SAS INDIA FOCUSES ON PSUS, TELECOM VERTICALS TO AUGMENT REVENUE

Rachana Khanzode, Mumbai, April 13, 2009
The Financial Express

Despite facing hurdles in business globally, business analytics firm SAS Institute (SAS) is witnessing growth in the India market. The firm is betting big on the government and telecom verticals here.

Says Sudipta Sen, CEO & MD, SAS India, “We expect public sector units to contribute an additional 5% to our revenue, increasing the vertical contribution to 20%.” The firm has recently bagged deals from government departments like NACO (National AIDS Control Organisation), CBEC (Central Board of Excise and Customs), DES (directorate of economics and statistics) and the department of health, government of India, for business analytics solutions.

“Largely, government departments are increasingly looking at adopting technology that can improve their work. For instance, the health department is using our analytics solutions to find patterns of diseases before they become epidemic. NACO is looking at the way AIDS is spreading in terms of area, geography and prevention routes and CBEC is looking at risk management and fraud,” adds Sen.

“We are also in talks with various public sector banks for risk related platforms and money laundering. Currently, we are implementing it for Axis Bank, Allahabad Bank and Punjab National Bank,” he adds. At present, about 40% of the firm’s revenue comes from the banking financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector. According to research firm IDC, the business analytics market in India is expected to be $120 million in 2009 and will grow to $260 million by 2013. SAS currently has a market share of 55% in India .

The firm is also increasingly looking at the telecom sector. Telecom currently contributes around 15-20% of the company’s revenues. “With the new telecom players rolling out services, telecom companies increasingly feel the need to retain existing subscribers. At the moment, we are in the process to implement our analytics solutions for the top three-telecom service operators in India ,” Sen adds. According to Sen, telecom players are looking at advanced analytics to bring cross selling and quality of services.