Cognos Unveils New Plan-to-Perform Blueprints for Initiative and Strategic Long Range Planning
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-- Cognos Innovation Center to host fall executive Web seminar series to showcase new offerings for customers --
BURLINGTON, Mass., Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management (CPM), today announced it has further expanded its portfolio of Plan-to-Perform Blueprints by adding Initiative Planning and Strategic Long Range Planning models.
The new Blueprint models are based on proven best practices in enterprise planning and define all the necessary technology and process design choices, allowing customers to jump-start new efforts and extend their existing planning, budgeting and forecasting deployments across their organization.
"What Cognos has recognized is that planning is more than just a financial activity -- that it is something that needs to spread across the enterprise and be co-ordinated across multiple departments. However, appreciating that fact and supporting it in principle in the planning software is one thing; supporting it in practice is another. This is where the Cognos Blueprints come in, enabling users to adopt these practices relatively easily," said Philip Howard, technology research director, Bloor Research. "What the Plan-to- Perform Blueprints provide is not just a fast start to implementation but also a way to think about a CPM-based solution. They are good, not just for Cognos, but for the whole CPM industry."
The new Initiative Planning Blueprint covers capital and labor initiatives. It addresses multi-phased project planning for capital intensive undertakings such as adding new manufacturing capacity, and labor intensive plans such as implementing large IT projects. These solutions help companies improve their ability to justify major multi-phased initiatives; forecast capital expenditures associated with each phase; evaluate the impact of changes to the timing and size of capital outlays over the various phases of an initiative; and automatically generate the impact on P/L, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow projections. The Strategic Long Range Planning Blueprint helps companies assess the impact of market growth assumptions, strategic initiatives such as implementing a major new IT project, and external risk such as currency fluctuations on long range revenue and profitability.
ADP Canada, the country's largest provider of payroll and human resource information solutions, has achieved 98% forecast accuracy, faster planning cycles and substantial cost savings through its deployment of Cognos Planning. Financial Information Systems Manager, Bobbi Slater, sees the additional value the Blueprints deliver to customers:
"Major initiatives such as new IT infrastructure or new facilities can be essential ingredients for revenue growth and increase productivity. Managing the financial impact of complex, multi-phased initiatives can be difficult. For customers like us, the Blueprints can provide us with a means to reduce implementation project time and costs, while improving the overall project success rate. They are based on industry best practice, helping finance quickly see the impact of changes in operational plans, and helping departments and functions improve resource allocation in support of company objectives," said Slater.
Beginning Oct. 6th, the Cognos Innovation Center for Performance Management is hosting an executive Web seminar series to introduce the most recent Blueprints. For more information please visit: www.cfo.com/executiveforum/index.cfm/l_eventdetail?webcast=4243732&f=ho me_webcasts
"Finance and functional operation groups such as HR and sales are looking for solutions and disciplines to improve decision making without the risk associated with complex IT projects," said Rich Lanahan, vice president, Planning and Office of Finance Solutions for Performance Management. "Cognos Plan-to-Perform Blueprints provide customers with a tightly integrated environment to connect and synchronize financial and operational plans for greater visibility and enhanced control over future performance."
Developed by the Cognos Innovation Center(TM), the Plan-to Perform Blueprints are targeted, pre-built process models based on proven industry best-practices and designed to accelerate the realization of an integrated, reliable and dynamic planning process across the enterprise.
With the addition of the two new models, Cognos Plan-to-Perform Blueprints are available in 12 process areas including capital projects, discretionary capital expenditures, headcount and compensation, expense planning and control, sales planning and forecasting, strategic financial planning and forecasting, allocations, risk analysis and sales compensation. See: www.cognos.com/innovationcenter/blueprint.html.
ABOUT COGNOS:
Cognos, the world leader in enterprise business intelligence and corporate performance management, delivers software and services that helps companies drive, monitor and understand corporate performance.
Cognos delivers the next level of competitive advantage - Corporate Performance Management (CPM) - achieved through the strategic application of BI on an enterprise scale. Our integrated CPM solution helps customers drive performance through planning; monitor performance through scorecarding; and understand performance through business intelligence.
Cognos serves more than 23,000 customers in over 135 countries. Cognos enterprise business intelligence and performance management solutions and services are also available from more than 3,000 worldwide partners and resellers. For more information, visit the Cognos Web site at www.cognos.com/.
Cognos and the Cognos logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cognos Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
Note to Editors: Copies of previous Cognos press releases and Corporate and product information are available on the Cognos Web site at www.cognos.com/ and at PR Newswire's site at http://www.prnewswire.com/.
Media Contacts:
Carrie Bendzsa
Cognos, 613-738-1440
carrie.bendzsa@cognos.com
Donna Keenan
Lois Paul & Partners, 781-782-5791
donna_keenan@lpp.com
Investor Relations:
John Lawlor
Cognos, 613-738-3503
john.lawlor@cognos.com
Web site: www.cognos.com/
