Flexibility of SAS® to provide Bremer with greater productivity

CARY, NC – Regional financial services institutions like Bremer Financial Corporation must find ways to keep operations agile and efficient. When Bremer wanted to find a better financial management system, they selected SAS, the leader in business analytics, to more effectively create and analyze financial reports and budgets.

“With six separate databases required to accommodate the changing needs of our organization, we knew our processes needed an upgrade,” said Bob Buck, Chief Financial Officer at Bremer. “SAS® Financial Management provided a single solution for financial management reporting, budgeting, forecasting and consolidation. We found the solution offered the greatest flexibility for a single database of all financial management information.”

Bremer was frustrated by the need to use multiple modules for the budgeting, forecasting and reporting of financial and non-financial data. The processes in place were slow and inefficient. With SAS, Bremer will have a more streamlined and integrated planning and forecasting process, freeing up more time to analyze and improve financial plans across the organization. The added flexibility from SAS Financial Management will help the finance department manage the growing demands of business line profitability reporting and analysis.

“We anticipate increased productivity of our finance professionals with SAS in place. They will be able to focus their attention on higher-level analysis with less time devoted to managing cumbersome mechanics,” explained Ron Hansen, project manager at Bremer. “In addition to better analysis, the new solution will improve morale and retention of our experienced finance professionals, resulting in a more efficient cost structure for our finance division.”

SAS Financial Management improves the accuracy, relevance and timeliness of financial plans, budgets and reports while promoting the alignment and execution of strategy. SAS Financial Management is one component of SAS financial intelligence, a vision for financial performance management that includes solutions for financial management, activity-based management, dashboards and scorecarding, risk management, and advanced analytics such as optimization and forecasting. By combining the hindsight, insight and foresight provided through these powerful solutions, corporate finance departments can build credibility and confidence within other areas of the company.

Bremer Financial Corporation

Bremer Financial Corporation is a privately held, $7.6 billion regional financial services company jointly owned by its employees and the Otto Bremer Foundation. This unique ownership structure is the only one of its kind in the nation. Founded in 1943 by Otto Bremer, the company is headquartered in St. Paul, MN, and provides a comprehensive range of banking, investment, trust and insurance services to more than 100 locations in Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin. A significant portion of company profits are distributed in the form of charitable grants by the Otto Bremer Foundation to communities served by Bremer. In 2007, more than $30 million in charitable donations were given across the Bremer footprint and employees donated more than 92,900 volunteer hours to their communities. For more information, please visit www.bremer.com.

About SAS
SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. With innovative business applications supported by an enterprise intelligence platform, SAS helps customers at 45,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know® .