COGNOS INC.

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COGNOS INC.
Eddie Haizlip Danny Roach Greg Sparks
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Background

• Founded in 1969.
• Offices in 14 countries.
• Corporate Offices in Ottawa, Canada
• Sales Headquarters in Burlington, Mass.
• 1300 Employees Worldwide

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History

• Designed custom information systems in the 70s
  and early 80s.
• PowerHouse 4GL rolled out in the early 80s.
• Took leadership position in application tools in
  proprietary mid-range computers.
• In client/server environment, Cognos rolled out
  PowerPlay, their first BI solution.

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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

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Software Categories

• Business Intelligence
• Impromtu
• PowerPlay
• Scenario
• 4Thought

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Software Categories

• Web-based BI
• PwerPlay Enterprise Server
• Impromptu Web Reports
• Impromptu Web Query
• DataMerchant

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Software Categories

• 4GL Tools
• PowerHouse 4GL
• Axiant
• Power2000

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Visualizer

• Management and measurement tool
• Extends PowerPlay and Impromptu
• Advanced reporting and analysis
• Graphs multiple data dimensions
• Graphs geographical data

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Data Example

• Large amounts of data in succinct visual reports
  and virtual rooms of information.
• www.cognos.com/visualizer/walk6.html

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NovaView

• Cognos OLAP client
• Uses SQL Server 7.0 OLAP services
• Bought from Panorama Software Systems

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COGNOSuite

• Suite of integrated products for turning data
  into knowledge
• Includes three key components
• PowerPlay
• Scenario
• Impromptu

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PowerPlay

• Industry-leading OLAP solution
• Utilizes Analyze-then-Query approach to data
  analysis

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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

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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 dont impact a given factor
• Combined - this means better decisions

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Scenario Practical Uses

• Classification according to key factors
• Market segmentation
• Customer profiling
• Areas of focus
• Targeted strategies

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Impromptu

• Used for ad-hoc reports
• From scratch or based on canned reports
• No SQL needed (drag and drop)

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Advantages of Impromptu

• 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

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COGNOS in Action

• Solutions and Case Studies

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Challenges Faced

• IT environments include many different systems,
  that are not integrated
• IT departments are impeded by labor-intensive
  reporting
• Managers do not have timely access to business
  information.

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Benefits of Business IntelligenceSoftware

• Users can easily explore and analyze all the
  business information they need
• IT staff is no longer tied up with time-intensive
  report processing
• Improved decision-making processes has led to
  increased revenues.

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Cognos Success Stories

• Avon Products, Inc.
• The Timken Company

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Avon Products Inc.

• Founded in 1886
• The worlds largest direct seller of beauty
  products
• 5.1 billion annual revenues
• 2.7 million independent sales reps.
• Markets over 400 brands
• 135 countries

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Business Process Redesign

• Redesign began in 1996
• Avon chose Cognos line of Business Intelligence
  (BI) products
• PowerPlay - quickly and easily explore
  multi-dimensional information and create OLAP
  reports
• Impromptu - ad hoc querying of data and access to
  transaction-level information

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Avons 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.

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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.

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The Timken Company

• 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

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System Needs

• Began implementation in 1996
• Needed a new job costing system (JCS)
• Costing is difficult because Timkens products
  are made to order.
• Under the old system, product cost rates were
  updated once a year based on averages gathered
  from production history.

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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.

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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.

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Data Cubes

• Using PowerPlays 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

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Future Goals

• Expand the system to implement the Web for faster
  decision making capabilities
• In the process of implementing the Web-versions
  of Impromptu and PowerPlay

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Thanks for your time