By examining a project conducted with ConocoPhilips to find early indicators of problems in complex industrial processes, this paper presents an innovative statistical method to aid in diagnosing situations and solving problems, leading to the result of decreasing costs and increasing productivity through predictive maintenance.

SAS has derived an analytic methodology to help mortgage lenders measure, monitor and manage their fair lending disparity and potential risk exposure. This brief outlines the initial steps required for the development of a global risk indicator for managing exposure. These steps involve identifying disparities, quantifying disparities and risk exposures, converting them into a singular risk indicator and then monitoring fair lending risk.

For European financial services firms, compliance with MiFID is mandatory. Nevertheless, MiFID provides numerous opportunities for companies to improve profitability and shareholder value. This white paper explores those opportunities. You will learn how the people, process and systems changes required by MiFID can position your organization to be more agile and successful.

Current economic conditions heighten the need for financial services firms to accurately gauge required levels of regulatory compliance and economic capital to support business strategy and risk appetite. More regulations are on the way, demanding transparency, accurate information about company operations, robust and comprehensive risk management, regulatory compliance and efficient governance. What does this mean for many organizations? This paper takes a step back to examine how all components of a successful company must work in an integrated manner in order to produce the best results, and how SAS approaches governance, risk, compliance and performance management issues by providing a comprehensive framework for analyzing and managing risks in the context of corporate strategy and performance.

The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive establishes a new regulatory framework for investment services in Europe. This white paper examines the MiFID's general principles and discusses ways in which it affects organizations that implement it. In particular, you will learn about the opportunity this directive provides to cut costs and develop new business models.

Asset-backed securities pose special problems for risk managers because of their contingent, path-dependent cash flows. This paper provides a high-level, conceptual view of 1) the difficulties involved in measuring the risk of asset-backed securities, 2) a methodology for overcoming those difficulties and 3) a software solution that can implement the chosen methodology for projecting potential profit-and-loss distributions of asset-backed securities at various future points in time or horizons.

This paper explores the process of developing and deploying predictive models. You will learn about the challenges that organizations face when building automated decision applications, and about the components of predictive model creation. The paper concludes with a solution for more effective deployment of predictive models.

This paper attempts to answer a series of practical questions that typically confront CROs in small institutional settings, including: How do I quantify the benefits of making an investment (say a technology investment) to reduce the current amount of capital assigned to operational risk? How do I provide greater internal and external transparency around the cost of capital attributed to operational risk? Further, how do I explain these benefits to the management committee or to a board of directors in order to obtain funding for that investment?

Recently, the focus in banks has shifted from mergers and acquisitions to organic growth – attracting and retaining good customers. This white paper describes how to apply customer value to the retail banking business model as a continuous loop of insight, action, assessment and learning for continuous improvement. It also proves the advantage of a more interactive view of customer value.

Financial institutions must strengthen their anti-money laundering programs to identify and report suspicious activity, meet new regulatory mandates and manage compliance risk. Read this white paper to learn how SAS Anti-Money Laundering can help you detect unknown behavior patterns, gain a clearer view into transactions and report suspicious activity.

In light of the global economic slowdown, executives responsible for putting banking on a safer, more promising footing need to ensure they do so armed with the right facts and analysis. A comprehensive Business Analytics framework provides all decision makers with critical insight, not only into what happened in the past, but why it happened, what may happen in the future and how organisations can achieve the best possible outcome when unplanned events occur. This insight can then be used to act confidently and transform the business.  In this uncertain climate, SAS has identified 5 key priorities that should be addressed, highlighting how Business Analytics can help you achieve the best possible outcomes.

An industry best practice for estimating the market risk of trading operations involves projecting profit-and-loss distributions of portfolios of financial instruments over short time horizons and then summarizing that information into single numbers, such as value at risk (VaR) and expected shortfall. Easy to understand and conceptually straightforward, VaR has long been an industry standard for estimating market risk. The means by which it is calculated and used in practice to manage risk, however, present a number of modeling, data management and reporting challenges. This paper addresses ways in which SAS can help clients overcome these challenges to better measure and manage their market risk.

Business intelligence (BI) has evolved beyond isolated tools. Successful BI can only be achieved with the backing of a rigorous process that starts with source data and finishes in a useful form in the hands of the user.

This white paper, written by Butler Group, first provides a brief overview of Butler's vision for the advanced deployment of BI technologies according to this end-to-end process. It then focuses on the SAS Industry Intelligence Solutions for Banking, Insurance and Telecommunications, outlining the industry-specific, model-driven architecture of these advanced BI solutions, which allows them to be implemented quickly and easily.

A global survey of 316 financial services executives conducted in July 2008 by the Economist Intelligence Unit on behalf of SAS reveals that over 70 percent of respondents believe that losses stemming from the credit crisis were largely due to failures in addressing risk management issues. Read this paper to learn more about implications for how financial organizations approach risk management, and about the future of ERM in light of the ongoing credit crisis.

For some time, liquidity risk has been treated as a second-order or consequential risk, in the sense that liquidity issues only arise from problems in other primary risk areas where the risks are not well controlled and managed - such as market, credit or operational risk. With the materialization of the credit crisis, it has become evident that liquidity risk must be measured and managed as an independent risk. This paper will discuss liquidity risk and how SAS Risk Management for Banking gives institutions the ability to address liquidity risk right now, as well as the ability to evolve as needs change over time.

This white paper is an excerpt from the book Credit Risk Assessment: The New Lending System for Borrowers, Lenders, and Investors by Clark R. Abrahams and Mingyuan Zhang. In this paper, the authors survey various opinions concerning the causes of the current financial crisis; its impact, consequences and implications; and the role of loan underwriting, which they see as being at the core of the problem. The authors also share their ideas for a new, comprehensive and systematic approach to credit granting that combines the best of science, proven credit principles and common sense.

To compete successfully amid new technologies and regulations, lenders will need to utilize data mining techniques to develop powerful models that can identify undertapped markets with the most potential.

This paper illustrates how to gather and preprocess the requisite data for such a project and to develop and assess alternative models. Specifically, you will learn how to identify and prioritize potential opportunities for mortgage lending using modeling techniques such as tree models, logistic regression, neural networks and ensemble models.

This paper explores the role that various performance management methodologies can play in helping private equity firms achieve and – ideally – exceed their targeted ROI. Starting with a basic primer about capital markets and the factors that have led to the growth in private equity funds, the paper discusses the importance of integrating various enterprise performance management improvement methodologies and embedding them with analytics of all flavors – especially predictive analytics.

Wealth management organizations must take a data driven, analytical approach toward building trust and loyalty with high net worth clients. This white paper highlights three essential elements needed to create a foundation for successful client communications. Also, it discusses a process for implementing these elements -- resulting in strong client relationships.

Business intelligence (BI) has evolved beyond isolated tools. Successful BI can only be achieved with the backing of a rigorous process that starts with source data and finishes in a useful form in the hands of the user.

This white paper, written by Butler Group, first provides a brief overview of Butler's vision for the advanced deployment of BI technologies according to this end-to-end process. It then focuses on the SAS Industry Intelligence Solutions for Banking, Insurance and Telecommunications, outlining the industry-specific, model-driven architecture of these advanced BI solutions, which allows them to be implemented quickly and easily.

Despite a dizzying rush of fresh technological innovation, old-fashioned customer development strategies remain key determinants of success in the newest round of competition between communication services providers. This white paper explores the potential of "bundling" services in the communications industry. Specifically, it addresses the implications of bundling for the customer experience and how it can impact customer lifetime value.

By examining a project conducted with ConocoPhilips to find early indicators of problems in complex industrial processes, this paper presents an innovative statistical method to aid in diagnosing situations and solving problems, leading to the result of decreasing costs and increasing productivity through predictive maintenance.

This white paper discusses the drivers and the challenges in implementing a longitudinal data system. It then explores how, with SAS' Business Analytics Framework, information gaps among key educational agencies need no longer exist, and decision makers can be armed with the accurate data they need to make proactive decisions and effective education policies.

This is a thought leadership paper by Mark David Milliron for education that describes the need to focus on fostering critical, creative, social and courageous learners ready and willing to face our challenges, build our economies, lead our companies and transform our schools. 

This paper describes how colleges and universities can use strategic enrollment management to improve relationships with students, alumni, donors and others. You will learn about the importance of information in each phase of the enrollment management life cycle, and about the specific benefits that strategic enrollment management can provide.

Technology is becoming increasingly important in education as instructors and institutions begin employing enterprise intelligence systems to answer difficult questions about efficiency and effectiveness in ways they never thought possible. This paper, written by Mark David Milliron, Ph.D., outlines 10 important insights for educators that will become more important as technology and education continue to grow and interact.

On-demand services such as Amazon.com and TiVo have driven the expectation that technology will be used to better enable teaching, learning and institutional management. These services also have driven the expectation that institutions will use "insight" -- enterprise intelligence systems, data mining and predictive analytics -- to make a difference in how they teach and reach students. This paper, written by Mark David Milliron, Ph.D., tracks a similar movement toward insight in other industries and examines its implications in the world of education.

Data integration, risk assessment and quantification of uncertainty are key issues in petroleum exploration and development. Oil companies are being forced to explore in more geologically complex and remote areas to exploit deeper hydrocarbon deposits. As the problems become too complex in areas of intrinsically poor data quality, and the cost associated with poor predictions (dry holes) increases, the need for proper integration of disciplines, data fusion, risk reduction and uncertainty management become very important. SAS Analytics provide potential answers to questions related to risk and uncertainty, as well as endorse reserves information and ensure that exploitation plans are adhered to in accordance to predefined targets. With SAS Analytics, you can use a plethora of upstream data to empower effective, efficient and timely decisions that affect reserves exploitation.

By examining a project conducted with ConocoPhilips to find early indicators of problems in complex industrial processes, this paper presents an innovative statistical method to aid in diagnosing situations and solving problems, leading to the result of decreasing costs and increasing productivity through predictive maintenance.

Activity-based costing (ABC) has transformed from a tool that simply improves the accuracy of cost computations to one that adds immeasurable value to forward-looking government organizations. This white paper explores the transformation of ABC from a manufacturing tool to a management practice. You will also learn about the relationship between ABC and performance management. The paper also includes two real-world case studies.

Government agencies are facing a human capital crisis where CHCOs and managers will need to be more strategic and gain a more holistic view of the work force to support the agency mission. This paper presents how to align the human capital strategy with organizational goals, address workforce demands, mitigate workforce risks, proactively respond to changing workforce demographics, plan for change, and synchronize financial and operational workforce strategies. 

Government departments and agencies at all levels must demonstrate transparency, accountability and effectiveness. The bottom line is that funding is now tied to the clear demonstration of results. This paper explores how departments and agencies are defining meaningful measures and incorporating performance management methodologies to understand program effectiveness, drive performance improvements and realize significant cost savings.

Taxpayers are requiring more financial accountability from all levels of government. In addition, government has been scrutinizing its own business practices. Many agencies and departments are attempting to connect services delivered with program funding through performance-based budgeting (PBB). This white paper discusses approaches and techniques that government agencies can use to implement a successful PBB program. You will also learn about the benefits of PBB, including an improved focus on mission and goals instead of revenues and expenses.

In June 2008, SAS brought together executives and consultants across a range of federal agencies to discuss their experiences with performance management initiatives. Some were planning and performance management executives within government agencies. Some were business or IT consultants working with federal agencies.  From all of their accounts, three key themes emerged. Successful performance management initiatives must realign the cultural framework, set the strategic vision and establish the supporting information infrastructure. This paper explores issues and best practices around performance management in government from the people who live and breathe it every day.
 

For state governments, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is creating unprecedented management challenges in reporting, transparency and accountability. To meet the President's five crucial objectives for the stimulus funding, governors, state budget officers, controllers and stimulus czars can apply a business analytics approach to managing grants; SAS for recovery optimization and management for state governments provides data integration, reporting and advanced analytics that can be quickly deployed to complement existing grants management systems with minimum disruption.

By examining a project conducted with ConocoPhilips to find early indicators of problems in complex industrial processes, this paper presents an innovative statistical method to aid in diagnosing situations and solving problems, leading to the result of decreasing costs and increasing productivity through predictive maintenance.

This case study describes how SAS helped the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care achieve a solution to predict hip and knee replacement demand – enabling the Ministry to solve what had become a crisis in long wait-times for the surgery. Based on powerful SAS® Forecast Server, this solution now provides the forecasts that guide Ontario’s ongoing investment in orthopedic staff, facilities and services.

Canada offers a basic foundation of universal-access healthcare. However, the demand for complex-system analysis has never been greater to assist healthcare management professionals, at all levels, to provide evidence-based, forward-looking healthcare delivery. This paper argues that health authorities that adopt an analytics-based approach to executing their mandates are better positioned to deliver needs-based, quality care today and to anticipate and meet needs that are likely to arise tomorrow.

Because the insurance industry relies so heavily on predicting future costs, more and more insurers are using predictive modeling technology to make better predictions about risks and expenses. This white paper discusses the uses of predictive modeling in each of the four primary business areas of the insurance industry: actuarial, marketing, underwriting and claims. Ultimately, the paper aims to provide a basic understanding of the industry's current modeling strategy.

In October 2005, the U.S. Department of Treasury released the final ruling that life Insurance and annuity companies must implement money-laundering prevention programs and comply with Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) guidelines by May 2006. This white paper takes a brief look at ways SAS Anti-Money Laundering is designed to help these companies comply with regulations. You will learn about SAS' ability to detect a variety of suspicious activities.

Business intelligence (BI) has evolved beyond isolated tools. Successful BI can only be achieved with the backing of a rigorous process that starts with source data and finishes in a useful form in the hands of the user.

This white paper, written by Butler Group, first provides a brief overview of Butler's vision for the advanced deployment of BI technologies according to this end-to-end process. It then focuses on the SAS Industry Intelligence Solutions for Banking, Insurance and Telecommunications, outlining the industry-specific, model-driven architecture of these advanced BI solutions, which allows them to be implemented quickly and easily.

The fiercely competitive insurance industry faces spiraling operational costs, increasing regulatory pressures and rising claim settlement costs against a background of economic uncertainty. This white paper explores how SAS Analytics can help insurance companies use their data proactively to better understand their businesses, detect areas for improvement and take remedial action, as well as forecast ahead and plan more proactively for the future in order to protect and grow their market share, despite difficult conditions.

Based on a 2007 survey of more than 100 insurance professionals, this report uncovers the true size and scope of today's claims fraud activity. You'll learn best practices for combating insurance fraud, methods for overcoming common obstacles and new tools/technologies for optimized detection and prevention efforts.