SAS records $2.26bn in global revenues in 2008

The company's growing network of alliance and channel partners has played an integral role in 28% of sales and almost half of the top 50 global deals.

With aims of further strengthening its regional presence, SAS Middle East has revealed its plans to highlight its recession-fighting solutions, as it eyes 23% overall growth in the Middle East for 2009.

Driven by the challenging economic climate, companies turned to SAS' market-leading business analytics to derive money-saving and money-making insights from ever-growing volumes of data. As a result, SAS Middle East has seen significant growth in analytic and data mining solutions that help organisations keep current customers and win new ones, manage risk and optimize processes. The company also achieved strong sales growth in multiple industries, led by energy and utilities, Financial Services, and Telecommunication.

"We have globally achieved our 33rd year of continuous revenue growth, and all this during the worst economic situation most can remember,"

said Shukri Dabaghi, General Manager, SAS Middle East.

"This growth is a direct result of being a stable privately held company, which allows us to invest in long-term relationships with employees and customers. Our performance in some of the hardest hit economies affirms that the world and the Middle East in particular, now more than ever, need analytics to provide answers to complex business problems in order to innovate and lead with confidence."

In 2008, SAS gained 2,600 new customers from around the world, and reinvested 22% of this revenue in research and development. Now with an 11,019 strong workforce, which has grown 3.5% since 2007, SAS maintains an impressive line-up of global & regional clients, which include regional petroleum giants such as Saudi ARAMCO, Kuwait Oil Company, leading banks such as Riyad Bank, Saudi American Bank (SAMBA), National Commercial Bank (NCB), HSBC and educational institutions such as King Saud University, and Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University.

"In tough times, companies are focusing on optimising their businesses. Specifically, organisations in the Middle East are looking to harness data they already have into a business analytics framework to move forward. With the economy predicted to remain challenging through the first half of 2009, we will continue to invest in technology and solutions that help customers in the banking and finance, oil and gas, and telecoms industries improve their performance. Our strength in data management and business process management empowers us to roll out SAS 9.2 enhancements and deliver new solutions in the areas of fraud, customer insight, risk and analytics as part of a business analytics framework," concluded Dabaghi.

For the 12th year in a row, SAS ranked No. 20 on Fortune Magazine's annual list of the '100 Best Companies to Work For' in America, and secured a top spot among the best for healthcare, childcare and work-life balance. The company has been awarded a number of prestigious accolades throughout the year from leading organisations, including Gartner Inc., who placed SAS in the Leaders Quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms. The company was also named among the Visionaries Quadrant for Marketing Resource Management and Data Integration Tools, and among the Leaders Quadrant Multichannel Campaign Management, Operational Risk Management Software for Financial Services, and Customer Data Mining Applications.