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SAS Promotion Optimization is a comprehensive planning solution that allows retailers to maximize margin and revenue by accurately determining which items to promote, in which locations, at what price points and via which promotional vehicles. Leveraging SAS' advanced demand modeling and mathematical optimization techniques lets any retailer -- from food, drug and hard goods to mass, apparel and specialty -- accurately determine incremental lift from planned promotions. They can then develop and implement optimal promotions, support inventory planning decisions and maximize return on marketing investment.

"The relevance of a solution that helps retailers meet revenue and margin goals through effective promotional planning was highlighted by the promotion-heavy holiday season we just witnessed," said Lori Schafer, vice president, SAS global retail practice. "A promotion optimized for timing, pricing and placement can have significant impact on product demand and, consequently, revenue and profitability."

SAS Promotion Optimization helps retailers:

-- Analyze the effectiveness of promotional events.

-- Understand the impact on revenue and margin of promoting products through different vehicles.

-- Understand demand patterns.

-- Determine base volume and expected lift in demand and revenue.

-- Decide how much to discount items based on vendor-offered promotional costs and sales targets.

-- Reconcile expected promotional revenue and margin with category financial plans.

Powerful "what-if" scenarios

SAS Promotion Optimization provides retailers with powerful "what-if" capabilities that help determine the best set of products to promote to meet category objectives. It also assesses the impact of promotions through an on-demand promotional forecast that can be fed into replenishment systems to reduce promotional out-of-stocks. What-if capabilities help retailers understand how space on promotional vehicles, such as circulars and displays, relates to performance. They also help retailers evaluate the impact of vendor-offered promotions on revenue, margin and sales. The solution enables marketers and merchandisers to determine what categories provide the largest ROI on circulars and other marketing vehicles to optimize marketing spending.

SAS customers include hundreds of leading retailers worldwide, such as Bakers Footwear, Brooks Brothers, Burger King, Carrefour, Casino, Casual Male, The Children's Place, Circuit City, Fakta, Federated Department Stores, Karstadt, Kohl's, Li & Fung Retailing Group, The Limited, Lowe's Companies, Luxottica Retail, Marks & Spencer, Newport News, Office Depot, Sainsbury's, Sport Chalet, Staples, Tesco, Too Inc., Waitrose Limited, Wal-Mart, Williams-Sonoma and 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. SAS is demonstrating its retail intelligence solutions in NRF Booth #111.

About SAS

SAS is the market leader in providing a new generation of business intelligence software and services that create true enterprise intelligence. SAS solutions are used at 40,000 sites - including 96 of the top 100 companies on the FORTUNE Global 500(R) - to develop more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; to enable better, more accurate and informed decisions; and to drive organizations forward. SAS is the only vendor that completely integrates leading data warehousing, analytics and traditional BI applications to create intelligence from massive amounts of data. For three decades, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know(R). Visit us at www.sas.com.