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The Accenture SAS Analytics Group will develop industry-specific solutions that initially focus on financial services, health care and the public service sector. The group also plans to develop cross-industry offerings, starting with customer acquisition and retention and enterprise analytics.
The venture will bring “SAS’s leadership position in the advanced analytics space together with Accenture’s leadership position as thought leaders in management consulting and systems integration,” said Finerty.
Enterprise analytics is the concept of bringing true predictive analytics and insight to decision-making throughout the entire business processes of an organization, which is really the end-game for clients, explained Finerty.
There are no intentions to develop a new suite of predictive analytics products, according to Finerty. Any jointly developed software and services will enhance and add new value to SAS’s existing offerings, not replace them, he said.
“This group intends to offer clients Analytics as a Service, which will combine innovative new approaches such as subscription and managed services,” said Finerty. The three industries and two cross-industry offerings are “just the beginning,” he added.
The joint venture is an “extremely important development from the standpoint of SAS,” according to Gareth Doherty, research analyst at Info-Tech Research Group Ltd.
“In my mind, there has never been any question about whether or not SAS’s tools are valuable and useful to organizations – the question has always been whether or not the organization is capable of being able to use the tools,” he said.
One of the biggest barriers to large-scale deployments of SAS analytics within enterprises is the level of expertise required to use the toolsets, according to Doherty. “You’re going to need a rocket scientist to use some of these advanced analytics tools for predictive modeling,” he said.
By combining SAS’s existing training with Accenture’s consulting expertise, the Accenture SAS Analytics Group will be able to provide the services businesses need to use the toolsets, he explained.
Doherty also finds the venture “a very strong response” to IBM Corp.’s announcement in the spring of 2009 to start offering advanced analytics consulting services.