IBM Cognos is a full-featured business intelligence suite by IBM, designed for larger deployments. It comprises Query Studio, Reporting Studio, Analysis Studio and Event Studio, and Cognos Administration along with tools for Microsoft Office integration, full-text search, and dashboards.
$11.25
per month per user
SAP Analytics Cloud
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
The SAP Analytics Cloud solution brings together analytics and planning with integration to SAP applications and access to heterogenous data sources. As the analytics and planning solution within SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP Analytics Cloud supports trusted insights and integrated planning processes enterprise-wide to help make decisions without doubt.
$36
per month per user
Pricing
IBM Cognos Analytics
SAP Analytics Cloud
Editions & Modules
On Demand - Standard
USD 11.25
per month per user
On Demand - Premium
USD 44.90
per month per user
SAP Analytics Cloud for Business Intelligence
$36.00
per month per user
SAP Analytics Cloud for Planning
Price upon request
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Cognos Analytics
SAP Analytics Cloud
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
Optional
No setup fee
Additional Details
—
A 30-day trial with SAP Analytics Cloud is available, supporting analytics enterprise-wide. A trial can be extended up to 90 days on request.
We looked at Qlik Sense, SAP Analytics Cloud, and IBM Cognos Analytics for our financial brand's needs. Qlik Sense is super user-friendly, great for quick data digging. SAP Analytics is perfect when we're working with other SAP stuff; it just clicks. But for our big project, …
Single tool to have all built in capabilities of reporting, planning & prediction. Ease of usage to business users as no need to sign in on different tools for different kind of analytics. Easy integration with SAP Source systems for importing data. Natural Language Querying …
In my opinion, if your company uses most of SAP ecosystem, it is better to choose an analytical tool from SAP such as the Analytics Cloud. It will provide seamless integration with the ERP as well as a clear evolution from our BO.
SAP Analytics Cloud is simple to use and you can access it using even a mobile device. On top of that its affordable and comes in two differentiated enterprise plans that are geared to helping the organization attain its goals. SAP Analytics Cloud is also popular in the market …
When we talk about SAP, what you are looking for is not the best price but a complete integration with the other products of the brand. But even in the same brand, their updates are more frequent and allow the addition of several improvements that are not yet found in other …
Well suited: Financial reporting - It can handle complex, pixel perfect, muti-page reports with scheduled delivery to stakeholders (like sales report by region on quarterly periodicity) Operational dashboard across departments - It can combine multiple data sources (ERP, CRM, excels etc) with filters, and embedded AI insights Less appropriate: Live dashboards - As stated earlier as well, IBM Cognos Analytics doesn't suit well for live dashboards or event driven data. For ex: live web traffic data or IOT device data, etc Data science - Although IBM Cognos Analytics is great tool for data exploration but it should not be used as a substitute for Python or R, which has edge over advanced modelling and stats based workflows like predictive modelling or clustering
>> Using SAC predictive analytics capabilities for inventory management in a Production line setup has helped generate Purchase Requisitions and Purchase Orders for raw or semi-finished goods without much head-banging into Demand management rules. It does it beautifully with seamless integration with HANA core MM and PP modules, along with BI integration. It has resulted in 30% greater warehouse storage capacity, thereby saving revenue from piled-up inventory and associated manpower costs. >> SAC sometimes shows latency in working out a large data set, thus giving a poor user experience compared to its competition. Also, it may occasionally show misinterpretations when embedding data from 3rd-party systems into the HANA core dataset.
It makes it easier yo analyse order and related records easily.
We can easily maintain and track the performance of employees in organisation.
Can easily track various aspects for the growth of an organisation thus allowing real time analysis and tracking of organisation's growth and performance.
IBM Cognos Analytics enables customer data segmentation, which is essential for marketing, improving and streamlining purchasing behavior and preferences. This helps companies create more targeted and effective marketing campaigns.
Our clients Through data analysis, we can identify and observe trends in the behavior of other clients, allowing us to anticipate needs and adjust strategies to avoid consequences.
SAC supports various data sources, but improvements in the ease of connecting to and integrating with certain data repositories, especially non-SAP databases, would enhance the platform's versatility and integration capabilities.
An offline mode for SAC could be valuable for users who need to access and analyze data without an internet connection. Additionally, optimizing performance for large datasets and complex visualizations would contribute to a smoother user experience.
For an existing solution, renewing licenses does provide a good return on investment. Additionally, while rolling out scorecards and dashboards with little adhoc capabilities, to end users, cognos is very easily scalable. It also allows to create a solution that has a mix of OLAP and relational data-sources, which is a limitation with other tools. Synchronizing with existing security setup is easy too.
We are planning to review the licensing as we have issues with SAC dealing with huge datasets. Analytics area is good for import models but when we have live connections in place that's when we have issue with SAC dealing with huge datasets in live be it BW or be it HANA models in the backend.
We have a strong user base (3500 users) that are highly utilizing this tool. Basic users are able to consume content within the applied security model. We have a set of advanced users that really push the limits of Cognos with Report and Query Studio. These users have created a lot of personal content and stored it in 'My Reports'. Users enjoy this flexibility.
I landed on a 7 out of 10 for a few key reasons. The tool is flexible in the sense that we are using very very very (very) little off the shelf solutions and customizing to our needs. Users enjoy having the customized data actions, key variance calculations, and easy to use headcount/salary planning in the same tool. One downside is that users are hard to please when they are used to excel. SAP Analytics Cloud simply is not excel, and the flexibility of excel in a crunch is not there.
Reports can typically be viewed through any browser that can access the server, so the availability is ultimately up to what the company utilizing it is comfortable with allowing, though report development tends to be more picky about browsers and settings as mentioned above. It also has an optional iPad app and general mobile browsing support, but dashboards lack the mobile compatibility. What keeps it from getting a higher score is the desktop tools that are vital to the development process. The compatibility with only Windows when the server has a wide range of compatibility can be a real sore point for a company that outfits its employees exclusively with Mac or Linux machines. Of course, if they are planning on outsourcing the development anyways, it's a rather moot point
I would rate SAP Analytics Cloud an 8 out of 10 for scalability. It offers a flexible, cloud-based architecture that supports expansion across departments and geographies. The platform adapts well to growing data volumes and user needs, making it a strong choice for organizations looking to scale analytics capabilities efficiently.
Overall no major complaints but it doesn't handle DMR (Dimensionally Modeled for Relational) very well. DMR modelling is a capability that IBM Cognos Framework Manager provides allowing you to specify dimensional information for relational metadata and allows for OLAP-style queries. However, the capability is not very efficient and, for example, if I'm using only 2 columns on a 20-column model, the software is not smart enough to exclude 18 columns and the query side gets progressively larger and larger until it's effectively unusable.
I would rate SAP Analytics Cloud’s performance an 8 out of 10. Pages generally load quickly, and reports run within a reasonable time frame, even with complex datasets. Integration with other systems is smooth and doesn’t noticeably affect performance. Overall, it’s a responsive and efficient tool for business analytics. But
Why is their web application not working as fast as you think it should? They never know, and it is always a a bunch of shots in the dark to find out. Trying to download software from them is like trying to find a book at the library before computers were invented.
Since the implementation stage, the support team has been very helpful and assisting. Even in the later stages, the tech team had quite a rapid response. In general, SAP has provided us with great customer support, let it be for a specific product of SAP or for integration of different modules.
Onsite training provided by IBM Cognos was effective and as expected. They did not perform training with our data which was a bit difficult for our end-users.
The online courses they offer are thorough and presented in such a way that someone who isn't already familiar with the general design methodologies used in this field will be capable of making a good design. The training environments are provided as a fully self contained virtual machine with everything needed already to create the environments. We've had some persisting issues with the environments becoming unavailable, but support has been responsive when these issues arise and straightening them out for us
In hindsight, it would have been easier to have someone there in person. Questions were answered, but with 11 participants, it got a bit chaotic online
Make sure that any custom tables that you have, are built into your metadata packages. You can still access them via SQL queries in Cognos, but it is much easier to have them as a part of the available metadata packages.
SAC is a simple solution ad it works fine when connecting it to other SAP tools. On the other hand, connecting it to third party solutions brings difficulties when there's no previous design and the objetives are not clear. It is really important to integrate Business users from the start to provide with valuable business insights
Power BI is stronger for quick ad-hoc analysis and dashboards, but IBM Cognos Analytics is better when consistency, precision, and mass distribution matter. Tableau is best for interactive analysis, while IBM Cognos Analytics is better for standardized, repeatable enterprise reporting. Sigma shines for customizable dashboards and drill-down analysis while IBM Cognos Analytics holds an edge in data discovery and visualization.
SAP Analytics Cloud and Power BI are both tools that help businesses understand their data, but they have some differences. SAC, made by SAP, works well if your company already uses other SAP products. It's in the cloud, easy to use, and has features for analyzing data, getting insights, and planning for the future. Power BI, made by Microsoft, can be used in the cloud or on your own computers. It fits well with Microsoft tools, is easy to use, and can do advanced data analysis. SAC has built-in planning tools, while Power BI needs extra tools for detailed planning
The Cognos architecture is well suited for scalability. However, the architecture must be designed with scalability in mind from day one of the implementation. We recently upgraded from 10.1 to 10.2.1 and took the opportunity to revamp our architecture. It is now poised for future growth and scalability.
Is good for use across multiple locations. It allows users to access data and reports from anywhere, regardless of their location. Can consolidate data from various sources, including different SAP systems and external sources, which facilitates cross-location analysis. SAC enables access to data and models from SAP Datasphere to create new stories. Detailed permissions can be defined for cross-departmental use.
Many manual data manipulations and exports in Excel have been replaced by the tool, providing management with improved insight into the amount of time spent at each stage of an invoice's lifetime, allowing bottlenecks to be discovered.
We now have more insight into the data, and people with little technical experience can easily build stories.
