The Joy of SAS Enterprise Guide

SAS Enterprise Guide is hard to describe, difficult to pigeonhole, a very powerful tool that is the “Excel” of SAS, and the closest thing there is to an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for SAS.   Since the release of SAS 9, Enterprise Guide is the new face of SAS for general purpose use in a variety of situations.   Enterprise Guide is now included with desktop SAS for Windows, sold with almost every BI Server sale, bundled with many of the SAS Solutions, and loved by users at many companies I have visited.   It does have shortcomings, but it is  capable of a breadth of  work that no other tool is capable of performing (at least that I have ever seen!)   Simply stated, it leverages many of the old and new strengths of SAS in an easy to use  desktop application.

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Listen, document, verify, analyze… Repeat!

In my many visits to a wide array of companies, I have noticed a common theme amongst fellow programmers, analysts, and statisticians. After years of lengthy study and practice to become expert at their area, they often express frustration and consternation for those who are less focused on the effective and proper use of data in decision-making. Your potential customers in the various areas of the business often appear to make decisions with minimal use of analysis or even data points, sometimes appearing to ignore or misunderstand your work available to them. Many of these “gut” people in the business are managers, entrepreneurs, or MBA’s.  They are frequently much more willing to take on the risk of using a very simple analysis to make big decisions.   This doesn’t mean they like it that way, they are often forced to face the fact that time is money and lack of prompt action can be very costly versus staying the current course.   This is where you can come in with just a few more skills and really become a star…

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