Market Perspectives

We are happy to share some insights about SAS drawn from our latest market research, Ventana Research Buyers Guide: Analytics and Data, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.

We recently published five Ventana Research 2023 Analytics and Data Buyers Guides, an assessment of technology vendors and products that provide individual and combined analytics and data, augmented analytics, collaborative analytics, embedded analytics and mobile analytics and platform support.

At Ventana Research, we continue to believe that, for most use-cases, there is a clear choice for analytics and data platforms for any use in your organization. We developed five technology assessments and buyers guides to focus on overall analytics and data requirements as well as specific augmented analytics, collaborative analytics, mobile analytics and embedded analytics use-cases.

In all of our Buyers Guides, we utilize a structured research methodology called the Value Index that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for analytics and data. We evaluated SAS and 21 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and on data derived from our benchmark research on analytics and data.

In the overall Analytics and Data Buyers Guide, our analysis classified SAS as an Innovative vendor, ranking 10th in the overall research at 60.9%. SAS’s best performance came in Product Experience at 64.3%, ranking 10th, due in part to its eighth-place ranking in Capability. In Customer Experience, SAS placed 17th at 42.3% due to low performance in Validation. SAS did not participate in the RFI process.

SAS’s Product Experience was impacted by its 58.8% performance in Usability, where it could provide better collaboration capabilities. Customer Experience was impacted by its 40.5% performance in TCO/ROI, where it could provide better support to help customers calculate costs, benefits and TCO to build a business case.

SAS performed best in Product Experience, notably in Capability, where its 64.8% performance was due to its broad set of predictive analytics functionality. It also performed well in interactive visualization and discovery, and customization. In addition, SAS’s performance, scalability and administrative functionality led to its 70.1% performance in Reliability.

In the Augmented Analytics Buyers Guide, our analysis classified SAS as an Innovative vendor, ranking 10th in the overall research at 59.0%. SAS’s best performance came in Product Experience at 62.5%, ranking eighth, due in part to its fifth-place ranking in Capability. In Customer Experience, SAS placed 17th at 42.3% due to low performance in Validation. SAS did not participate in the RFI process.

SAS’s Product Experience was impacted by its 58.8% performance in Usability, where it could provide better collaboration capabilities. Customer Experience was impacted by its 40.5% performance in TCO/ROI, where it could provide better support to help customers calculate costs, benefits and TCO to build a business case.

SAS performed best in Product Experience, notably in Capability, where its 61.8% performance and fifth-place ranking was due to its broad set of predictive analytics functionality. It also provides AutoML and NLP and is one of the few vendors with multilingual capabilities. In addition, SAS’s performance, scalability and administrative functionality led to its 70.1% performance in Reliability.

In the Collaborative Analytics Buyers Guide, our analysis classified SAS as a vendor of Merit, ranking 15th in the overall research at 50.3%. SAS’s best performance came in Product Experience at 52.5%, ranking 14th, due in part to its ninth-place ranking in Reliability. In Customer Experience, SAS placed 17th at 42.3% due to low performance in Validation. SAS did not participate in the RFI process.

SAS’s Product Experience was impacted by its 39.3% performance in Capability, where it could provide better support for discussion groups and task management capabilities. Customer Experience was impacted by its 40.5% performance in TCO/ROI, where it could provide better support to help customers calculate costs, benefits and TCO to build a business case.

SAS performed best in Product Experience, notably in Reliability, due to its performance, scalability and administrative functionality. In Capability, SAS supports annotating and sharing analyses, including via subscriptions, and can deliver objects in a variety of formats, including spreadsheets and presentations. It also provides functionality for monitoring, alerting and notifications when data has changed.

In the Embedded Analytics Buyers Guide, our analysis classified SAS as a vendor of Merit, ranking 13th in the overall research at 61.0%. SAS’s best performance came in Product Experience at 64.7%, ranking 13th, due in part to its ninth-place ranking in Reliability. In Customer Experience, SAS placed 17th at 42.3% due to low performance in TCO/ROI. SAS did not participate in the RFI process.

SAS’s Product Experience was impacted by its 58.8% performance in Usability, where it could provide better collaboration capabilities. Customer Experience was impacted by its 40.5% performance in TCO/ROI, where it could provide better support to help customers calculate costs, benefits and TCO to build a business case.

SAS performed best in Product Experience, notably in Reliability, where its 70.1% performance was due to its strong performance, scalability and administrative functionality. In Capability, SAS provides a broad set of analytics functionality as well as extensive customization and integration capabilities contributing to its 65.5% performance. It also provides robust integration with Microsoft 365 for embedding analyses in Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and Word.

In the Mobile Analytics Buyers Guide, our analysis classified SAS as an Innovative vendor, ranking 11th in the overall research at 61.7%. SAS’s best performance came in Product Experience at 65.4%, ranking 11th, due in part to its ninth-place ranking in Capability and Reliability. In Customer Experience, SAS placed 17th at 42.3% due to low performance in TCO/ROI. SAS did not participate in the RFI process.

SAS’s Product Experience was impacted by its 58.8% performance in Usability, where it could provide better collaboration capabilities. Customer Experience was impacted by its 40.5% performance in TCO/ROI, where it could provide better support to help customers calculate costs, benefits and TCO to build a business case.

SAS performed best in Product Experience, notably in Capability, where its 66.6% performance was due in part to its native applications for iOS, Android and Windows devices that have good interactivity and a wide variety of visualizations. It is one of a few vendors with offline analysis functionality and it brings its augmented analytics capabilities to mobile devices. In addition, SAS’s performance, scalability and administrative functionality led to its 70.1% performance in Reliability.

This assessment was based on SAS Viya, Version 2023.07, and was available in July of 2023.

This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of analytics and data software in the industry. Technology buyers can learn more about how to use our Buyers Guide by clicking here and included vendors that wish to learn more can click here. Click below to read the individual reports:

Analytics and Data Buyers Guide

Augmented Analytics Buyers Guide

Collaborative Analytics Buyers Guide

Embedded Analytics Buyers Guide

Mobile Analytics Buyers Guide