SAS Leads Marketing Automation Sales in Fourth Quarter 2002.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 31, 2003

Powerful SAS(R) Analytical CRM Software Helps Organizations

Understand and Retain Customers Better, Conduct

More Effective Marketing Campaigns

SAS, the leader in business intelligence, today announced at the annual meeting of the SAS Users Group International (SUGI) that it won more customer sales for marketing automation in the fourth quarter of 2002 than any other major competitor in this space.

Twenty SAS(R) Marketing Automation sales in the fourth quarter wrapped up a successful year, which also included the formation of a Marketing & Customer Analytics Practice. These sales demonstrate the effectiveness of SAS marketing automation to not only help organizations create the highest quality customer intelligence but also easily apply it to solve marketing challenges and provide tangible ROI.

Companies that selected SAS Marketing Automation in 2002 included AeroPlan, Banco Comercial Portugues, Banca Popolare di Milano, Bausch & Lomb, Ben Nederland BV, Catalina Marketing, KARSTADT, Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), Mutual & Federal, OPSM, Sonera, Telewest Communications, Telia Mobile, Time Inc. and World Omni Financial Corp.

These significant customer wins represent companies from various industries worldwide and demonstrate SAS' distinctive competence in helping companies decrease customer attrition, increase cross-sell success and maximize customer profitability.

"SAS has been swift to develop solutions that provide powerful, high-end analytics that are simple for business users to leverage and that deliver rapid ROI," said Jim Davis, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at SAS. "With SAS CRM solutions such as Marketing Automation, organizations are improving response rates by up to 400 percent, increasing sales by as much as 276 percent, and lowering customer acquisition costs by 50 percent. Campaigns are more targeted and, as a result, organizations are saving money on their marketing efforts as they make shrewd use of limited resources."

SAS' acknowledged leadership in CRM analytics, in combination with its commitment to partnering with its customers for long-term benefit, are the driving forces behind SAS' success. In addition, SAS' financial stability and size are also important selection criteria for potential customers. In a turbulent year of consolidation in the CRM market, where many vendors have lost money and shed employees, SAS has grown in revenues and added to its workforce.

"SAS has enjoyed a long tradition of investing more than a quarter of its revenue in research and development, a higher percentage than any software vendor. The loyalty of our customers is clear testament to the success of this effort, and to the enduring quality of our products and service," said Davis. "At SAS we practice what we preach. With our technology and domain expertise we help companies improve service for their customers, while ensuring that we in turn provide the best possible care for our own customers. SAS' customer renewal rate of nearly 98 percent is proof of our commitment to practicing CRM as well as delivering robust analytical CRM solutions."

In 2003, SAS is concentrating on helping companies increase the effectiveness of all customer interactions - both inbound and outbound. To this end, SAS Interaction Management will be integrated with SAS Marketing Automation this summer. This will help organizations leverage customer intelligence throughout their marketing, sales and service efforts. Later in the year SAS will also introduce a packaged marketing optimization solution to optimize the financial value of all campaign activities by addressing customer, product, and channel assignment challenges.

SAS Marketing Automation overview

Based on an award-winning data management infrastructure, SAS Marketing Automation transforms multi-channel customer data into a single, comprehensive customer view that serves as the foundation for marketing initiatives with state-of-the-art campaign management. The email marketing component delivers high-volume, opt-in email campaigns that provide a highly personalized communication with compelling response rates. The reporting and response management function develops and deploys information reports via the Web into front-office systems, facilitating smarter customer interactions.

About SAS

SAS is the market leader in providing a new generation of business intelligence software and services that create true enterprise intelligence. SAS solutions are used at more than 40,000 sites - including 90 percent of the Fortune 500 - to develop more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; to enable better, more accurate and informed decisions; and to drive organizations forward. SAS is the only vendor that completely integrates leading data warehousing, analytics and traditional BI applications to create intelligence from massive amounts of data. For more than 25 years, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know(R). Visit us at www.sas.com.

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. (R) indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright (C) 2003 SAS Institute Inc. Cary, NC, USA. All rights reserved.