DENVER – SAS Institute is no stranger to fraud, and after many years of experience in the space, the company is creating a dedicated fraud division called the fraud and security intelligence division.
The new SAS division will focus on the company’s fraud and cybersecurity portfolio. The division will be aligning 400 employees in 25 countries across numerous teams for a more organized approach. The new division will also align with SAS’ risk and Internet of Things divisions, and it will bring SAS software developers and tech professionals together from across fraud, compliance, and security domains.
As for why now, Stu Bradley, VP of Fraud and Security Intelligence, told press at the company’s annual Global Forum conference that it made sense considering SAS’ experience in the area.
“We are building upon something that is already really successful. [Fraud] has been one of our fastest growing portfolios in the last 10 years,” he said.
Bradley will be leading the new SAS division. He has almost two decades worth of experience fighting fraud and abuse, and he was most recently SAS’s vice president of cybersecurity solutions. He has been with SAS for nine years.
The creation of this new division, like the creation of the IoT division in late 2017, comes in part due to the focus on organization from SAS chief technology officer, and as of January 2018, also the company’s chief operating officer, Oliver Schabenberger.
When speaking to Canadian media, he described the fraud division in a similar manner to the IoT division – as in it is something the company hasn’t done before organizationally, but a shift in alignment that makes a lot of sense to him. And while it is a new approach, Schabenberger looks at this alignment as a great growth opportunity.
“Digital transformation raises questions about fraud and security intelligence everywhere,” he said, referencing the many SAS solutions such as anti-money laundering. “And now we’re building new fraud solutions, and there is incredible opportunity for us to focus internally, to align around sales, delivery, product offerings, and to also push, for example, into law enforcement. We see great opportunities based on the platform we have.”
As for SAS partners, David Septoff, CEO of Zencos, a U.S.-based firm with a growing Canadian presence, told Canadian media that this type of move validates the way his own business is moving.
“When you think about a lot of the way the business world is, when people hear about AMI and fraud, they immediately think financial services. Well no, it really cuts across all types of verticals,” Septoff explained. “From our perspective, the focus of SAS in this area allows us to be assured that they kind of investments that we’re making in this area are the right investments, and it gives us people to team up with to talk about the kinds of solutions that we would put forward.”
In Canada, SAS Canada president Cameron Dow, sees a real opportunity around fraud and financial crimes. He explained that in Canada, SAS has traditionally had a lot of success in anti-money laundering and that there seems to be a willingness for public sector entities to deal with fraud or tax evasion.
“From a country perspective, [putting everything under one roof] makes it a lot easier to engage the resources because they’re not distributed across multiple groups within SAS. The second thing is accelerating some of our development, especially on our new Viya platform. They’re adding resources, it’s not just a reorganization under one team. They’re actually adding significant recourses, which is good for us and good for the Canadian market. The demand is increasing so we need to show support,” Dow said.
To that end, SAS plans to add another 100 employees to the fraud and security intelligence division over the next three years, with 50 of those new positions expected by the end of 2018.
