Business Case for purchasing SAS VA

[Hoggy]

Hi SAS VA people

Anyone out there in VA land built a business case for getting SAS VA that they would be willing to share?

Cheers
Dave

[ShaneGibson_OptimalBI]

Hey Dave

We haven't got around to it but we have been planning to do one for a while.

Happy to collaborate on one if it will help?

Cheers

Shane

[PeterWijers]

Hey Dave,

I prepared a demo for the management team together with one of their technical sales guys, and that was enough to convince them buying SAS VA.

Sadly for you, I did not need a business case but only had to write the investment proposal.

Greetings and good luck…

[ShaneGibson_OptimalBI]

Good point, we see a lot of customers deciding to buy SAS VA based on playing with it and a sexy demo.

[MohammadFayaz]

I think the demos with a lot of examples available in SAS.com is enough to convince anyone who wants analytic !

[Quentin]

I'm curious, when you say demos, are you talking about the demos using canned data provided by SAS:

  http://www.sas.com/software/visual-analytics/demos/all-demos.html

Or were you able to get a short demo license from SAS (perhaps to a VA instance hosted on the SAS cloud?) so that you could upload some of your own data, and demonstrate how it could be analyzed using VA?  If I were pitching VA internally, would be nice to take something we have done in Stored Process Web App or Web Report Studio that management is already familiar with, and show how the functionality might be improved in VA land.

[PeterWijers]

Hi Quentin,

Some of the functionality I did show while using the demo environment from SAS.  You can use it for free via the web-link on the SAS VA webpage.

Yes I also used some standard demo stuff, because it showed the effects that I was looking for, assuming that the management is smart enough to see it in use for our company.

A presentation with several screenshots also clears out what it could do, with the right explanation.

I also got support from a Technical Sales Person, loading some of our data to present typical internal issue's.  (December last year)

Here in Holland, SAS really supported me in preparing a good demo.

We even recorded the way we worked to show this as a demo movie.

Now they even have light mobile test servers that you can get for several weeks, to prove your concept internally.

I got one for free 2 week to test the conversion from VA 6.1 linux to VA 6.2 win8.   (juni 2013)

I am sure that there are options to prepare this.

Greetings  Peter

[Quentin]

Good info, thanks much Peter.

[ShaneGibson_OptimalBI]

Oh love the idea about recording the demo for future use, nice!

[ShaneGibson_OptimalBI]

We do this for prospects on this side of the world.

We have SAS VA AWS instances we stand up and use our partner license for short term Proof of Concept engagements (1 week etc).

We have found plumbing in a companies data and then having the results turn up on the execs ipad really shows the value of the SAS VA platform.

[Quentin]

Makes sense, Shane.  I would think presenting the company's own data would make for a much better demo with quick engagement.

Even with the EBI stuff I've been doing (we don't have VA yet ...)  nothing makes me happier during demonstration of a new web report than when someone says "wait, what's going on there?  Can you drill down on that..."

[ShaneGibson_OptimalBI]

I commiserate with you (Im doing a BI Dashboard implementation right now, so glad its dead and SAS VA is the new world)

[SASBIROX]

I sadly have to agree.  I started a BI Dashboard demonstration in 9.4 and it was so clunky compared to VA.  I'm already spoiled.

[ShaneGibson_OptimalBI]

Yip we are doing a BI Dashboard implementation for a Customer at the mo and every-time we go to build something we think wish we were using VA

[MohammadFayaz]

I present canned data demos for some managers. They are really surprised !