Cognos Performance Management System

Technology Components: Overview

The business decisions you make every day are guided by the answers you receive to these three fundamental questions:

• How are we doing?
• Why?
• What should we be doing?

Throughout the organization, from top to bottom and across functions and divisions, the quality of decisions depends on the information people have on hand—its accuracy, timeliness and completeness. Cognos delivers the capabilities necessary to drive better decision-making and performance management improvement throughout the enterprise.

Scorecards, Dashboards and Financial Consolidation software help answer the “How are we doing?” question. These systems provide an aggregate view of information from many different sources. They enable people to:

• Gauge critical operational and financial metrics.
• Measure how they are performing against targets, leading to greater accountability.
• Ensure sustained compliance with IFRS and Sarbanes-Oxley.

Learn more:
Scorecards, Dashboards, and Financial Consolidation software

BI Reporting and Analysis software answers the “Why?” question. Effective reporting and analysis tools allow you to:

• Dig deeper into results, and learn when, where and how variations occurred.
• Understand how business strategy translates into operational priorities.
• Avoid disputes over multiple versions of data and different interpretations of the truth.

Learn more: Reporting and Analysis software

Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting software answers the “What should we be doing?” question. The Finance organization uses planning, budgeting and forecasting to:

• Create plans, then monitor and adapt them as business conditions change.
• Revise objectives and targets and communicate them reliably.
• Engage other departments in the planning process, gaining buy-in and increasing accuracy.
• Avoid problems with the market and shareholders because performance targets are reliable and predictable, rather than best-guesses.

Learn more: Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting software

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Cognos is a world leader in business intelligence, performance management, data integration, enterprise risk management, olap reporting, analytics software, Oracle business intelligence, and balanced scorecarding for the enterprise.