BURLINGTON, MA, October 7, 2003—For finance professionals who want to create competitive advantage by following the spirit of Sarbanes-Oxley to move beyond mere compliance, Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management, is sponsoring a free online roundtable with CFO.com to address:

• Why compliance represents a unique opportunity to implement best practices in planning and analyzing business performance.
• How to turn compliance efforts from a series of tactical exercises into true value-creating initiatives.
• How enterprise planning provides a foundation for compliance — and improved performance.
• Why systems based on spreadsheets are insufficient for the demands of Sarbanes-Oxley.

Moderated by CFO Enterprises President Mary Driscoll, roundtable speakers will include John Hagerty, vice president of AMR Research, Steve Wagner, senior partner with Deloitte & Touche, and Tom Manley, chief financial officer of Cognos.

CFO.com, owned by The Economist Group and part of CFO Publishing, provides online tools and resources for financial executive. This is the fourth in a series of learning opportunities for finance professionals hosted by CFO.com and Cognos this year. Previous webcasts included "Beyond Spreadsheets, Beyond Budgeting," "Planning for Performance: Proven Steps to Superior Execution," and "Best Practices in Enterprise Planning." Archives of all webcasts are available online at www.cognos.com.

This webcast, "SOX and the Visionary CFO: Turning Cost into Opportunity," will take place on Friday, October 10, 2003 at 11:00 a.m. EDT. To register, please visit the CFO.com Web site at: http://www.cfo.com/sox.

ABOUT CFO.COM AND CFO PUBLISHING:
CFO.com, part of CFO Publishing and owned by The Economist Group, is a unique online resource for senior financial executives. It provides news and articles on cutting-edge practices with the strategic insight and analysis to help top financial managers perform their jobs more effectively. The site also provides business tools and applications that help senior financial executives quickly find solutions and access the most relevant information on the Web.

CFO Publishing includes CFO Magazine as well as its sister publications, CFO Europe and CFO Asia. Together, these offer global coverage of business issues from the perspective of the senior financial executive. CFO Enterprises, the conferences and sponsored research unit, extends this coverage to a wide range of executive education programs.