SAS' business in Malaysia may grow 20pc this year

by **hlk** Mon 05 Sep 2011, 08:17

SINGAPORE: SAS Institute Inc, the world's largest private software company, may see its Malaysian business grow by 20 per cent by year-end, driven mainly by higher demand for its analytic software.

SAS develops software that helps companies to predict customer behaviour, buying trends as well as to detect fraud. It also has solutions that help companies to reduce wastages and optimise profits.

"For the first half this year, the result has been very good. We grew above 10 per cent. But we expect most of the sales to come in the second half, it may hit beyond 20 per cent by end of this year," said SAS managing director for Malaysia Andrew Tan in a Business Times interview.

He added that there are a lot of solutions that have huge growth potential - including its fraud detection solutions, preventive plant maintenance and reliability management solutions.

"Not all the banks are using fraud detection solutions, so I think the potential is there for us. The potential is also there for us in insurance companies and government institutions.

"With fraud, once it happens, if you only find out about it only after the event, and the cost to the organisation will be very high. We believe in are in the good position to help. For example, on credit card fraud, our solutions can help banks to detect the transaction when the transaction is still in the process of approval. This can help companies save a lot of money," said Tan.

As for its preventive plant maintenance and reliability solutions, Tan sees these solutions fit nicely for oil and gas firms.

"Malaysia is an oil exploration country. In the oil and gas side, theres a lot of plants and refineries, these are the companies that churns millions and millions of rinngit. One thing that they cant afford is to have a failure in their plant, because once they stop their operation. The opportunity cost is very high. We see our solutions helping the oil and gas players," he added.

While the potential is tremendous for the company, Tan's main concern is the lack of awareness on analytic solutions in industries outside the banking sector.