Analytics firm SAS bullish on LatAm sales despite elections

Predictive analytics company SAS is bullish on its sales in Latin America this year, despite elections in many of the region's major economies.

The US firm expects sales to continue growing by double-digits this year and is implementing an innovation program tailored to Latin America enterprises, Brazilian executives revealed.

Latin America was the best-performing geography for the group in 2017, alongside Asia Pacific, with a 15% year-on -year increase in new sales and a 9.5% gain in total software revenue (TSR).

The Brazilian subsidiary, the company's largest in LatAm, saw a 22% jump in new sales, with total software revenue up 8%. At a global level, SAS posted US$3.24bn in sales, rising 1.25%.

Asked by BNamericas during a press conference about why Brazil's software revenue grew by a relatively small amount despite the local subsidiary selling more than Latin America on average, SAS Brasil CEO Cássio Pantaleoni said that the country's performance was affected by the decrease in the IGP-M inflation index, as well as FX effects.

"The results for 2017 exceeded our expectations. For the second consecutive year, we had double-digit growth and we were able to break our TSR record," Pantaleoni said, referring to the Brazilian subsidiary.

For 2018, expectations have been diluted somewhat, as SAS Brasil forecasts new sales and software revenue growing 11% year-on-year each. The focuses should be on AI, IoT, machine learning technology and data management, customer intelligence and fraud/risk solutions.

"2018 is a year with a greater number of holidays falling on weekdays, with the Fifa World Cup, and with state and federal elections in October", said Pantaleoni, explaining the expectation of lower sales growth compared to 2017.

Electoral years tend to result in a reduction in IT spending by the public sector.

Sales in Brazil last year were fuelled by the finance, retail, telecoms and government verticals. In terms of business segments, the highlights were the areas of Risk Management, which saw 55% sales growth, and Data Management and Internet of Things, with a 27% hike.

SAS Brasil also expanded its client portfolio by 13%, with half of the new customers coming from the work of partners and channels.

The company is currently setting up a new partners program, with the objective of expanding the footprint of these channels and making them more expert in business lines, said Latin America channels director Daniela Fontolan. Overall, indirect sales (via partners) accounted for 29% of SAS sales in Brazil and 27% of the total in Latin America.

INNOVATION

As regards innovation, SAS has just created an initiative for Latin America with Brazil as its hub.

The goal, according to the company, is to encourage enterprises to expand the culture of data analysis in their day-to-day activities and accelerate the delivery of projects, but without losing sight of governance and compliance aspects.

The so-called SAS Innovation Lab is focused on projects built with the cloud platform SAS-Viya for data preparation, data visualization and data mining.