New IBM Cognos Analytic Application Enables Quick, Actionable Insights into Financial Performance

IBM Cognos 8 Financial Performance Analytics offers users the flexibility to easily adapt and configure a wide spectrum of reports as fast as their business changes.

BURLINGTON, Mass. - Cognos, an IBM (NYSE:IBM) company and the world leader in business intelligence and performance management, today unveiled a new analytic application designed to provide organizations with fast, actionable insights into financial performance using fully-configurable reports.

Many organizations today use ERP systems that do not provide management the critical financial visibility they need to ensure the business is performing against strategic objectives. Analytic applications provide a more cost-effective means to accessing and making sense of ERP data, offering packaged, flexible reporting and analysis complete with out-of-the-box metrics and indicators designed to help management isolate the underlying causes of changes in business performance and act accordingly before it is too late.

IBM Cognos 8 Financial Performance Analytics for J.D. Edwards and Oracle E-Business Suite is a packaged business intelligence (BI) application that grants line of business managers immediate, up-to-date information on their department’s financial performance, cash flow, and vendor relationships, facilitating cross-functional analysis and driving more consistent reporting.

Built on an open, services oriented architecture platform, IBM Cognos 8 Financial Performance Analytics includes configurable connectors to popular ERPs and other data sources; an adaptable data warehouse with a dimensional data model specifically for performing financial analysis; and a complete spectrum of packaged reports and analytics that can be easily adapted to reflect a company’s financial management best practices, and modified as quickly as business evolves.

“Other analytic applications in the market today trumpet the sheer quantity of packaged reports they offer, but in most cases, they can only be customized through expensive, time-consuming and often error-prone means. With IBM Cognos 8 Financial Performance Analytics, organizations benefit from a core set of packaged financial reports that is completely adaptable to their ever-changing business needs, enabling accelerated decision-making and providing the deep, operational transparency they need,” said Doug Barton, vice-president of product marketing at Cognos. “With its pre-constructed data extractions, best-fit data models, and proven business intelligence layer, IBM Cognos 8 Financial Performance Analytics empowers today’s enterprises to work effectively with time-sensitive, trusted information in faster cycles of accounting and control and business performance management.”

Consisting of Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable and General Ledger analysis modules, IBM Cognos 8 Financial Performance Analytics consolidates information from disparate financial data sources into standard reporting formats, arming managers with at-a-glance insights into key analysis areas such as planning and performance effectiveness, receivables and payable risk, cash management, and invoice activity.With information in hand, management can then make the necessary adjustments to plans to mitigate risk and ensure corporate objectives are on target.

Based on the IBM Cognos 8 platform, IBM Cognos 8 Financial Performance Analytics enables users to extend their information by capitalizing on IBM Cognos’ rich spectrum of performance management capabilities – including analysis, scorecarding, dashboarding and multi-dimensional planning – to drive greater business value.

“IBM Cognos 8 Financial Performance Analytics lets users easily monitor metrics and quickly identify performance discrepancies in the spirit of driving greater organizational efficiencies and productivity. I was particularly impressed with how simple it was to adapt reports and metrics as business factors changed. In the past, this style of quick, in-depth reporting would have required a lot of coding and ETL expertise. With IBM Cognos, it’s all GUI -- just drag and drop. It’s incredibly simple,” said Ed Leduke, business intelligence manager at Ferraz Shawmut, a division of France-based Carbone Lorraine and a global provider of low and medium voltage industrial fuse and fusegear, as well as thermal management for power electronics and power interconnection solutions.

IBM Cognos 8 Financial Performance Analytics is the latest offering from the suite of IBM Cognos 8 Analytic Applications, joining IBM Cognos 8 Workforce Performance, which was first unveiled in April 2006. Built upon a single, common foundation for enterprise wide business performance management, IBM Cognos 8 Analytic Applications are reporting and analysis applications that help increase resource productivity and reduce process inefficiencies by delivering a single, integrated, 360-degree view of an organization’s business operations.

IBM Cognos 8 Analytic Applications are a key component of IBM’s Information Agenda, a new approach to information management consisting of industry-specific software and consulting services geared to helping customers use information as a strategic asset across their businesses.

Availability:
IBM Cognos 8 Financial Performance General Ledger Analytics, IBM Cognos 8 Financial Performance Receivables Analytics, and IBM Cognos 8 Financial Performance Payables Analytics will be available in mid-October, either direct from Cognos or its network of resellers worldwide.