Cognos Brings Out New Version of TM1

Cognos, an IBM company and a provider of business intelligence and performance management solutions, has announced the availability of IBM Cognos TM1 9.4, an enhanced version of its performance management solution for enterprise and mid-market organizations.

The latest version of IBM Cognos TM1 9.4 features enhanced intuitive analysis and reporting capabilities, higher levels of compliance and software standardization, and integration with IBM Cognos 8 BI. Based on a patented, 64-bit, in-memory multi-dimensional OLAP server, Cognos TM1 gives users real-time insight into the impact of their financial performance management activities including planning, budgeting, forecasting, and consolidation.

Powered by the TM1 analytics engine, IBM Cognos TM1 9.4 enables strategic analysis of financial, transactional, operational and other large-volume business data, allowing users to see sophisticated views of mission-critical information. As a result, users can perform 360-degree analytics, easily spotting trends that can optimize budgeting, planning, reporting, and forecasting processes and outcomes. TM1 9.4 also includes enhanced administration features, usability improvements for Excel and Web users, and compliance with Vista and Office 2007.

"We were able to implement IBM Cognos TM1 in an accelerated timeframe to handle our budget and internal financial reporting processes for our restaurants. The ability to process revisions to our budgets due to changes in assumptions especially commodities for all of our 265 company restaurants and view consolidated statements within minutes instead of hours was a big benefit," said Joe Furmanek, Director of Finance at Checkers Drive-In Restaurants. "Our field managers now receive financial reports much sooner after period-end, which allows them to make any necessary adjustments to their operations quickly while it can still have an impact in the current period. We're currently migrating our Key Indicator reporting process to IBM Cognos TM1 9.4."

One of TM1's new features is "Active Forms", which provide a number of new or updated capabilities for both power users and end-users. These include reports with asymmetrical drill-down; parameter-driven row definition; intuitive style-based report formatting; an identical user experience in both thick or thin client; and server-side zero suppression for improving end-user responsiveness. These functions are valuable for a fully interactive environment that innovates on TM1's historical strength in Excel-based application authoring.

"Business users and executives at both large and midsize enterprises need to keep track of complicated data in real-time, and then be able to leverage it based on their goals and objectives," said Doug Barton, vice-president, product marketing, Cognos. "The newest version of IBM Cognos TM1 arms these users with the most powerful and actionable data to drive improved performance across the organization."

((Comments on this story may be sent to newsdesk@closeupmedia.com))

((Distributed via M2 Communications Ltd - http://www.m2.com))

http://www.10meters.com
Comments on this story may be sent to newsdesk@closeupmedia.com

Related terms: budget, business, business intelligence, commodity, environment, finance, market, restaurants, software, track, web