Member Spotlight: SAS Institute

With its open, cloud-native AI, analytics, and data management platform, 赛仕软件 Institute empowers its customers to uncover valuable data insights, enabling them to understand and optimize their operations. By identifying successes and addressing areas for improvement, SAS guides organizations toward more informed decision-making and drives impactful change.

We sat down with SAS Institute’s Country Manager in Finland, Pasi Helenius who guided us to the data-driven world of SAS and how it feels to be in Epicenter Helsinki.

With over 40+ years of analytics innovation, what is the next step for SAS, especially here in Finland?

“AI has been and will obviously be at the core of everything we do. Amidst the rise of Generative AI, we see a growing need for governance and implementation capabilities for AI and for methods to ensure we use AI responsibly and ethically and make transparent decisions.” Pasi says and adds:

“At SAS, we have been working with fraud prevention?and compliance as well as risk management for 40+ years and see an increased need for this expertise across all industries, especially within the Financial Services and Public sector in Finland. For instance, there is a huge potential to save taxpayers money in Finland by sharing data between authorities and using data better."

So what does that mean in general? SAS enables companies to make better and faster data-driven decisions. SAS has data and AI solutions for variety of industries, from the financial sector to public/government and healthcare, telecom and media, energy and utilities, manufacturing, etc, and even sports analytics solutions. Just have a look at how AI and analytics can improve team performance like with the French National Rugby team or help provide a better fan experience like with Orlando Magic and Royal Dutch Football Federation (KNVB) or help British Rowing’s membership grow. If you’re into sports, you might be interested in taking a look at Batting Lab | SAS – how data can be used to inspire kids to understand data by improving their performance at bat.

Making better and faster decisions in healthcare saves lives. With 140 million births each year, more than 11 million women and their babies could be affected by pre-eclampsia globally. The condition claims the lives of 70,000 expectant mothers and 500,000 babies every year worldwide. In groundbreaking research conducted together with University College of Dublin machine learning and AI are used to detect pre-eclampsia, potentially saving ten of thousands of lives each year. Another example would be SAS's cooperation together with 英国剑桥大学 to assess the kidney biopsy images with AI and automation to improve the accuracy, reliability, and efficiency of kidney transplants.

Pasi shares further examples how data and AI can be used to transform the lives of citizens/tax payers: “Data can and should play a powerful role in digitalization efforts on the government side. As an example, we helped the Inland Revenue in New Zealand to transform their operations so that the customers are at the center of the agency’s work, improving collaboration and data sharing with other parts of the tax ecosystem, boosting policy agility via reimagining business processes and adopting digital technologies. Core to much of this was smarter use of data.“ And continues: “Just think about the potential of preventing tax payer’s money going to fraudsters – also in Finland we could save hundreds of millions.”

SAS believes that curiosity is at the heart of human progress, a value that Epicenter truly believes in as well, but how does this show in their company culture?

“SAS employees are problem solvers. Whatever the business challenges their clients might have, SAS ensures that they can use data to make better decisions. SAS allows their employees a great deal of freedom to organize their work and to explore the best possible solutions at work and personal lives.” Pasi states.

For example, Pasi started as a trainee while still doing his studies but after fifteen years at the company, he has grown professionally and maintained a healthy work-life balance.

According to Pasi: “SAS has a very flat organization with a lot of flexibility. Meaning, that you can set your agenda and build the day you feel works the best while you are encouraged to come up with new ideas. Decision-making is straight forward and managers are in the SAS culture to support you.” and continues:

“Another good example of our culture is when I started here on a trainee program, while I was finalizing university studies and me and my wife just had a baby, so I thought after the trainee program my employment would not be continued. But instead I received huge congratulations alongside with paternity leave and a new contract. Therefore, I can say that SAS genuinely cares about employees, and they feel valued at SAS”, says Pasi.

It is clear that at SAS to be curious you have to have passion for what you do and that SAS provides an environment that encourages people to be curious and creative. This is nicely put in SAS Institute’s founder Dr. James Goodnights’s quote:

“95 percent of my assets drive out of the gate every evening. It’s my job to maintain a work environment that keeps them coming back every morning. The creativity they bring to SAS Institute is a competitive advantage for us.”

Why did the SAS Institute choose Epicenter as its office location in Helsinki?

?“For me, the best thing is to see our employees coming into the office and working together across different departments or functions” ?Pasi states and continues:

“Epicenter is a lively innovation center right in the heart of the city. I think the atmosphere and community of Epicenter play well with SAS’s ambition to keep revolutionizing Data and AI space. When you walk in Epicenter you are inspired by the innovative companies that work here and when you step out of the building you are in the hustle of the city. You get a feeling that things are happening around you!”

Moreover, before moving to Epicenter, there was a feeling that people were working in silos. As Pasi says: “In addition, we can combine a modern private office that is sized for SAS’s staff and allows teams to work together without boundaries set by the facility. This combined with inspiring co-working spaces and flexibility is just what SAS needs.”

To end the interview, Pasi jokes that "I don't think we have ever had "afterworks" before, but now in the two weeks we have been here, I think there has been at least three of them."

Welcome to Epicenter SAS Institute!