BURLINGTON, MA, August 11, 2003—Bedford, Freeman, & Worth, a New York-based higher education publishing house, recognized a critical need to revamp its project planning process. Prior to implementing Cognos (NASDAQ:COGN; TSX:CSN) Enterprise Planning Series, the company relied on a series of spreadsheets maintained by the CFO's office to do financial planning. Cognos Enterprise Planning Series streamlines the performance management cycle, bringing together planning, budgeting, forecasting, consolidations, reporting, and financial analytics to eliminate the inconsistencies that constrain effective decision-making.

"Maintaining spreadsheets was labor-intensive, not just for the finance department, but for the editors. Editors were dedicating three to four days a quarter to data entry in support of the budgeting and planning process," said Larry Jankovic, CFO of Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishing. "At the end of the process, the editors and financial managers did not have the right information and it was not possible to see in a single view all the elements impacting the profitability of a project."

Since implementation, there have been major changes in the way the company makes planning decisions. Editors enter information throughout a project's life cycle - and more importantly, view the same information. They are also able to see the true costs related to a project (book and supplements) and the associated revenue. Editors can model assumptions through a "what if" analysis, and explore the impact on projected costs and revenue through time. This work is now an established part of the long-range, project-control process.

Overall, there has been a significant improvement in the project investment decisions. Since planning decisions now are made on the total profitability of the book plus the ancillary materials (i.e., the project), costs are saved on ancillary materials and the company can choose to commit to those ancillary materials that positively impact profitability of the project. The planning process also leads decisions on which disciplines to invest in. Essentially, individual decisions on books have been replaced with more intelligent decisions on projects and groups of projects for investment. Using Cognos has resulted in a dramatic improvement in profitability for the division.

"Faster business cycles, greater complexity, and intense pressure from investors for positive business results all impel finance executives to look beyond their current budgeting process. Executives are looking for new business capabilities that will allow them to plan in a more collaborative, de-centralized way, link strategic objectives to operational targets and actions, and increase the levels of ownership and accuracy of the business plans," said David Kleinhans, vice president, Enterprise Planning, Cognos. "Cognos Enterprise Planning Series is giving organizations like Bedford, Freeman, & Worth a fast track to achieving corporate performance management."

About Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishing Group:
Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishing Group L.L.C. is a confederation of three unique publishing houses: Bedford/St. Martin's, W.H. Freeman & Company, and Worth Publishers. Focusing on specific disciplines, each of these three companies pursues its own publishing program independent of the others. Each boasts in its portfolio a number of landmark books, as well as innovative electronic and multimedia products, and each is known throughout the educational publishing world for superior text development and production.