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.
$10
per month per user
SAP Concur
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
SAP Concur is a SaaS expense report management product, and handles corporate travel booking, expense report automation, reimbursement, audit, and business intelligence, and corporate card integration.
IBM Cognos stood out presumably because of the target market - we have been doing it in telco market so IBM Cognos could be a good fit due to its powerful capacity to establish the reports and data sets.
During the comparison I looked at Expesnsify, SAP's T/E module and a few others. There is simply no match for Concur. I would say that many other products can rival Concur in the expense area but the two particular areas to be aware of are 1) Travel (compliance and prices) 2) …
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
SAP Concur is great for large organizations because of it's built in approval process functions. It is great tool for expense reports and any company where employees need to book travel. I imagine that the tool would be more tricky to use for those who are less technically savvy since there are many tabs and it is sometimes tricky to navigate.
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.
For a new user of SAP Concur, it becomes difficult to file the first reimbursement as that person is new to the application and probably, one needs to to go through the instructions to get used to it. So, user interface can be improved and could be tried to make more interactive. Other than that, it's all good to go.
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.
Now that we are fully on Concur, switching is not an option. Concur has become ingrained in our expense reporting process. Furthermore, Concur continues to improve its offering. Each month, they release updates and changes, many of which were client requested. Concur's constant evolution means it is adapting with my business
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 think it is very easy to use, especially once you are acquainted with it. I think the UX could be improved so some things, like accessing old reports, are more intuitive once you learn it though it is not difficult to replicate.
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
In prior years I would have given them a 9.5 for availability. Unfortunately in 2015 so far this rating has dropped to a 7 overall. We have experienced far too many interruptions - from admins to employees who rely on it for day to day booking of travel and submission of expense reports. Server errors, slow system response time and spinning wheels are too common place. Those things should be a rare occurrence, not a daily interruption.
While Conur still has great product offerings overall, they are currently not offering world class or best in class product (and customer service) availability. Remaining hopeful they step up and get their A game going again soon.
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.
Performance-wise, it's good, loads pages quickly, and reports are highly accurate and easy to understand. Also, we can generate custom reports as needed, and we have integrated with a few other apps, and we have not seen any downgrade in performance.
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.
I have never had to use customer support when using Concur Expense - the UX could be a bit nicer on the eyes or easier to understand, but there have never been any problems when using Concur Expense that I have had to ask or reach out to customer support to help me with anything.
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.
My Seniors were the ones who taught me about Concur. Concur Support team has sent me training links and answered me in their tickets too. Usually they are helpful and knows their stuff. There are times when webex meetings is conducted for reporting training. They were very patient and took down all the details from me.
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
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.
There are different implementation teams for each module of the product you purchase, so implementation is not a 'one size fits all' environment. Also, the different implementation teams have different ways of doing things, so Concur could stand some standardization and streamlining in this area. A Project Manager can make or break an implementation so don't be scared to ask for a new one if things are rocky.
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.
Expensify and Zoho Expense work for small and mid-size businesses. Big multinationals do not receive benefits from the apps. Coupa is good as a solution for organizations with non-SAP leading systems. If you plan to use SAP ERP as the main/lending system then SAP Concur is the best solution, mainly for its native integration with SAP ecosystem.
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.
This program has been very helpful, user friendly and has been a great asset to use to assist with time management. Not only are leadership involved with using this program but all staff as well. This is also a great way to hold each accountable. Easy startup with not many means for hands on training
