SSQ Group Insurance To Standardize On Cognos 8 Business Intelligence


– Company selects Cognos 8 BI for unsurpassed
reporting capabilities –

BURLINGTON, MA, September 25, 2006—Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions, today announced that SSQ Group Insurance, part of the leading mutual diversified financial institution SSQ Financial Group, has chosen Cognos 8 Business Intelligence (BI) as its standard BI platform.

With $1 billion in annual revenue, SSQ Financial Group is a leading mutual diversified financial institution. SSQ Financial Group serves more than one million customers and employs more than 1,250 people. SSQ Group Insurance includes life, salary, health, and dental insurance. A Cognos customer since 1998, SSQ Group Insurance decided to migrate to Cognos 8 BI because of its zero-footprint architecture, report creation capabilities, and ad-hoc query functionality. With Cognos 8 BI, SSQ will gain more robust functionality, empower users for self-service BI, and foster an open, flexible environment able to leverage and extend additional IT investments. As a result, all actuaries, as well as finance, sales, marketing, and administrative service departments, will be standardizing on Cognos 8 BI for reporting.

“We wanted to upgrade our systems and chose Cognos 8 BI instead of other competitive offerings because of its advanced reporting capabilities that bring our end users one click away from the information they need to conduct their business,” said Guy Bourassa, data warehouse architect for SSQ Group Insurance. “ Furthermore , we were already familiar with its products and services. We also like the fact that we can receive our service in French, which makes it easier for our employees based in Quebec City, Canada.”

With Cognos 8 BI, SSQ Group Insurance will be able to access data from its Oracle Data Warehouse to deliver management reports as effectively as analytical or operational reports.   These reports will deliver information throughout the organization about sales (new sales and renewals), finances ( premiums, benefits paid and actuarial reserves), and files on disabilities and insured participants. For example, management will receive reports that show submissions and renewals carried out in a period by sales office and sales representative, as well as files processed by each work team. The company also plans to create reports that will allow the establishment of ratings and the examination of trends in premiums and benefits paid, medical issues, and healthcare consumption. These reports will allow SSQ to better manage the various sectors of the business unit with more consistent, widely available and better distributed reports. Cognos 8 BI is a groundbreaking product that provides decision makers at all levels of the enterprise with a consistent, accurate view of information to better manage performance. As a single product that easily integrates into existing infrastructures with multiple systems and data sources, Cognos 8 BI is a robust technology foundation for BI standardization and performance management.

“SSQ has been a Cognos customer for many years now, and by standardizing on Cognos 8 BI, the company is yet again showcasing the quality products and services we provide,” said Gaurav Verma, financial services industry director, Cognos. “SSQ understands the value that comes from standardizing on one, open BI platform as a way to help drive better decision making, enhance customer service, and improve overall company performance while reducing the administrative overhead that comes from managing multiple, disparate products.”

Cognos is a recognized leader in delivering performance management solutions for the insurance industry. Over 1,000 financial services institutions worldwide use Cognos, including 4 of the top 5 global insurance companies. In addition to SSQ Group Insurance, other insurance customers include AAA Life,  Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) – Insurance division, and Prudential UK. For more information about Cognos solutions for the insurance industry, please visit http://www.cognos.com/solutions/industry/insurance/index.html.

About SSQ Financial Group
With $1 billion in annual revenue, SSQ Financial Group is a leading mutual diversified financial institution. The Group serves more than 1 million customers and employs more than 1,250 people. SSQ, Life Insurance Company Inc. is the Group’s principal company and a leader in the group insurance industry, offering a wide range of quality insurance as well as investment and retirement products. SSQ is also a rising star in home and auto insurance (SSQ General Insurance Company Inc.) and realty management (SSQ Realty Inc.). For more information on SSQ Financial Group, please visit their Web site at http://www.ssq.ca/en/.

About Cognos:
Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions, provides world-class enterprise planning and BI software and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance.

Cognos brings together technology, analytical applications, best practices, and a broad network of partners to give customers a complete performance system. The Cognos performance system is an open and adaptive solution that leverages an organization’s ERP, packaged applications, and database investments. It gives customers the ability to answer the questions -- How are we doing? Why are we on or off track? What should we do about it? – and enables them to understand and monitor current performance while planning future business strategies.

Cognos serves more than 23,000 customers in more than 135 countries, and its top 100 enterprise customers consistently outperform market indexes. Cognos 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 http://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 http://www.cognos.com.