SAS appoints Desan Naidoo as Managing Director Southern Africa

Naidoo to drive SAS’s vision of analytics for social and business impact 

SAS today announced the appointment of Desan Naidoo as the company’s Managing Director Southern Africa responsible for setting and managing the company’s strategy for the region.

Naidoo’s focus will be to bring SAS’s technology to life by highlighting the incredible potential analytics has to make a positive impact on both social and business issues. He will drive SAS’s focus on its stakeholders by continuously fostering improved relationships with clients, partners and the company’s wider community.

Additionally, SAS places great value on the importance of its staff globally and Naidoo will ensure that the company also drives a strong emphasis on employees locally.

In the Forrester Wave: Big Data Predictive Analytics Solutions: Q1 2013 report, SAS was identified as a clear leader in the predictive analytics environment – it is through this leadership that it is able to make a tangible contribution to the way government and businesses operate and the solutions they implement.

“We live in a world where we have an enormous amount of information at our disposal. What we do with the information – how we analyse it and incorporate elements such as predictive capabilities, forecasting and optimisation – has the potential to lift whatever we do out of the mundane and into the extraordinary,” explains Naidoo.

“Imagine the power we will have at our fingertips when, in the medical environment for example, information is being utilised to proactively monitor and identify matters such as the availability of medical personnel, flagging possible disease outbreaks or even managing medical supplies.

“Another example is, from a crime point of view, we can be smarter in the way we bring together all the data available locally, regionally and nationally through analytics. This will enable government to track trends and hotspots and put plans in place for a possible risk area before it becomes a crisis.”

According to Riad Gydien, SAS vice president for Middle East and Africa, Naidoo’s appointment is the perfect fit for the company: “I believe that Desan is the ideal person to ensure the region delivers great value and I am confident in his appointment. His intimate knowledge of SAS and its people as well as his exceptional relationships with partners and clients will stand him in good stead. He excels at driving operational efficiency and is a trusted individual within the organisation.”

Naidoo was appointed at SAS in June 2008 as General Manager: Public Sector and in February 2011 he was promoted to Operations Director. In February 2012 Naidoo he moved to the position of Director Sales Operations and Customer Advocacy MEA. Before joining SAS, he held positions with Novell and Eskom.