SAS strengthens its partner strategy for future growth

SAS is elevating partners in its company strategy to drive growth, enable innovation and empower customers. SAS has taken its partner program to the next level with game-changing updates that spell out success for customers and partners alike. 

“Strategic partnerships are the key to adding value with our combined expertise and customer connections,” said Gavin Day, Executive Vice President in the Office of the CEO at SAS. “Our partners’ knowledge, skills and capabilities only enhance our world-class AI and analytics, helping us get results for our customers while we grow together.” 

Maximizing data with AI 

SAS collaborates with industry leaders on new solutions at the forefront of emerging technologies, including AI. 

SAS Viya AI and decisioning capabilities are newly available in the Snowflake Data Cloud with Snowpark Container Services (private preview). This high-powered integration gives users access to the strengths of both partners without having to transfer data between platforms. Combining SAS’ leading AI and analytics platform with Snowflake’s secure and elastic processing engine produces quicker insights with less risk and maximized results across the analytics lifecycle. 

SAS Health is a new cloud-native industry offering that includes SAS partner SingleStore. It utilizes SAS Viya, SAS’ powerful AI and analytics platform, to simplify health data management for faster analytic discovery using the power of AI. It provides an end-to-end enterprise solution for health data and analytics powered by a common health data model based on industry standards. The model will serve as a central location to connect health data with critical operational information to improve interoperability, accelerate time to insight and reduce total operating costs. 

Intel and SAS continue to work together to deliver the world’s most advanced AI and analytics platform on Intel’s new 4th Generation Xeon processors. By integrating SAS analytics with Intel hardware and software, customers can use the unique features of the Xeon Processor Family to speed up performance and lower operational costs. Intel is also instrumental in supporting key initiatives and events, including the annual SAS Hackathon, SAS Innovate on Tour and SAS Explore.  

Highlighting customer experience with partners 

SAS presented Linktera, a leading SAS solution provider in the Middle East, with its Distinguished Partner Award. This award was presented as part of the 2023 SAS Customer Recognition Awards at SAS Explore. Linktera has been adding value for its clients for over 12 years and heavily investing in finance, risk and analytics using SAS technologies. Apart from their day-to-day business in digital, banking and finance, Linktera has also focused on social good. Following a devastating earthquake in Turkey earlier this year, Linktera saw an urgent need for disaster coordination and response. The SAS partner used SAS Viya to develop a solution that streamlined decision-making processes to allocate resources more efficiently and help those impacted by the tragedy. The solution uses open source tools to curate and combine data from social media and satellite imagery for an accurate status of affected areas, which is delivered to responders in real time. Linktera’s solution was also recognized as a winner in the 2023 SAS Hackathon alongside EPAM as a part of team Linktera4Good. 

Scaling distribution 

To grow their indirect channels business, SAS enlisted two distributors: TD SYNNEX, for much of the Americas, Europe and Asia, and Carahsoft Technology Corp., The Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider, for the U.S. public sector. Solution provider partners who resell SAS will benefit from the vertical expertise, regional presence and far-reaching networks that these distributors bring to the table. This is the first time that SAS has operated through a two-tier distribution model. The change will arm SAS solution providers with increased scale, access to new markets and additional complementary assets.