Item: IBM Cognos Analytics
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It [IBM Cognos Analytics] is used for report-building purposes and creating dashboards with data that could be crucial for decision-making. It is used by the IT department and serves across the whole organization. The business problems that it addresses are it helps in the process of automation and reduce redundant tasks and also improves report readiness.

Pros and Cons

It is really fast, execution is smooth.
User friendly, easy to navigate and encourages 'do it yourself'.
Improves decision making by providing useful insights into data in a never visualized before way.

Sorting results are not accurate sometimes.
Multiple data points are mapped to a single location on a map.
The forecasting functions could be improved.

Return on Investment

Reduced costs from manual preparation of reports
Report readiness has ben enhanced due to automation in IBM Cognos
Timely delivery due to report scheduling feature

Alternatives Considered

Used other products like Tableau, Qlik Sense, SSRS & Power BI, Cognos Analytics is an equally competitive tool and much better in some features like report delivery and scheduling. Easiest to navigate and play around and the most user-friendly tool when compared to the above tools in my opinion. These are some of the reasons why we prefer Cognos.

Self-Service

These additional features have enhanced the viability of Cognos, but we are yet to use these features more aggressively. At the moment we are focusing on the automation of existing manual prepared reports by automating them using Cognos and creating schedules to automate, report delivery processes in order not to miss timelines and be more efficient.

Data Security and Quality

The data governance feature is great since we are able to restrict access to users who are not authorized to view certain dashboards. The data quality is assured due to the various data checkpoints that have been created. Previously when we distribute reports through emails this kind of data security could not be established but now due to Cognos's content management feature, we are able to restrict access and secure the dashboards.

Reporting

The chart features are amazing and the quality of data visualization is tremendous. The charts talk to each other - this feature is awesome and brings in thrills in our stakeholders. Multipage reports have drastically reduced the number of multiple dashboards that we used to create before we came to realize this feature. Formatting has never been easier to move around.

Other Software Used

Qlik Sense, Microsoft Power BI, Tableau Online

Key Insights

Do you think IBM Cognos Analytics delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with IBM Cognos Analytics's feature set?

Yes

Did IBM Cognos Analytics live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of IBM Cognos Analytics go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy IBM Cognos Analytics again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

Well suited for handling not-so-large datasets. It is very fast and responsive. It is user-friendly, a new user can quickly adapt to its features. It is less appropriate to use while [using] large volumes of data. Forecast functions could be improved. It would be appreciated if it could handle datasets having many parameters.

Cognizant [IBM] Cognos Analytics - a vital cog in your analytics platform

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Cognos Analytics