Cognos ranked as a leading vendor for Performance Management


~ Independent analyst report on performance management vendors and solutions highlights Cognos as a top-ranked vendor ~


LONDON, England, January 17, 2007 — Cognos, the provider of business intelligence and performance management solutions, has announced that an independent research report by Ventana Research has ranked Cognos as a top vendor in performance management.

In the newly updated Ventana Research 2007 Performance Management ScorecardTM (Ventana Research Scorecard), Cognos scored 94 per cent overall for Cognos 8 BI, the company’s flagship business intelligence platform which includes capabilities for query, reporting, analysis, scorecarding and dashboarding, and event management.

Cognos' overall score increased by 4.3 per cent over last year’s study, with Cognos 8 BI scoring highest for its ability to "align the business, and coordinate and drive individual actions based on information and performance targets."

The Ventana Research Scorecard covers more than 11 vendors and is representative of independent analysis conducted over the past five years. Each participating company’s products were scored for functional requirements and capabilities to determine the level of compliance against Ventana Research’s PerformanceCycle across three categories – align, optimise and understand.

According to the report, "the research assesses the maturity of software vendors and packages designed specifically for enabling Performance Management. It provides a baseline of knowledge that organisations can use to improve their understanding of how well different software and solutions may meet their business and IT requirements for performance management."

"Building a robust performance management system is a modern executive imperative,” said Mark Smith, CEO and EVP Research, Ventana Research. “A solution’s ability to align the business involves leveraging historical benchmarks as a reference for driving change in the organisation and individually. This capability enables goal setting, scoring, notifying and automating the performance management process."

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 standardisation and performance management.

"Cognos 8 BI helps align and connect people and processes across the organisation for more effective decision-making,” said Dave Laverty, senior vice-president and chief marketing officer, Cognos. “The solution aligns all stakeholders with one reliable version of business issues, timely, actionable reports, and detailed analysis of business results for performance improvement."

About Cognos, an IBM Company
Cognos, an IBM company, is the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions.

It provides world-class enterprise planning and BI software and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance.
Cognos was acquired by IBM in January 2008.

For more information, visit http://www.ibm.com/software/data/ and http://www.cognos.com/uk/

For further information about Cognos, please contact:
Katy Lyons or Farimah Saadat at LEWIS, the PR agency

Telephone: +44 (0)20 7802 2626
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For sales enquiries call:
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www.cognos.com/uk