Cognos® e-Applications Provide Immediate Return on Investment for J.D. Edwards Customers- Lafarge and Advantis Technologies use e-Applications to extend the value of J.D. Edwards data for better business performance management - BURLINGTON, MA, June 11, 2001—When two industry leaders, Lafarge Group and Advantis Technologies, needed a business intelligence solution that would allow their employees to access, share, and report on consistent, timely business data, they turned to Cognos® (NASDAQ: COGN; TSE: CSN). Cognos delivered a powerful analytic application that reduced the time-to-information gap, improved reporting capabilities, and gave all users crystal-clear insight into key functional processes. Advantis, a leading pool and spa chemical and accessory manufacturer, uses the Cognos Sales Analysis e-Application for J.D. Edwards WorldSoftware to analyze mission-critical business factors such as customer and product profitability. With Cognos, Advantis has cut its report production times from two weeks to less than two hours. The company plans to deploy additional e-Applications into areas such as inventory and finance in the coming months. "The Sales Analysis e-Application has helped us quickly and easily identify opportunities to increase profitability by restructuring product offerings and adjusting sales force compensation," said Keith Lewis, vice president of business development for Advantis Technologies. "We expect the e-Applications will significantly strengthen the management system in other critical areas across our business." Lafarge Group is one of the largest diversified suppliers of construction material products and world's single largest supplier of cement. A long-standing J.D. Edwards OneWorld user and Cognos customer, Lafarge Group looked to Cognos e-Applications for a packaged, end-to-end solution that would help global decision-makers throughout the enterprise to make better, more coordinated business decisions. "We needed to provide strategic decision support environments across all our five divisions using J.D. Edwards in several countries. Our objective was to ensure that our business questions could be answered by providing consistency and flexibility across the organization," said Jeff Arnaud, assistant Chief Information Officer at Lafarge Group. "In this global environment, the solution must be packaged to simplify and speed the implementation and roll out. Cognos e-Applications more than meets the challenge by giving us the ability to find added value in our business and to identify opportunities for creating new value. We have General Ledger Analysis for J.D. Edwards now and are planning to deploy the entire suite of e-Applications worldwide." "Business performance in today's economy depends principally on an organization's ability to turn investments into results, fast. Cognos e-Applications meets this challenge head-on by seamlessly integrating with existing business intelligence infrastructure and offering pre-packaged reports that deliver rapid time to results for the user," said Alan Rottenberg, Cognos senior vice president, e-Applications. "More and more companies like Lafarge and Advantis Technologies are seizing the competitive advantage offered by this out-of-box solution and providing users with instant access to information that is driving business-critical decision-making." Cognos will be exhibiting with Enabled Worlds, our Center of Excellence for JDE customers, at J.D. Edwards' Focus 2001 (booth #647), June 11-14, in Denver. Cognos will be demonstrating e-Applications, as well as the entire suite of Cognos solutions, including Cognos Finance. About Cognos e-Applications The e-Applications include analyses of Sales, Inventory, General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, and Procurement. These applications form a powerful and fully-integrated suite of business performance management analytical applications for J.D. Edwards WorldSoftware. Cognos e-Applications are designed to help managers and executives optimize business performance across the enterprise while decreasing costs and time to result. Within each e-Application, Cognos provides extensive understanding and analysis of the business processes and answers to hundreds of critical business questions. About Advantis Technologies Advantis is a subsidiary of Rockwood Specialties, Inc. Rockwood is a leading international specialty chemical company focused on high value-added niche segments in three divisions: Pigment and Performance Additives, Specialty Compounds, and Electronics. Please visit http://www.advantistech.com for more information. About Lafarge The company's majority shareholder is Lafarge Group (Paris Stock Exchange: LAFP). The Lafarge Group is the world leader in building materials with operations in 71 countries and sales in excess of $11 billion. Visit the Lafarge Web at http://www.lafarge.com and Lafarge Corporation Web site at http://www.lafargecorp.com. About Enabled Worlds |