BURLINGTON, Mass., Jan. 26, 2005 -- Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management (CPM), today announced an executive seminar series on Cognos Plan-to-Perform Blueprints. The seminars, hosted by the Cognos Innovation Center for Performance Management, will highlight how this new offering delivers proven best-practices with leading enterprise planning technology to jump-start organizations' planning, budgeting, and forecasting deployments.

Beginning January 26, Cognos customers will share their enterprise planning expertise during the afternoon sessions. Rich Lanahan, vice- president, Cognos Innovation Center for Performance Management, will explain how organizations can use the Cognos Plan-to-Perform Blueprints to enable proven best practices, reduce project implementation time and risk, and accelerate time-to-value. Integrated analytic and reporting capabilities will also be showcased with each blueprint.

Attendees will learn how Cognos Plan-to-Perform Blueprints help them:

    -- align strategic objectives with operational plans
    -- quickly see the impact of changes in operational plans on corporate
       financials
    -- efficiently improve resource allocations in support of corporate
       objectives

    Schedule:

    Date                Blueprint Focus      Time             Customer Speaker
    Wednesday, Jan. 26  Headcount and        2:00 p.m Eastern     Philip Stack
                        Compensation Planning.                    Director,
                                                                  Resource
                                                                  Planning
                                                                  University
                                                                  of Alberta

    Wednesday, Feb. 9   Expense Planning     2:00 p.m. Eastern    Jeff Klos
                        and Control                               Manager
                                                                  Financial
                                                                  Planning and
                                                                  Analysis
                                                                  Ace Hardware

    Wednesday, March 17 Sales Planning       2:00 p.m. Eastern  Roberta Kaplan
                        and Forecasting                           Director of
                                                                  Business
                                                                  Intelligence
                                                                  Constar
                                                                 International
                                                                  Inc.

"This series was developed in close collaboration with many of our leading customers," said Lanahan. "The Plan-to-Perform Blueprints will enable companies to implement out-of-the-box best-practice capability in planning, analytics and reporting. Moving beyond Finance to link operational causes to financial effects within the organization can improve their ability to make better informed, fact-based decisions as business conditions evolve."

Cognos Plan-to-Perform Blueprints are documented, pre-defined data, process and policy models developed by the Cognos Innovation Center for Performance Management and available to customers at no additional cost. Further information is available at: http://www.cognos.com/innovationcenter/blueprint.html.

For more information on the seminars, or to register, please visit: http://www.cognos.com/innovationcenter/seminar_series.html

About the Cognos Innovation Center for Performance Management

The Cognos Innovation Center for Performance Management was established in June 2004 to advance the understanding of proven planning and performance management techniques, technologies, and practices. Staffed by experts in planning, management, and technology, the Innovation Center partners with Cognos customers, academics, industry leaders, and others seeking to accelerate adoption, reduce risk, and maximize the impact of technology- enabled performance management practices. By bringing customers and prospects into regular contact with peers, thought leaders, and Cognos experts, the Innovation Center facilitates the discovery and sustainable application of innovative and proven planning and performance management practices that will help companies achieve their business goals to increase profitability, gain competitive agility and achieve sustainable growth. For more information, please visit: http://www.cognos.com/innovationcenter/.

ABOUT COGNOS:

Cognos, the world leader in enterprise business intelligence and corporate performance management, delivers software and services that helps companies drive, monitor and understand corporate performance.

Cognos delivers the next level of competitive advantage -- Corporate Performance Management (CPM) -- achieved through the strategic application of BI on an enterprise scale. Our integrated CPM solution helps customers drive performance through planning; monitor performance through scorecarding; and understand performance through business intelligence. Cognos serves more than 23,000 customers in over 135 countries. Cognos enterprise business intelligence and performance management solutions and services are also available from more than 3,000 worldwide partners and resellers. For more information, visit the Cognos Web site at http://www.cognos.com.

Cognos and the Cognos logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cognos Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Web Site: http://www.cognos.com

Carrie Bendzsa
Cognos, 613-738-1440
carrie.bendzsa@cognos.com