COGNOS INC.
Eddie Haizlip
Danny Roach
Greg Sparks
Background
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Founded in 1969.
Offices in 14 countries.
Corporate Offices in Ottawa, Canada
Sales Headquarters in Burlington, Mass.
1300 Employees Worldwide
History
• Designed custom information systems in the
70’s and early 80’s.
• PowerHouse 4GL rolled out in the early
80’s.
• Took leadership position in application tools
in proprietary mid-range computers.
• In client/server environment, Cognos rolled
out PowerPlay, their first BI solution.
Today
• One million seats in a thousand companies.
• BI solutions support over 100 OLAP data
sources.
• Can intergrate many enterprise applications
• Examples: Oracle Financials
PeopleSoft
SAP
Software Categories
Business Intelligence
Impromtu
PowerPlay
Scenario
4Thought
Software Categories
Web-based BI
PwerPlay Enterprise Server
Impromptu Web Reports
Impromptu Web Query
DataMerchant
Software Categories
4GL Tools
PowerHouse 4GL
Axiant
Power2000
Visualizer
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Management and measurement tool
Extends PowerPlay and Impromptu
Advanced reporting and analysis
Graphs multiple data dimensions
Graphs geographical data
Data Example
• Large amounts of data in succinct visual
reports and virtual rooms of information.
• www.cognos.com/visualizer/walk6.html
NovaView
• Cognos’ OLAP client
• Uses SQL Server 7.0 OLAP services
• Bought from Panorama Software Systems
COGNOSuite
• Suite of integrated products for turning data
into knowledge
• Includes three key components
– PowerPlay
– Scenario
– Impromptu
PowerPlay
• Industry-leading OLAP solution
• Utilizes Analyze-then-Query approach to
data analysis
PowerPlay Features
• Drill down capabilities
• Ability to slice and dice for flexible
presentation
• Analyze trends over time
• Visualize data graphically
• Drill through to details or other cubes
Scenario
• Data-mining component of the suite
• Identifies relationship among factors
• Allows drill down to supporting factors for
a selected factor
• Inverse is also true - Scenario will identify
those factors which don’t impact a given
factor
• Combined - this means better decisions
Scenario Practical Uses
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Classification according to key factors
Market segmentation
Customer profiling
Areas of focus
Targeted strategies
Impromptu
• Used for ad-hoc reports
• From scratch or based on canned reports
• No SQL needed (drag and drop)
Advantages of Impromptu
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Frees up IS resources
Empowers the user
Results in the right data in the right hands
Raises overall effectiveness of the user
through more informed decision-making
COGNOS in Action
Solutions and Case Studies
Challenges Faced
• IT environments include many different
systems, that are not integrated
• IT departments are impeded by laborintensive reporting
• Managers do not have timely access to
business information.
Benefits of Business Intelligence
Software
• Users can easily explore and analyze all the
business information they need
• IT staff is no longer tied up with timeintensive report processing
• Improved decision-making processes has
led to increased revenues.
Cognos Success Stories
• Avon Products, Inc.
• The Timken Company
Avon Products Inc.
• Founded in 1886
• The world’s largest direct seller of beauty
products
• $5.1 billion annual revenues
• 2.7 million independent sales reps.
• Markets over 400 brands
• 135 countries
Business Process Redesign
• Redesign began in 1996
• Avon chose Cognos line of Business
Intelligence (BI) products:
– PowerPlay - quickly and easily explore multidimensional information and create OLAP
reports
– Impromptu - ad hoc querying of data and
access to transaction-level information
Avon’s Succes Story
• Reduced cost by streamlining their analysis
and reporting processes
– For example, printing and distribution costs
• Credits Cognos BI solutions to the $250 million
increase in revenue, due to the improved decision
making processes.
Future Plans
• Installation of PowerPlay Enterprise Server
– Incorporates the Web
– Lowers overall cost of business intelligence
system because the cubes are built once and are
accessible from all users of the system.
– Gives all users of the BI a common front end
– Able to extend the benefits of the system to
their global operations.
The Timken Company
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Established in 1898
Headquartered in Canton, Ohio
Produces tapered roller bearings
Offers a selection of more than 200 types
and 30,000 sizes
• These bearings are used by every major
manufacturing industry worldwide
System Needs
• Began implementation in 1996
• Needed a new job costing system (JCS)
– Costing is difficult because Timken’s products
are made to order.
• Under the old system, product cost rates
were updated once a year based on averages
gathered from production history.
New Job Costing System
• Chose Cognos Impromptu and PowerPlay
– Impromptu for generating reports
– PowerPlay to track sales and costs by district,
type of product, size of product, and where the
product originated from.
Benefits of New System
• The finance, sales, and marketing
departments are able to accurately track and
set product costs.
– Results in fairer pricing for all their customers
• Using the drill-down features they are able
to analyze cost detail to an activity level for
any customer order.
Data Cubes
• Using PowerPlay’s OLAP tool, Timken
integrates the data from the JCS into a data
cube
• Compare and track the product cost versus
the profitability
– Cost has in excess of 100,000 rows
– Profitability involves more than 1 million rows
Future Goals
• Expand the system to implement the Web
for faster decision making capabilities
• In the process of implementing the Webversions of Impromptu and PowerPlay
Thanks for your time