[6 May 2008]
SMU and SAS collaborate on major initiatives to develop business intelligence capabilities

A new SAS Enterprise Intelligence Laboratory has been set up at SMU and scholarships will be given out for undergraduate and master's students through a S$840,000 partnership.
Singapore, 6 May 2008 (Tuesday) – The Singapore Management University (SMU) has entered into a major collaboration with SAS, market leader in business intelligence and analytical software and services, to build up research and teaching capabilities in the field of business intelligence. A new SAS Enterprise Intelligence Laboratory powered by IBM System p server has been established at SMU, equipped with a comprehensive suite of business intelligence software and backend hardware sponsored by SAS and IBM worth about S$660,000. In addition, SAS has contributed S$180,000 to SMU to establish scholarships for undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Information Systems Management with a special emphasis on business intelligence technology and applications.

The SAS Enterprise Intelligence Laboratory (SEIL) will become a key facility for the School of Information Systems at SMU to further develop its existing academic strengths in business-information technology by expanding its teaching and research activities in business intelligence. Built primarily for the use of SMU faculty and students, SEIL will provide access to infrastructure and a wide range of software for business intelligence solutions. SEIL will function as an important teaching laboratory for SMU students pursuing undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Information Systems Management and who are also interested to examine and explore knowledge and application in business intelligence as part of their specialisation or research projects.

A comprehensive collection of software called the SAS Enterprise Business Intelligence Suite comprising more than 10 modules is made available at the laboratory, extending to SMU faculty and student users valuable training and research opportunities. The School of Information Systems will leverage on the SAS software to incorporate business intelligence content into its coursework and develop new teaching materials with hands-on training on SAS software and solutions as an important component. SEIL will be a cornerstone learning facility for SMU undergraduates pursuing the Bachelor of Science (Information Systems Management) and who have elected for a second major in Advanced Business Solutions (Business Intelligence Track). The school will also be planning a series of professional training and outreach forums for the larger audience from the industry to raise awareness and impart skills in business intelligence.

Practice Associate Professor Kam Tin Seong from the School of Information Systems at SMU will be faculty member responsible for SEIL. Instructor Swapna Gottipati will be responsible for integrating SAS business intelligence applications into the SMU curriculum. Instructor Mr Mok Heng Ngee will be managing the day-to-day running of the laboratory. SAS will be contributing maintenance and support for the technical infrastructure located at SEIL as well as opening up places to SMU faculty for SAS training courses conducted locally or abroad.

A new SAS Scholarship has been set up as part of the SMU-SAS collaboration. A total of 12 undergraduate scholarships (four per year for three years) will be available from August 2008 for senior year SMU students enrolled in the Information Systems Management bachelor's programme. Another 12 postgraduate scholarships (four per year for three years) will be awarded to deserving students enrolled in the Master of IT in Business (Financial Services). SAS will offer all scholars internships and recruitment opportunities. The scholarships are bond-free.

Professor Steven Miller, Dean of the School of Information Systems, SMU said: “We are pleased to have found a partner in SAS to support SMU in strengthening our capabilities in this important area of business intelligence. It is essential in today's economy for our Business-IT students to have a strong grasp of the concepts, technologies and applications that are employed to gather and analyse large amounts of data and information for enterprise operations. SAS' sponsorship, in software and scholarships, will go a long way to help both faculty and students of the School of Information Systems develop new analytical methods, build large scale datasets and create prototypes of effective business intelligence solutions specially tailored for individual industries.”

“We are focussed on strengthening our ties with the academic community. University graduates play an important role in SAS' future, becoming our customers, users, partners and employees,” said Bill Lee, Managing Director for SAS in Singapore and Emerging Markets. “There needs to be greater involvement of industry with the tertiary sector to plug talent gap in IT industry. Platform-specific courses, when combined with general curriculum create "work-ready" graduates and SAS is proud to support SMU and its students to help ensure they have the right tools to succeed in today's competitive economy.”

About Business Intelligence

Business intelligence (widely acronym-ed ‘BI' in the technology industry) is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analysing, predicting and providing access to data to help enterprise users make better business decisions. Business intelligence solutions is capable of gathering large quantities of data and information from a diversity of sources, processing them through complex systems and yielding intelligence to support business decision needs. It is sophisticated enough to handle both real time and static information, monitor trends, detect faults, trigger alerts, generate statistical analysis, forecasting and predictive models, and even formulate key performance indicators. SAS, as a market leader in business intelligence, provides software which helps companies in every industry transform their data into predictive insights about company performance, customers, markets and risks.

About SAS

SAS is the leader in business intelligence and analytical software and services. Customers at more than 44,000 sites use SAS software to improve performance through insight from data, resulting in faster, more accurate business decisions; more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; compliance with governmental regulations; research breakthroughs; and better products and processes. Only SAS offers leading data integration, storage, analytics and business intelligence applications within a comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know®. www.sas.com