Cognos Invites Finance Executives to Share Proven Performance Management Best Practices at Its Worldwide Finance Forum 2007 Series

Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions, is hosting a series of complimentary, high-profile events as part of its global Finance Forum 2007 Series. During these events, delegates will learn about best practices, and hear expert advice and real world experiences on Performance Management for the Office of Finance.

Launching on April 17 th in New York City, the Cognos Finance Forum is for C-level and senior executives from finance, planning, budgeting, forecasting, accounting, analysis, and compliance departments. Attendees will access tangible business strategies from the following sources:

-A solutions showcase area that includes hands-on tools and techniques such as Cognos Performance Blueprints, as well as planning, consolidation, and business intelligence product demonstrations.
-Cognos executives, drawing on their own experience with Fortune 1000 customers, will demonstrate how new information technology underpins proven practices to transform performance management.
-Cognos customers will share their approaches to support revenue and profit growth; align operational tactics with corporate objectives; and drive participation and accountability with Performance Management implementations.
“Every one of our customer presenters at the events this year can demonstrate a high value proposition, and we believe this offers real opportunities to share best practices and for other companies to learn what business benefits they may be missing out on,” said Doug Barton, vice president, performance management, Cognos. “The finance community continues to turn to Cognos as a proven leader to help improve performance management decision making, and this is the driver for the event theme: Unprecedented Visibility. Complete Control.”

“Manpower focuses on raising productivity through improved quality, efficiency and cost-reduction across our workforce,” said Vivian Adashek, financial systems project specialist, Manpower ― speaker at the Finance Forum in NYC and Toronto. “This requires rapid and accurate communication of timely business information across the organization. With Cognos, we’ve implemented practical approaches to management and operational reporting and enterprise planning, which have allowed us to move reporting and analysis beyond the finance department and across the organization. ”

The keynote speaker for the Forum series is David Axson, President of the Sonax Group, former Head of Corporate Planning at Bank of America, co-founder of The Hackett Group, and author of Best Practices in Planning and Performance Management, now in its second edition. Mr. Axson will describe practical steps to create simpler, faster, more focused and effective performance management processes.

Key partners and sponsors of [N.A.] Cognos Finance Forums 2007 include: IBM, Deloitte, Blue Line Planning, CenterStone Solutions LLC, CBH, eCapital Advisors, ISA Consulting, JCB Partners, Lodestar Solutions, NewComp Solutions, and QueBit.

Cognos Finance Forum 2007 spans North America and Europe with additional venues in Latin America and Asia Pacific. For a full list of event venues, agendas, speaking abstracts, dates and registration information, visit: http://www.cognos.com/financeforums2007/index.html