast data

stores and the useul insights we can de-

rive rom them. A generation ago we got

the most out o what little data we had,

comparatively speaking. Today were not

always getting as much as we can rom

our data. Succeeding with analytics is

both a technical and organizational chal-

lenge. Whats missing more oten than not

is the person with the right combinationo skills who can translate data into intel-

ligent and timely decisions.

The Institute or Advanced Analytics at

North Carolina State University was cre-

ated in 2007 with a ocused mission to

educate a new kind o analytics-savvy

proessional. We listened closely to em-

ployers and then custom-built an entirely

new learning experience to address their

needs. The result is the Master o Sci-

ence in analytics (MSA), an innovative

10-month proessional degree that com-bines technical knowledge o quantita-

tive methods with teamwork and com-

munication skills, as well as hands-on

experience using industry-leading tools

with real data rom sponsoring compa-

nies. The MSA curriculum gives students

the contextual understanding they need

to apply analytics to real-world busi-

ness problems.

By Michael Rappa, Director, Institute

or Advanced Analytics

Learn more:analytics.ncsu.edu
http://analytics.ncsu.edu/http://analytics.ncsu.edu/


20/40


The analytic CoE team should be

responsible or the ollowing: Supportingandpromotingthe

eective use o analytics within

the organization.

Developing andpromotinganalytical

best practices to acilitate the identi-

cation o analytical requirements (in-

cluding new data sources and metrics

to measure their eorts/contributions).

Applyinganalyticstobusinessprob-

lems, and more importantly, interpret-

ing and distributing results.

Educatingtheorganizationonthe

importance o data quality.

Fostering greater analytic compe-

tency to support and guide more

act-based and timely decisions in

the pursuit o achieving organizational

priorities and objectives.

Using available analytical skills and

resources to optimize their con-

tributions to high-priority projects

and problems.

Graduallychangingthecultureofthe

organization to always apply critical

thinking and to demand the valida-

tion o business assumptions and

strategies. This includes ostering a

learning culture one that encour-

ages experimentation and provides

permission to ail.

Continuouslydevelopinganalytical talent.

Currently, a large percentage o analytic

centers o excellence can be describedas specialized, shared-service organiza-

tions. These organizations receive re-

quests rom the business community to

apply analytics to solve problems. There

is no question that these types o struc-

tures provide value to the organization

but they may not be able to change the

internal culture without having a much

closer connection and integration with

the various business units where better

decisions could be enabled.

When used in an ad hoc way and without

the right level o executive sponsorship

these shared-service organizations are

limited in their ability to have more lasting

eects on the way decisions are made

and the quality o those decisions.

Making your analytic center o

excellence strategic and eective

The best implementations o analytic

CoEs have these traits:

Apartnershipwithbusiness

stakeholders or ongoing success.

High-levelexecutivesponsorship.

Sufcientprominenceinthe

organizational hierarchy to have

visibility and impact.

Areputationforprovenresults,excel-

lent work ethic and ability to deploy

results that aect decision making.

Such strategic implementations will havethe highest chance o promoting wide-

spread, analytically driven decisions and

suracing new opportunities.

P18|Make the most o your analytical talent

Four dimensions o youranalytic inrastructure

The application and eective use o

analytics requires more than just tech-

nology. In practice, technology is the

easy part. The other challenging com-

ponents are related to many aspects o

the organization itsel. To achieve the

greatest degree o success with analyt-

ics, organizations have to consider the

ollowing our critical components or

dimensions o what ultimately compris-

es the analytics inrastructure:

Humancapitalandskills.

Internalinformationandknowledge processes.

Technologyinfrastructure.

Organizationalculture.


21/40


ONLINE

Analytic centers of excellence webcast:

www.sas.com/cio-coecast

Analytic centers of excellence white paper:

www.sas.com/cio-coepaper

All CoEs share many common compo-

nents and characteristics: Sponsorshipandgovernance.

Analyticsprogrammanagement.

Datastewardship.

Internalprocesses.

Technologyavailability.

Datamanagement.

Informationdelivery.

Infrastructuremanagement.

This is a comprehensive list o all possible

areas that may need to be addressed to

ensure proper and eective implementa-

tion o an analytic center o excellence.

It is important to point out that not all o

these unctions will be managed by the

analytic CoE team. The point is to ensure

that these topics are considered so they

can be addressed. An assessment will

evaluate how these areas are unctioning,

and how to best use existing resourcesto enable the analytic experts to ocus

primarily on solving business problems

rather than other data management and

quality challenges.

Approaches or establishing

an analytic CoE

The objective o analytic centers o

excellence is ocused on maximiz-

ing the organizational benet rom the

investment in data and analytics. Analytic

centers o excellence, and any othertype o centers o excellence, are not

one-size-ts-all. The ollowing key areas

must be considered as organizations

think about this valuable concept and

about the approach to establishing an

analytic CoE or their own environment:

Degree o centralization versus

decentralization. Many organization-al aspects need to be considered to

determine the right approach. Some

o these actors include the size o the

organization, level o reach (global vs.

local), the structure o the business

units and technical and IT resources,

the existing culture and level o col-

laboration between groups, the distri-

bution o analytical resources, etc.

Executive support. The support

rom an executive level is essential

or empowering the analytic CoE to

produce accurate, repeatable and

timely results rom applying analyt-

ics. Collaboration and discussion

between groups are necessary in

many cases to collect the require-

ments and data to apply analyt-

ics and, more importantly, to use

the results in the decision-making

process. Many successul applica-

tions o analytics are promoted by

the support o an executive in abusiness unit that has a clear vision

and need to use analytics. Other im-

plementations can have a broader

scope to cover multiple business

units or even the entire enterprise.

The common requirement is to have

high-level management support.

Anne Milley works closely with Product Marketing,

Product Management and R&D to drive SAS analytic

marketing strategy and direction. She began working with

SAS sotware while nishing her thesis on bank ailure

prediction at the Federal Home Loan Bank o Dallas. She

continued her use o SAS at 7-Eleven Inc. as a senior busi-

ness consultant. Milley has a Master o Arts in economics

rom Florida Atlantic University, did post-graduate work at

Rheinisch-Westlische Technische Hochschule Aachen and

is procient in German.

Make the most o your analytical talent|P19

Analytical skills. The availability o

analytical resources, skill levels andresponsibilities are other critical ac-

tors. These analytical resources

clearly are needed to move orward

However, there are options or orga-

nizations to explore i these resources

are not available, i they are too ew o

i additional training is needed. Some

o these options include outsourcing

some or all the analytical work initially

or working with SAS and other part-

ners in a collaborative way to provide

the initial resources while acquiringnew resources or training existing

sta members.


22/40

www.sas.com/cioinsightsP20|Good news or retail CIOs

Good news or retail CIOsBusiness analytics technologies are more than just a trend

The last ew years have been hard o

retailers. Sales are down and margins

are tight. Consumers are saving, not

spending and their expectations are

changing. Theyre increasingly mobile

and increasingly social online, so i you

dont have the size, style or level o cus-

tomer service they expect, their entire

social circle may hear about it in writing

But there is good news or retail CIOsIn an industry where technology has

traditionally taken a back seat to ash-

ions and trends, theres a newound

interest in solving retailers most data-

intense problems including purchas-

ing, merchandising, markdowns and

customer relationships with business

analytics technologies.

Read on to hear how three CIOs at

well-known retail brands are using

SAS to solve business problems and

improve automation, collaboration and

inormation visibility.


23/40

www.sas.com/cioinsightsGood news or retail CIOs|P21

Accelerate ast ashion with SAS

How can you ensure the right assort-

ment o merchandise in the ideal mix

o sizes at each store on a consistent

basis? Ask The Wet Seal. This ast-ash-

ion retailer o contemporary apparel and

accessory items uses SAS Size Proling

to transorm historical sales data into ac-

curate projections o uture demand by

size. Integrated with existing merchan-

dising systems, it applies this intelligenceto purchasing and allocation workfows.

The result is optimal, store-specic size

proles that match local demand.

According to Jon Kubo, Vice Presi-

dent and CIO at The Wet Seal, the

implementation had a tight deadline, but

was delivered on time and on budget.

SAS industry-experienced consultants

delivered the solution in phases and

were able to provide early improvements

in size proling calculations.

Because Wet Seal is a ast-ashion re-

tailer, 85 percent o its products are not

replenished. Size proling is important

to us not only or buying the right size

breaks, says Kubo, but also because

we only get to buy a product once, with

the objective o selling through it quickly.

On the allocation side, we have to know

what the correct sizes need to be per

store. The Wet Seal is moving toward a

localized, customer-centric approach to

pricing, assortment and size at the local

store level. Size proling is our rst step

in doing that, says Kubo. In our market,

this is where we will create growth and

gain an advantage.

According to Kubo, a key insight deliv-

ered by the SAS Size Proling solutionis the ability to calculate lost sales at

both the chain and store-specic levels.

I a store didnt sell a particular product

because it wasnt in stock, the SAS so-

lution can eciently help The Wet Seal

look at similar stores in a cluster and im-

ply why the store might have made the

same sale.

The implementation had a tight dead-

line, but was delivered on time and

on budget, says Kubo. SAS industry-

experienced consultants delivered

the solution in phases and were able

to provide early improvements in size

proling calculations.

Traditional business intelligence in retail

has reached a plateau o useulness,

Kubo says. We look or specialized ana-

lytical applications that oer automated

analytical capabilities, reducing the need

or more human resources. SAS Size

Proling is a good example o this. While

most retailers rely on manual processes

we look or technologies that augment

our limited resources and help raise intel-

ligence about our operations and make

decisions on a more automated, ecien

and statistical basis.

Go global with SAS

Steano Gaggion is the Senior Vice

President and Chie Inormation Oce

at Brooks Brothers, the oldest cloth-

ing retailer in the US. Since introducing

SAS, the companys inventory is bette

managed, store managers have more

accurate inormation, and personalized

marketing campaigns are executed at a

lower cost.

SAS is a solid and fexible technology

that is really a true enabler, says Gag-

gion. Our business could double o

triple in the next ve years, and we wil

have no technical limitations with SAS.

In recent years, the company has

taken its unmatched reputation o

tradition, value and high quality overseas

opening stores in places like Shanghai

Toronto and Hong Kong. The challenge

Traditional business intelligence in retailhas reached a plateau o useulness. Welook or specialized analytical applications

that oer automated analytical capabilities,reducing the need or more human resources.SAS Size Proling is a good example o this.

Jon Kubo, Vice President and CIO at The Wet Seal


24/40

www.sas.com/cioinsightsP22|Good news or retail CIOs

or executives is to replicate the BrooksBrothers reputation or excellent quality

while juggling the demands o a global

supply chain and retail operations spread

over our continents.

The answer is to empower store manag-

ers and vendors to better manage the

business. Store managers receive key

reports, provided through SAS, to help

them nd opportunities to improve store

perormance and customer satisaction.

The retailer also collaborates with vendor

manuacturing partners to give them

an accurate view o sales and demand,

beneting both sides o the supply chain

resulting in having the right merchan-

dise in the right stores at the right time.

The retailer has even used SAS to help

its charitable endeavors. Brooks Broth-

ers supports the St. Jude Childrens

Research Hospital. To encourage sales

associates to solicit donations duringits annual Thanks and Giving campaign,

the company tracked perormance daily

through SAS. Donations increased by

50 percent and the perormance data

helped keep sales associates energized.

The company chose SAS because it can

grow with Brooks Brothers in scale,

business results and business capabili-

ties. SAS helps us maintain our level o

eciency, collaboration and inormationvisibility across our global business,

Gaggion says.

Campaign success with SAS

Retailers have invested heavily in loyalty

programs over the past decade, with the

hopes o analyzing customer data and

segmenting customers to oer just the

right discount coupon to one customer,

or the catalog with the perect mix o

goods to another.

In reality, ew retailers have success-

ully mastered that level o segmentation.

Instead, the customer data is gathered,

but unused. Or its periodically shipped

to a vendor who takes weeks to prepare

a campaign list. Thats the scenario that

Chicos FAS Inc. aced. The Fort Myers,

FL-based company operates more than

1,000 boutiques throughout the US, US

Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico under the

Chicos, White House | Black Market andSoma brands. The boutiques eature

chic jackets, sophisticated tops, elegant

dresses, jewelry and more. The com-

pany also markets to consumers through

catalog and online channels.

We couldnt automate processes, there

were a lot o operational ineciencies, it

was infexible and we were using low-

level tools. It led us to look at dierent

ways to operate our campaign manage-ment, explains Chie Inormation Oce

Gary King.

But that all changed with SAS OnDe-

mand: Marketing Automation. Chicos

soon saw validation or its SAS deci-

sion ease o use became apparent in

speed to results. The company now seg-

ments catalog mailings and dierentiates

promotion eorts or maximum impact

Trendsetting customers receive dieren

catalogs than discount shoppers, and

online customers receive e-mails geared

to their buying habits.

Other improvements include midpromo

tion corrections so Chicos can quickly

change its promotional strategies i

rst attempts arent working. Plus, the

retailer is bringing lapsed customers

back to Chicos.

The dierence or the campaign team isnight and day, says King. We are able

to turn around programs much more

quickly. A campaign takes our days to

pull together versus 30 days prior to us-

ing SAS. This has allowed the team to

create more targeted campaigns.

Plus, the impact o the analysis Chicos

has derived rom SAS has delighted

executives. Our executives are so ex-

SAS is a solid and fexible technology that

is really a true enabler. Our business coulddouble or triple in the next ve years, and we

will have no technical limitations with SAS.

Stefano Gaggion, Senior Vice Presidentand CIO, Brooks Brothers


25/40

www.sas.com/cioinsightsGood news or retail CIOs|P23

ONLINE

Brooks Brothers success:

www.sas.com/cio-brooksbros

Chicos success:

www.sas.com/cio-chicos

The Wet Seal success:

www.sas.com/cio-wetseal

The dierence or thecampaign team is nightand day A campaigntakes our days to pulltogether versus 30 daysprior to using SAS. Thishas allowed the teamto create more targetedcampaigns.

Gary King, CIO, Chicos

How should retail CIOsthink about analytics?

Speakers on a recent retail industry panel

made a strong case or using analytics

to put customers at the center o the

retail business.

Jim Bacos, Director, Retail and Consumer

Goods Practice o Oliver Wyman, cau-tioned that successul analytics projects

are hard work, can take years to ully

implement and typically require change

throughout the organization but most

retailers simply must make the eort.

The old way o doing work and the old

way o being successul is becoming

more and more extinct.

Bacos encouraged large retailers in par-

ticular to look beyond expansion and in-

creasing store space, and ocus instead

on small, incremental changes that when applied to thousands o SKUs and

billions o transactions can really add up

to make a dierence.

Giles Pavey, Head o Analysis at

dunnhumby, told a story o a grocer who

made a risky decision to keep budget-

conscious customers happy. When the

executives noticed its stores were los-

ing sales to other low-cost retailers, they

launched a range o 600 store-branded

discount products. Initially, the move

cannibalized sales and total revenuewent down. But the loyalty aect over

time has shown the long-term results to

be positive.

This story illustrates another o Paveys

points regarding the importance o mea-

suring results: You should measure the

results o changes you do and really un-

derstand where youre doing things right,

says Pavey.

cited about the insights they are gainingabout the customer, where she shops

and the department that brought her

into the brand. It was an incredible

moment to partner with the marketing

managers and watch the work come to

lie, says Charlie White, Vice President o

Customer Relationship Marketing.

Its all about the customer

In retail, perhaps more than any other

industry, its all about the customer.

The best retail CIOs understand this

act. Whether youre implementing an

on-demand solution to reduce inventory

or an on-site implementation to improve

merchandising, the ocus should always

be on the customer. Continue to ask,How will reduced inventories and bet-

ter merchandising help the customer?

Keeping your best customers in mind will

help to ensure that analytics technolo-

gies are more than just a trend at your

company too.


26/40

www.sas.com/cioinsightsP24|How to transition IT rom cost center to value center

How to transition IT romcost center to value centerData integration and language translation bring eciencies

A company whose product is inorma-

tion should regard its IT department as

its actory foor, the place where in-

novation happens and customer value

is produced. Yet many IT organizations

in these companies struggle to make

the transition rom cost center to value

center because they are mired in time-

consuming operational processes, many

o them manual, that add little perceived

value. As credit bureau Emcredit discov-ered, however, it is possible to turn that

situation around with the right sotware

solutions and automated processes.

Emcredit is the rst credit bureau in the

United Arab Emirates (UAE) and enjoys

ocial status in the Emirate o Dubai,

Data: the backbone o the business

Emad Khatib, Emcredits CIO, real-

izes every day that the bureaus repu-

tation depends on providing accurate

inormation on bank customers. His

main responsibility is to take data rom

multiple operational sources and turn

it into high-quality inormation that is

easily available in the right ormat. Data

is the backbone o our business, so i

we dont have these processes undertight control, we will not succeed, says

Khatib. In addition, Emcredit must iden-

tiy genuinely bad risks while reducing

the number o consumer disputes to

the absolute minimum. You dont want

consumers and businesses challenging

a decision that was made on the basis

Now our employees only intervene when there is anerror or an alert, and in the meantime we have retrained

them to ocus on customer outreach and other tasksthat are more rewarding or them, and more protable

or Emcredit. This has enabled us to transition theIT department rom a cost center to a value center.

Emad Khatib, CIO, Emcredit

meaning that banks are mandated to

deal with Emcredit. Certied to inter-

national inormation security standards

(ISO 27001), Emcredit obtains a wealth

o data rom a variety o sources: banks,

nancial institutions and government

agencies. Like all credit bureaus around

the world, its mission is to assist its cli-

ents in maintaining healthy relationships

with customers while managing credit

risk. It does this by providing inorma-tion, reports and decision support tools

that improve their clients evaluation

o customer lie cycles. However, un-

like most credit bureaus, Emcredits

scope is very broad: Emcredit provides

a 360-degree view o both commercial

and consumer customers.


27/40

www.sas.com/cioinsightsHow to transition IT rom cost center to value center|P25

o inaccurate data, such as an incorrectdate o birth, explains Khatib. This re-

fects badly on our customers, which, in

turn, refects badly on Emcredit.

When it was in its start-up phase, Em-

credit relied on manual processes to

extract raw data in a specic ormat,

which meant a lot o back-and-orth

discussions with the providers about

how and when the data could be de-

livered: ater all, as commercial and

government agencies, these providershad their own internal priorities; an ex-

ternal credit agency would have to wait

its turn.

Being based in the Gul region, Emcredit

aced an additional challenge. Much o

the data was in Arabic and, moreover,

many o the systems generating the data

ran in Arabic. Consequently Emcredit

had to translate inormation into English

and then back-eed it into data tables. In

act, it was a little more complex than that.

The margin o error was high because

rst we had to determine i the inorma-

tion was in proper Arabic and i it could

be translated into English, says Khatib.

Only ater translation could the data be

cleansed, validated, standardized and

merged also manually beore it was

nally stored and moved into production.

Accelerated data acquisition

Emcredit knew that its uture successwould require it to accelerate the data

acquisition process while reducing op-

erational costs. It could only do this by

automating key processes such as the

identication, extraction and transla-

tion o Arabic data and data validation.

Above all it had to minimize the eort

required rom the data source providers,

on whose goodwill Emcredit depended.

Emcredit selected SAS to integrate -nancial and personal data rom multiple

providers and to standardize it in a single

specic le ormat. The company con-

sidered several vendors, but SAS scored

highest on the three key criteria o peror-

mance, accuracy and scalability. SAS not

only met our immediate criteria but also

scored highest when we considered our

long-term objectives, explains Khatib.

Previously we had no choice but to deal

with dierent ormats or each separateprovider. Each bank would have its own

specic rules or data validation and

matching. SAS provided a data ormat

that was fexible enough to accept all di-

erent source providers ormats without

requiring manual intervention. Moreover,

we can add urther commercial data

sources without any signicant eort.

A platorm or more rewarding work

SAS could also recognize Arabic tokens,

which is not a straightorward process (in

Arabic, dierent tokens can be used or

words with the same meaning) and ull

string names (such as the ull legal en-

tity name o a company, as opposed to

the commercial name). Beore Emcredit

translates anything through its inter-

nal translation team, it matches terms

against the hundereds o thousands o

records in Emcredits dictionary. I any

tokens do not nd a match, these are

sent to the translation team and the newterm is added to the SAS dictionary, thus

progressively diminishing the amount o

human intervention required.

We have eliminated many manual

processes but this does not mean we

have reduced our headcount, says

Khatib. Instead, the SAS implemen-

tation has enabled us to ocus on

value-adding activities.

Previously, we had three ull-time em-ployees permanently sitting in ront o a

computer screen, working on integra-

tion- and translation-related tasks. Now

our employees only intervene when there

is an error or an alert, and in the mean-

time we have retrained them to ocus on

customer outreach and other tasks that

are more rewarding or them, and more

protable or Emcredit. This has enabled

us to transition the IT department rom a

cost center to a value center.

The SAS implementation has greatly in-

creased our data coverage because we

can acquire data at a much aster pace

We are also moving data much aste

rom staging to production, which means

that the inormation we provide to ou

customers is more up to date. SAS has

also improved our validation rules and

processes, which has raised the qual-

ity o our data, providing a signicantly

higher hit rate when our customers are

looking or data matches.

Improved data quality is a huge ben-

et that goes to the heart o Emcredits

business proposition: to provide banks

and other clients with accurate credit

inormation. Khatib concludes, This

enables our clients to make quick and

air decisions, minimizing disputes and

helping them to build more protable

customer relationships.

ONLINE

Data quality blog:

www.sas.com/cio-dblog

Data Prep 101 Webcast:

www.sas.com/cio-dataprepcast


28/40

www.sas.com/cioinsightsP26|Running IT as a business

Running IT as a businessSeven steps to aligning IT with the business

By Kate Morton, Global Practice Manager or Costing and Proftability, SAS Australia

Seven steps to aligning IT with

the business

The massive growth in IT over the past

decade has moved it rom being a back-

oce support unction to a critical busi-

ness unit. IT now ranks among the top

ve expenditures o most companies.

CIOs have to show how the money is

spent, the returns they are getting or

their investments, and how IT is driving

corporate perormance. This increased

role requires ocus, vision and, above

all, transparency into services, costs,demand, processes and impact on cor-

porate perormance.

Cost management and transparency

For the CIO to compete or resources,

the IT unction needs to operate as a

business within a business providing

valuable services to the rest o the orga-

nization. The CIO must eectively edu-

cate the organization and provide clearly

articulated and relevant cost inormation.

A detailed understanding o the cos

within the IT business provides clear and

positive advantages to the CIO and the

wider organization:

Ensuringoptimalresourceallocation

to areas o greatest value.

Moreeffectiveallocationofresources

to areas o need.

ReducingcomplexitywithinITand

simpliying internal processes.

Moreinformedbudgeting

(capital and operating) and pricingo new projects.

GreaterunderstandingofITcapacity

and ability or delivery.

AbilitytolinkITinvestmentsto

overall organizational benets.

Facilitatingpracticesandtoolssuch

as total cost o ownership (TCO) and

return on investment (ROI).

The benefts o aligningIT with the business

Improvemanagementcontrol.

Understandandcommunicatethenancial and non-nancial value oeach IT project and operation.

Complywithlegislativerequirements.

ReallocateITresourcestoprojectso most importance to the business.

FacilitatetheeliminationofITprojects that are not delivering.


29/40

www.sas.com/cioinsightsRunning IT as a business|P27

The importance o chargeback

It is dicult to maximize returns rom IT

when the product appears to be ree to

customers. Ideally, IT operates as a ser-

vice provider with a catalog o products

and services that are aligned with cus-

tomer needs and corporate goals. For

this, IT needs:

Accuratepricingforitsservicesthat

refects the cost to provide them.

Anunderstandingofwhatdrivesboth demand and cost.

Anequitable,repeatableand

accurate method to track and invoice

customers based on their usage o

the services.

Toencourageend-useraccountability

or the return on investments.

Cost control is the greatest benet that

comes rom IT chargeback. Gartner

research has shown that these costsavings oten exceed 15 percent in the

rst year, rom reduced demand and

smarter service use, and SAS has seen

these results refected in its customers

across the world.

Chargeback gives clear transparency

into the benets and the value that IT

brings, and the impact on the bottom line

means better relationships with the rest

o the organization.

Budgeting and planning

IT nancial management processes are

oten resource-intensive, involving the

manual collection o nancial data that

is scattered across the enterprise. With

a lack o data to support accurate ore-

casts, the resulting budget is oten based

on political biases.

cio-insights-special-report

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