Press Releases Oct. 03, 2007

Hard Rock Hotel and Casino counts on SAS® for Patron Value OptimizationSustaining profitability and growth in the gaming industry with data integration, business intelligence and analytics software
Premier Business Leadership Series, LAS VEGAS (Oct. 03, 2007) — SAS, the leader in business intelligence, announced that Hard Rock Hotel and Casino selected SAS® for Patron Value Optimization to help them maximize loyalty, share of entertainment budget, total value and ROI.
Gaming still brings in a healthy portion of revenue, but rooms, retail, food and beverage, spas and entertainment are increasingly important sources of income. Hard Rock was sitting on a goldmine of information about its patrons and prospects. With disparate systems for each arm of the business, it is difficult to get a complete view of total patron spend. In order to efficiently understand its patron base and conduct strategic marketing campaigns, Hard Rock decision makers needed to be able to constructively use the data it had collected through the years.
“By providing a clearer understanding of individual customers, SAS for Patron Value Optimization is arming Hard Rock decision makers with fact-based insights” said Suzanne Fiero, SAS Industry Development Manager. “With SAS, Hard Rock will be able to more accurately measure, track and predict patron activity and spend across the property, providing a total patron view. This will enable Hard Rock to be more competitive through more targeted marketing and result in an enhanced customer experience. Nothing can surface customer intelligence better than SAS for Patron Value Optimization.”
“We knew by its strong reputation in customer intelligence, SAS is a rocket ship — it is the next shuttle to the moon,” said Dean Boswell, CFO of Hard Rock. “An undisputed industry leader, SAS will get us where we need to go. With its data integration, business intelligence and analytics capabilities, we’re counting on SAS for Patron Value Optimization to enable better, faster decisions.”
Driving this decision to bring in SAS, Hard Rock recently launched expansion plans that will continue during the next two years — doubling the size of casino space, tripling the room number and adding 15,000 square feet of meeting space. With the gaming industry growing at a rate of 20 percent to 30 percent year after year, Hard Rock executives aim to earn the customer loyalty needed to gain a growing share of that wallet, and SAS for Patron Value Optimization will help.
Working with WhiteSand Consulting and Qualex Consulting Services, SAS is delivering gaming specific enterprise intelligence at Hard Rock through the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform, integrating individual technology components in the existing information technology infrastructure into a single, unified system. The result is an information flow that transcends organizational silos, diverse computing platforms and niche tools — and delivers new insights that drive value for an organization.
Today’s announcement was made at The Premier Business Leadership Series, presented by SAS a business conference in Las Vegas that brings together more than 1,000 attendees from the public and private sector to share ideas and knowledge on critical business management issues.
WhiteSand Consulting provides strategy, operations and technology consulting to gaming companies, tribal casinos, developers, racetracks and regulatory agencies throughout the US. WhiteSand Consulting has offices in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, NJ.
Qualex Consulting Services is a premier SAS software solutions services company and SAS Gold Alliance partner. Qualex has worked closely with SAS for several years as the leading implementation partner in the gaming industry and has taken an active role in the development of the SAS gaming solutions. Qualex brings to the gaming industry experience from a wide array of industries that include financial services, insurance, telecommunications, energy, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, retail, healthcare and government agencies since 1995.

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SAS is the leader in business intelligence and analytical software and services. Customers at 43,000 sites use SAS software to improve performance through insight from data, resulting in faster, more accurate business decisions; more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; compliance with governmental regulations; research breakthroughs; and better products and processes. Only SAS offers leading data integration, storage, analytics and business intelligence applications within a comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW® .