Accenture and SAS plan to expand their strategic relationship byjointly developing, implementing, and managing predictive analyticssolutions, a first for both companies.

As part of the expansion, the two companies intend to invest inthe development of solutions focused on industry-specificpredictive analytics applications, starting with the financialservices, healthcare, and public service sectors as well ascross-industry solutions in the customer and enterprise managementdomains. They also plan to begin delivering sophisticatedanalytical capabilities as a managed service.

In forming the Accenture SAS Analytics Group, the companiesintend to bring together Accenture's industry and functionalbusiness knowledge with SAS's analytics solutions and capabilitiesto help companies and government organizations understand andimplement predictive analytics solutions. Predictive analyticstakes the information made available through standard analyticstoday and combines it with more sophisticated statistical modeling,forecasting, and optimization techniques to anticipate the impacton business outcomes.

"Our enhanced relationship with SAS is a key element ofAccenture's strategy of aggressively addressing the opportunitiesaround the next generation of analytics," says William D. Green,Accenture's chairman & CEO. "Companies that use predictiveanalytics to derive actionable insights from data and use thoseinsights to shape decisions can improve business outcomes andsubstantially outperform competitors over the long term."

Jim Goodnight, CEO at SAS, adds, "In our long experienceproviding analytic insights to our customers, we've never seenleaders so readily adopting analytic approaches across theirorganizations. The Accenture SAS Analytics Group will help thesecompanies take their business results to the next level by applyingbest-of-breed predictive analytics and best practices to complexquestions and decisions."

The Accenture SAS Analytics Group plans to focus initially ondeveloping a series of predictive solutions for the financialservices industry, including banking and insurance; healthcareservices, including payer/provider and pharmaceuticals; as well asthe public sector, in areas such as federal and human services. Inaddition, cross-industry functional solutions are expected to startwith customer acquisition and retention as well as enterpriseanalytics.

Plans also call for the formation of joint analytics showcasesin multiple locations, starting with Chicago, London, Milan, andShanghai, where the companies intend to demonstrate their newindustry and functional predictive analytics capabilities toclients.

"During previous downturns, companies that thrived used datainsights to produce lasting competitive advantage," says Dave Rich,managing director, Accenture Analytics. "Companies today can usepredictive analytics to gain deeper insight that has not beenpreviously obtainable, allowing decisions to be made more quicklyand business performance to be improved."