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“Business Intelligence is emerging to be a strategic area of investment with in the government organisation as it allows them to transform citizen data into meaningful intelligence to manage citizen expectation and thereby strengthen service delivery to them. Coupled with advanced analytics it is now possible to unearth areas of tax evasion, thereby increase revenues..” Read more on SAS Business Intelligent solutions, in this exclusive interview of egov magazine with Sudipta K. Sen, CEO and MD, SAS Institute (India) Pvt. Ltd.

Please tell us what are some of the SAS software solutions for the public sector? How are these helping governments to increase transparency and efficiency to reach its citizens?

Working with Government organisations to provide enriched citizen experience is our key organisational focus. SAS solutions for government can be categorised in four functional areas: Citizen Intelligence, Organisational Intelligence, Performance Management and Financial Intelligence.

Citizen Intelligence addresses challenges associated with providing single view of citizen, enhancing the service delivery and accessibility, data quality and integration issues etc. Financial Intelligence deals with areas relating to avoiding tax evasion and fraud; activity based management; planning and financial reporting.

Performance Management enables organisations for managing and monitoring their performance against their stated goals with the help of strategy maps, balanced scorecards, and executive dashboards.

Organisational Intelligence helps government organisations in IT management and strategic sourcing.

What, in your opinion, are the major drivers for Business Intelligence solutions in public sector?

Some of the key growth drivers for government organisation to embrace Business Intelligence solutions include:

• Managing information explosion.
• Managing citizen expectations.
• Increasing transparency.
• Avoiding tax evasion and minimising fraud.

Business Intelligence is emerging to be a strategic area of investment with in the government organisation as it allows them to transform citizen data into meaningful intelligence to manage citizen expectation and thereby strengthen service delivery to them. Coupled with advanced analytics it is now possible to unearth areas of tax evasion, thereby increase revenues. Looking at historical data and trend, it is also possible to do predictive modeling which can be a great business driver for ministry of commerce, agriculture etc. At every level of transactions, there is a constant need for the government to ensure public value efficiency, accountability and transparency. The main drivers that ensure this are: tighter strategic and tactical planning; faster, agile and event driven decision making; reporting and compliance; analytics that focus on “how well” rather than “how much” and improved performance and effectiveness impact.

Which are the applications for Government segment, where SAS solutions are being deployed? Please elaborate some of your successful deployments in India?

SAS solutions like performance management, activity-based management, forecasting and predictive analytics, data quality and integration, financial intelligence, citizen intelligence etc. are being effectively used by government bodies across the globe. Some of our global customers are US Census Bureau, Department of Commerce and Treasury, Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Public Service Commission, Prisons and Constabulary, Bureau of Internal Revenue. At present we are working with a lot of government bodies in India as well. In India we have been successfully working with various Government organisations and helping them some of the challenges which they face.

Please tell us about your business intelligence platform. How is SAS integrated business intelligence platform helping the governments to provide consistent and accurate information based on a comprehensive view of the business.

It is absolutely important for government organisations to deploy IT infrastructure which can support their strategic agenda. SAS integrated business intelligence platform helps governments get consistent, accurate and intelligent information for policy and decision  making. SAS platform helps governments gather information/ data from multiple statewide  systems consolidate and monitor the same, convert this information in to intelligence by  analytics and forecasting, thereby giving them a comprehensive view of the national policies  and state of affairs. SAS enables government organisation to have accurate fact based  decisions thereby further strengthening the effectiveness.

What role SAS is playing in fulfi lling the e-Government vision of the Indian government?

Results-oriented, citizen-centric and reform-minded have become a mandate and not just  rhetoric. The government needs to effi ciently and effectively speedy information and services  to the public. It is important for Indian e-Government initiatives to not only provide  ‘access to information’ to citizens but engage citizens meaningfully for intelligent interactions. This requires clear understanding of who the citizen is, what relationships he has with  multiple government organisations etc. We see a great opportunity for SAS in working with Government organisation to equip them with required intelligent infrastructure which can  take e-Government from ‘Information Access Phase’ to ‘Intelligent Interaction Phase’ with citizens.

What are the challenges and opportunities in working with the public sector in developing countries especially India?

We are pleased with the governments’ focus on using IT for improving service delivery to  citizens and we believe they would be successfully executing against their stated goals. I  believe it is important for industry to raise the level of awareness of deploying Intelligent IT infrastructure which

can further accelerate the required transformation. What are some of your future plans in e-Government sector?

We are excited by the opportunity presented by this sector. We have a focused strategy of  working closely with the governments and enable them with required intelligent infrastructure for them to taking fact based decisions. SAS’ 30 years of experience in working  closely with this segment coupled with industry backed solutions, positions ideally to serve  this segment.

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