Cognos Enterprise Planning Series Continues to Gain Momentum Globally with Customers and PartnersEnterprise planning solution is major driver of Cognos' business; Organizations selecting Cognos as the industry standard for enterprise planning BURLINGTON, Mass., Oct. 21, 2003 -- Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management, today announced that Cognos Enterprise Planning Series continues to gain momentum among new and existing customers and is at work in some of the world's largest organizations and most demanding industries. New customers that have selected Cognos Enterprise Planning Series over the last 60 days include DIRECTV, Inc., Discovery Communications, Wells Fargo, Cigna, and General Nutrition Centers (GNC). Cognos Enterprise Planning Series enables and drives the performance management cycle, bringing together planning, budgeting, forecasting, consolidations, reporting, and financial analytics. Enterprise Planning, typically driven by the CFO, closes the loop between planning and performance throughout all key processes and planning areas of a corporation, delivers real-time insight into future performance, and aligns plans and activities across the organization for fast, efficient, and synchronized execution to maximize business results. "Enterprise planning is where effective performance management begins -- combining people, process, and technology in a rich, operationally relevant, continuous, and broadly collaborative cycle. This provides our customers insight into past, current, and future operating performance, enabling managers to spot trends, identify opportunities, and affect outcomes," said Doug Barton, vice president, Enterprise Planning Product Marketing. "Cognos Enterprise Planning allows organizations worldwide to dramatically reduce planning cycle time, increase forecast accuracy and ensure data and process integrity. This newly found efficiency frees up time and effort that can be redeployed in driving greater levels of participation, more frequent evaluation of profitable growth opportunities, and better alignment of operations with overall business strategy across the enterprise." "In today's unstable and constantly changing global economy, financial executives are challenged with managing financial performance," said Mark Smith, CEO and SVP Research, Ventana Research. "With Cognos Enterprise Planning Series, Cognos is allowing its customers to continually improve their financial performance and increase strategic value across the enterprise." Customers worldwide turn to Cognos' industry-leading solution to drive out risk and inefficiencies and proactively manage financial performance Designed to meet the challenge of a complex and changing financial regulatory environment, Cognos Enterprise Planning Series ensures the integrity and timeliness of financial reports, forecasts, and plans, giving financial executives a means to improve performance across the company by integrating financial processes -- such as planning, budgeting, forecasting, modeling, consolidation, and financial reporting. The solution also allows companies to meet the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act -- certification, disclosure, and timely reporting. A recent IDC report ("Sarbanes-Oxley: A Catalyst for a New Category of Analytic Applications?", April 2003) noted that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the regulations that implement its provisions will spur new requirements for robust compliance analytical frameworks and applications software for financial analysis, consolidation, and business performance management. Other new customers worldwide that have selected Cognos Enterprise Planning Series are Shell Energy Services, The TJX Companies, Inc., Buena Vista Television, EMI Group, City of Coquitlam, Novamex, and Bradco Supply. Existing customers that have added Cognos Enterprise Planning Series to their existing Cognos investments include Diageo, Target, AIG, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Inc., and Ricoh UK Products Ltd. Coquitlam, one of the leading high-tech cities in North America, has selected Cognos Enterprise Planning Series to set performance targets that cascade from top to bottom throughout the organization, making it easy for individual targets to reflect the corporate plan. "Coquitlam has developed a strategic road map and through a partnership with Cognos we now have tools that will enable us to monitor, report, and analyze business performance across the entire city," said Mayor Jon Kingsbury, City of Coquitlam. "Through this type of planning and accountability with solutions like Cognos Enterprise Planning Series, we are better able to provide service to our citizens, and enhance the efficiency of our organization." Princess Cruises, one of the world's largest global cruise and tour companies, replaced its spreadsheet-centric planning system with the Cognos Enterprise Planning Series, enabling the company to more effectively manage planning processes that encompass food-and-beverage, guest rooms, retailing, human resources, capital assets, and more. "Our business has many distinct, yet intertwined, aspects that must be planned separately," said Greg Bozigian, Director of Financial Planning for Princess Cruises. "We needed a solution that could accommodate diverse modeling needs and without requiring heavy IT involvement or support. We especially like the simplicity, power, and driver-based planning features that Cognos Enterprise Series Planning provides and the ease of consolidation." Leading organizations choose Cognos as enterprise planning partner Cognos Enterprise Planning Series has also maintained momentum among industry-leading partners worldwide. These partners provide the products, services, and technology expertise that help customers improve corporate performance management practices. Through their industry expertise and specialized knowledge, Cognos partners extend that offering, helping clients maximize the impact of their technology investments. "By strengthening our relationship to offer Cognos Enterprise Planning Series, Deloitte & Touche and Cognos are poised to help more global organizations not only achieve the benefits of greater efficiency, but also the expanded opportunities that come with a sound application of performance planning," said Ray Pineda, Partner, Deloitte Consulting. "Through Cognos Enterprise Planning Series, Cognos makes the standardization and consolidation process easier for our customers," said Heather Cole, vice president, Kinsey & Kinsey, a Cognos partner with customers that include Orbitz, Bowe, Bell & Howell, Stericycle, and Grand Motor Vehicle Works. "Through our Cognos partnership, we offer a robust solution that delivers the required functionality necessary to address today's rigorous reporting requirements for both financial and non-financial data." About Cognos: Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management, delivers software 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 22,000 customers in over 135 countries. Cognos enterprise business intelligence 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.
Media Contacts:
Antonietta Iafrate
Cognos, 781-313-2454
antonietta.iafrate@cognos.com
Amy Shanler
Lois Paul & Partners, 781-782-5747
amy_shanler@lpp.com
Investor Relations:
John Lawlor
Cognos, 613-738-3503
john.lawlor@cognos.com
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