FINANCE

Customer Perspectives on Visibility, Control,
and the Cognos Innovation Center

Apr. 19, 2006

Ceridian Human Resource Solutions is a multinational human resources company which serves over 110,000 customers and their 25 million employees worldwide. Ceridian Human Resources Solutions uses Cognos as its performance management foundation to connect operational data with financial implications.

Visibility for shorter cycle times

"I think we do have greater visibility into financial performance now because at the most basic level what we've been able to do is improve and shorten the cycle time . . . In my organization we produce reports every day, sometimes multiple times during the day, and they're distributed electronically through the Cognos portal, and people are able to see exactly how the close is progressing and monitor their particular areas. And at the same time, we centrally at headquarters, can monitor how we're doing on the close as well."

Control to avoid surprises

"I think controls improved significantly since we implemented the Cognos tools. In the area of just having the right information, having a rich data set out there that can be drilled into in order to understand what's going on, we at headquarters are able to quickly get to the heart of where there may be issues in the organization in financial results. And the individual operations can use the same data and the same ease of access tools to get at their results and understand what's going on . . . [The] results are coming in where we want them to be and where we expect them to be there aren't unusual activities or surprises."

Mike Varecka, Director of Finance, Ceridian Human Resource Systems

Constar International is a leading global producer of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic containers for food, carbonated beverages, sports drinks, juice, new age beverages, flavored alcohol and bottled water with 19 plants worldwide. With Cognos Planning, the $750 million company has been able to move from an annual plan with quarterly reforecast to a continuous, integrated, streamlined planning process for sales forecasting, production planning and financial operating planning."

Performance Blueprints provide a head start

"The Cognos Performance Blueprints are probably the most value tool that Cognos provides to its customers. They take standard business problems that Cognos customers are modeling for and the give them a head start."

Cognos Innovation Center "a gift"

"The Cognos Innovation Center for Performance Management is a gift to its customers. They provide a place where customers can interact with other customers who are trying to attack the same challenges as they are, where you can interact with business experts. And by having those experts available to its customers, Cognos is assuring its customers get the most out of its software."

Roberta Kaplan, Director of Business Intelligence, Constar International