Cognos Expands Enterprise Business Intelligence With New Visualization Offering
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Cognos, a leading strategic vendor of enterprise business intelligence solutions, has introduced Cognos Visualizer, a business management and measurement solution that extends its awarding winning PowerPlay and Impromptu software with advanced visual reporting and analysis. Cognos Visualizer leverages human visual perception enabling users to see large amounts of data with multiple data dimensions or data with a strong geographical element, and enabling users to turn data into tangible information. Fully integrated with Cognos' enterprise reporting and online analytical processing (OLAP) solutions, Cognos Visualizer lets users quickly and intuitively gain the insight to scorecard their business activities and make better decisions.

"Cognos has embraced visualization technology -- once the domain of academic and scientific applications -- and is the first to incorporate it into business intelligence solutions for the deployment of business measurement and management practices across an enterprise," said Rob Rose, Cognos vice president product marketing. "Cognos Visualizer graphically paints a picture anyone can understand about the vitality of an organization. When used in concert with Cognos reporting and analysis solutions -- linked to data through a comprehensive business intelligence architecture -- decision makers can rapidly see relationships between business measures and turn information into competitive advantage."

Cognos Visualizer has a range of business applications and is ideally suited to scorecard-style solutions because the intuitive nature of visualizations allow decision makers to quickly understand a large number of measures, data relationships, and trends that characterize their business.

For example, using Cognos Visualizer, an organization may map strategic objectives onto a visual scorecard -- a graphical set of key performance measures -- and use business intelligence technology to track these measures. Through measurement and management, the visual scorecard may motivate breakthrough improvements in critical areas such as product development, manufacturing, customer support, and market development. Cognos Visualizer addresses the critical business need for faster results through interactive, multi-metric, visual presentations of diverse corporate data.

"Business users need to interpret the meaning of the increasingly complex, multi-metric data now being captured in so-called analytic applications, including data warehouses. Data visualization software sharpens the analytic focus of business users and extends the value of existing business intelligence tools," said Bob Moran, vice president of decision support research, Aberdeen Group Inc. "Interactive ad hoc visual analysis dramatically improves the ability for users to understand the results of an analysis or to establish the point at which a worker should dive deeper for the details."

Large amounts of data from one or many sources may be combined into succinct visual reports and virtual rooms of information. Through custom-designed, or wizard-driven templates, users may tailor their reports, place data into maps, apply filters, create animations and set multiple views of their 2D or 3D visualizations. Users do not need specific training or skills as Cognos Visualizer will review data and suggest the most appropriate visual presentation format.

AutoZone, the nation's leading auto parts chain with 2,700 stores in 39 states, is beta testing Cognos Visualizer and experimenting with the use of visualization in traditional statistical analysis, extending graphical presentation tools and analytical applications -- like balanced scorecarding -- for its users.

"Cognos Visualizer could be used to provide AutoZone's users with the ability to see multiple views of data and interact with the information to discover patterns and trends," said Michael Embry, Lead Analyst, Data Warehousing. "Since Cognos Visualizer is an extension of Cognos' business intelligence offering, we can drill down into the data to see the details behind the charts and graphs. This would allow our users to view vast amounts of data in a visual format, like a chart or a map, react quicker and make more informed business decisions."

Cognos Visualizer will be generally available in mid-May. Further, a Web server version, offering browser-based access, will be available in the summer.

Cognos

Cognos is the leading vendor of enterprise business intelligence solutions. Business Intelligence software makes corporate data easily accessible to everyone in an organization, so they can better coordinate decision-making across the entire enterprise, and improve the performance of the business. Cognos products are available directly from Cognos and through an extensive network of channel partners. The Company also develops, markets and supports software tools for application development.

Founded in 1969, Cognos is a publicly traded company with offices around the world. U.S. operations for the company are headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts. For more information, visit the Cognos Web site at http://www.cognos.com.