Anaplan vs IBM Cognos Analytics

• Allows the business to link different planning streams into one place
• Gives users a single source to view data, no more comparing offline templates in excel
• Intuitive new UX that allows us to be more customizable when tailoring to needs of end-users

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• What IBM Cognos does really well is provide precise data that may otherwise be hard to retrieve from your primary accounting software. While doing so, it organizes this data such that it becomes much more meaningful to analyze.
• IBM Cognos also does a fantastic job through the Query Studio module to give certain users the ability to create simple reports and modify existing reports, this allows the flexibility a user needs in getting the intended data.
• IBM Cognos also provides the ability to utilize a BI tool for complicated reporting requirements or in cases when there are many data dependencies that exist. This BI tool enables Cognos to tackle many organizational and data challenges that companies face in the industry.

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• Enablement -- Anaplan should invest more in both its training capability and training content. Anaplan is not the most difficult tool to learn, but having more foundation in this area would make the ramp-up process significantly easier
• Storage -- Anaplan is not a data warehouse. This is understandable given data warehousing is not their primary value proposition, but many times we run close to the storage limits of Anaplan, and it would be great if Anaplan had different storage size options for its workspaces.
• User Interface -- Anaplan's user interface could be streamlined and improved to become more intuitive and accommodate more shortcut keys.

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• With the upgrade from Cognos 10 to Cognos 11, there were a lot of features, like run schedule once, weren't brought over to the newest version of Report Studio.
• I felt like they were trying to chase Tableau and Qlik with dashboarding rather than focusing on their bread and butter of Report Studio or which other Business Intelligence tools don't do very well.

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• Anaplan has been good to plan future fiscal years, by doing the planning in here and seeing the financial impact certain variables can produce it is easier to make decisions within the company such as hiring, eliminating certain costs etc., to achieve the financial results as set in the company goals.
• Dashboards have been really helpful for the financial executives as very specific data can be analysed and presented in the dashboards focused to specific financial teams, so it is easier to see the actual results and forecasts.
• On the negative side, since Anaplan is a complex tool to handle, it is better to have a dedicated resource or resources to the handling in Anplan. Regular business analysts could not handle their regular tasks and doing complex configurations in Anaplan without the help of well trained Anaplan resources, extra dedicated resources are needed to work with Anaplan.

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• (+) increased efficiency: Less time trying to figure out how to do something w/ another BI tool that may seem impossible -- Cognos will be able to do it 99% of the time
• (-) increased training required: Training for Cognos had to be longer and more intensive than other BI tools. For example, my team members go through a week long 8-hour/day class and it was just enough to scratch the surface. A good base if required, but real world experience is the only way to become a Cognos pro.
• (-) more end-user training: We do mostly canned reports with Cognos, so out end-users must be trainied. It is much harder to train them with Cognos than other BI tools. This is why I only turn to Cognos if I cannot accomplish my goal in another tool.

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