SAS organizing federal government subsidiary to more effectively deliver powerful data analytics to agencies

Homeland security and intelligence communities present greatest market opportunities

SAS is organizing a subsidiary to better serve the growing data integration and analysis needs of the federal government, particularly the homeland security and intelligence communities. SAS® has been used for decades by federal agencies, but the need for real-time information sharing, situational awareness and accurate decision making are both a golden opportunity for the company and an opportunity to serve the public good. The subsidiary announcement came today at the SAS Executive Conference for Government in Washington.

“The events of 9/11 were a wake-up call: We need to do a better job of understanding potential threats to our country. There is so much data from so many different sources – human intelligence, ‘open source’, and even that gathered by technology – that is significant to safeguarding the United States,” said Tom Mazich, SAS Vice President of Government Operations. “The intelligence and homeland security communities must be able to make sense of all this data in a timely manner so they can make critical decisions. SAS technology will be a major contributor to helping the government fully understand its information.”

To that end, SAS will reallocate over 50 people to the subsidiary and hire additional domain experts with relevant security requirements to assist intelligence and homeland security agencies. While SAS is already used by all 15 federal departments, Mazich believes a dedicated subsidiary will serve the market better.

“SAS’ technological advantage is our deep analytics capability, along with the ability to integrate massive amounts of data from disparate sources. Now we will have a better sales and delivery mechanism to leverage this advantage,” said Mazich.

From the US Department of the Treasury to the Navy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the Joint Commands, SAS software’s analytic and predictive capabilities are used for such critical initiatives as performance, budgeting and workforce management, logistics, combating fraud and threat assessment.

SAS’ State and Local Government Practice, led by Paula Joshi, will continue to operate as part of SAS. Joshi has 15 years in sales, including six selling SAS to state and local governments. SAS is in use in all 50 states and many local governments.

Throughout the transition to the subsidiary and after, current government customers should see little effect in the way that SAS interfaces with them, according to Mazich.