Spirax Sarco streamlines accounting and reporting worldwide
~ embarks on global initiative with Cognos to accelerate reporting ~


LONDON, England, April 30, 2008 – Cognos, an IBM company and the world leader in business intelligence and performance management, has announced that Spirax Sarco, the world leader in solutions for steam control and fluid handling, has chosen to implement IBM Cognos Performance Applications. This technology will help the company centralise sales and accounting information, while giving local users individual control of their local reporting requirements.

Working with Cognos technology, Spirax Sarco’s 36 global companies will be able to generate their own reports and queries as well as reporting to group in a standard, recognised, format. They will retain autonomy to generate local sales, manufacturing, accounting and finance reports far more quickly and accurately, without having to rely on central IT support.

“Previously reporting at a local level was disparate and too removed from group needs,” said Derick Brazier, group IT manager at Spirax Sarco. “To bring this into a more centralised environment we needed to invest in new staff at a group level who could communicate across several different languages and would not create a bottleneck to reports being turned around.”

Spirax Sarco needed to integrate business intelligence technology with its overall IT strategy based on Oracle (JDEdwards) Enterprise 1, in order to empower local users with reports produced accurately, quickly and in a consistent global format across one or many of their group companies. Cognos partner Triangle Information Management presented IBM Cognos Performance Applications to the company as the best solution.

“Integrating silos of information and reporting approaches from 36 countries is complex. Spirax Sarco was keen to ensure the global roll-out fitted exactly with its wider IT strategy,” said Chris Lewis, director at Cognos partner Triangle Information Management. “We worked with Spirax to ensure Performance Applications and Cognos 8 technology would meet its needs now and in the future as more and more companies are brought into the system.”

“Immediacy of reporting without IT involvement is the Holy Grail sought by many global companies,” said Graham Walter, VP UK, Middle East and South Africa at Cognos. “Spirax Sarco is rolling out the ideal approach by ensuring local user control within a group reporting environment, while retaining a single view of the truth. Eventually this will standardise group-wide reporting, especially at month, quarter and year end, making decision-making easier and reports more real-time and relevant to the business.”

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/

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