Cases from the Field

This chapter focuses on how some companies have set up their Business Intelligence Competency Centers (BICC), what their motives were, and what they think is important to focus on while implementing a BICC. In 2003, Mutual & Federal (M&F) together with SAS embarked on a strategic program that was tasked to implement an enterprise‐wide management information solution using the SAS Insurance Intelligence Solution. SAS was instrumental in helping M&F define its Business Intelligence (BI) strategy and set up the BI department. A management consulting firm was also involved to address the organizational change management aspects that went along with the creation of the BI department. As a provider of BI and IT platforms to the public administration of the Piedmont Region, CSI‐Piemonte has included SAS in its solutions since 1980. With more than 70 BI analysts and developers, CSI delivers SAS solutions to thousands of end users throughout Piedmont's public administration offices. The competency center of CSI offers help through a centralized call center that can dispatch SAS specialists by phone or in person throughout Piedmont. An SAS customer for more than 20 years, Belgium's KBC Bank & Insurance Group relies on SAS for dozens of data mining, data manipulation, and BI applications throughout the company. At KBC, SAS applications are developed and maintained within the company's business units where the domain expertise resides. However, the support for those developers and their end users comes from the BICC.