New & Constantly Improving AI Capabilities Recognized in Canadian Market

For many years Zencos has been an active SAS Partner is the Canadian market. Our strong relationship with SAS Canada has been recognized with awards and invitations to produce workshops that amplify our in-depth knowledge with SAS Viya and advanced analytics techniques, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).

The AI revolution was the SAS Global Forum hot topic. Customers are fascinated by the innovations that this technology offers their business operations. No one is more prepared for this technology than SAS. As such, SAS recently announced they are planning to invest $1 billion into the technology over the next three years because of their belief in the power of AI solutions to change businesses.

AI Must Offer Solid Solutions — Not Just Novel Ideas — to Canadian Firms

In a recent Channel Buzz Canada podcast, Pat Finerty, the SAS Canada/Latin America Vice President of Alliances/Channels, discussed AI in the Canadian market. This technology can easily capture your imagination, but AI must bring solid solutions that are relevant to the organization.

“I continuously refer to that, this revolution that’s happening in artificial intelligence. It needs to be grounded in reality; it needs to be grounded in the ability to execute, but at the same time it is unique because it is ubiquitous [to several industries],” said Pat Finerty in the podcast.

The need to be competitive is what is enticing businesses to explore AI and SAS Viya. Finerty noted that for AI to be applicable, it must offer significant business value, such as delivering better customer outcomes while reducing operational costs.

One of the obstacles to AI success is the ability to join traditional business chores, such as data management, with modern analytics capabilities. SAS and their partners are uniquely poised to answer this need because of SAS’s deep roots with data and analytics. Finerty acknowledges how well Zencos is incorporating AI into our product offerings in the podcast.

“Zencos has been working in advanced analytics for decades, but as of late they have been putting a tremendous focus on building machine learning capabilities into the detection of anomalies and fraud,” noted Finerty. “Now, they see the opportunity to drive even greater value, more precision, and lower false positives by building machine learning loops into their fraud detection capabilities.”

While retailers are the heaviest adopters, the interest in AI is not limited to one vertical. Many other industries, such as manufacturers, healthcare providers, and financial institutions, are also exploring how to apply this technology.

Finerty also noted how SAS Partners are experiencing an uptick in attention due to SAS Viya advanced AI capabilities. He stressed how important it is for partners to respond to customer’s questions and be able to guide them.

“[Zencos] is a company with a very healthy business and yet they feel a sense of urgency that they need to continuously innovate and embed these new [AI] capabilities so that their clients know they are being served to the best way possible,” said Finerty.

Currently, Zencos is exploring powerful ways to further integrate AI into our customer operations. One recent highlight includes helping a large marketing customer to decrease their forecast error rates by more than 15 percent.

Listen to the entire “Getting started with the AI revolution” podcast to gain more insight into empowering your digital transformation.

Learn about SAS Viya in Western Canada

If you are in Canada, you can join one of Zencos’ SAS Visual Analytics workshops. These workshops are designed to teach you how to uncover hidden opportunities, identify vital data relationships, and make more precise decisions to drive your success.

Each three-hour workshop focuses on a different area of the tool. The morning session focuses on SAS Visual Analytics/Visual Statistics, while the afternoon session dives deeper into the SAS Visual Data Mining and Machine Learning toolset. You can register for one or both sessions.

Sign up today for a complimentary workshop.

SAS Canada Recognizes Zencos Service Capabilities

SAS Canada awarded Zencos with the Service Excellence award, which is given to partners who have demonstrated outstanding pre- and post-sales support to SAS customers. It acknowledges the Zencos’ attention to quality on installations and configurations, as well as our consideration for delivery time and costs.

At SAS Global Forum 2018, Zencos received the SAS Canada Channel Delivery Partner of the Year for significant successes in delivering financial services within Canada. Last year, SAS Canada announced their Fraud and Security Intelligence division, which is focused on the SAS’s fraud and cybersecurity portfolio.

We value our partnership with SAS Canada and appreciate knowing that they also value our partnership as well.

Zencos has been a SAS Gold partner and SAS Reseller for over 17 years.