Every year SAS invites people like us, analysts and influencers, to join company executives in Steamboat Springs, CO for intensive briefings and, if you’re so inclined, a couple of sweet powder skiing days. If you know me at all, you know I barely stepped outdoors. If you want a report on ski conditions, ask Nikki! Still, the trip was well worth my while. SAS executives are always candid and forthcoming, and gave us a good overview of the state of the SAS union, along with success stories and go-forward plans.

SAS is privately held, and while it may not be the largest privately held company (although it is the largest privately held software company), its employees are certainly among the happiest. In fact, Fortune magazine has rated SAS as the best company to work for in America for the past two years. That means it outranked legendary great companies like Wegmans (#3), Google (#4), and Zappos (#6). That’s some serious competition. In Fortune’s words, “Its perks are epic… “

This is significant because financial results have certainly not been sacrificed on the altar of happy employees. In fact, SAS continues to grow world-wide, with annual revenue increases of 6.7% (or 5.2% if you adjust for fluctuations in the value of the US Dollar). SAS customer satisfaction and loyalty statistics are equally impressive. Ninety-three percent of its customers are satisfied with its products and 89% are satisfied with their relationship with SAS. A somewhat mind-boggling 92% report they would be likely to recommend SAS to colleagues and 94% are likely to recommend SAS for renewal. Apparently, happy employees make solid products.

Even though retail represents just below 5% of the company’s aggregate revenue, its market share has grown quite a bit over the past eighteen months. Enhancements to its space management product (mobile, mobile and more mobile), adoption of its allocation and size optimization modules, and of course the continued momentum of Customer Intelligence have brought the company back into the forefront of merchants’ minds. Retailers are starting to use SAS for what has been its strength in other industries: Customer Intelligence derived from both traditional analytics and new media for intentions and insights. The success of SAS Retail Head Lori Schafer’s book Branded(co-authored with retailing legend Bernie Brennan), coupled with re-invigorated marketing efforts have lifted visibility significantly. In Europe, the company has seen an uptake in use of its analytics by Loss Prevention professionals coupled with a renewed interest in forecasting across all regions. Finally, the retail group has seen sizable wins in markdown, size, and regular price and promotion optimization.

While it has always been near and dear to marketing departments everywhere, SAS faces stiff competition from both Oracle and IBM, who have bought and built out their marketing solution platforms over the past eighteen months. The CMO is in ascendancy — even in retail — and big guns are challenging SAS on the field of play. SAS execs argue that IBM’s entry has been good for business. It sheds light on the CMO’s challenges, and SAS executives report significant new sales increases. SAS also remains content to be uninvolved in the stack (database and hardware supporting its platform).

As is pretty typical in retail, many customers did not want to be mentioned by name — they view their activities as giving them a competitive advantage. Suffice to say that work on localized, optimized assortments and price continues, with continuous improvements at client companies. In some cases initiatives are new, in others, they are competitive takeaways.

As always, we leave vendor evaluations to others and recommend retailers evaluate how any one technology supports their specific business. Our focus remains in understanding how retail winners use enabling technologies to support the success of their business objectives. We can say for certain that companies like SAS are helping those winners achieve their objectives and we can also say SAS is doing so without breaking the backs of its employees, with virtually no outsourcing. And that’s a good thing. It was definitely worth the ride to Steamboat to find these things out.