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Leading Customers Use Cognos Performance Management to Drive Increased Visibility and Control in the Office of Finance: - Cognos Controller and Pla

OTTAWA & BURLINGTON, Mass. (Business Wire EON) October 31, 2007 -- Cognos performance management solutions provide a single line of sight across all time horizons. Planning and consolidation combine the forward management view of the business (planning, budgeting and forecasting) with the current and historical view of the business (consolidations, reporting, and financial analytics.) This integrated operational and financial view lets customers proactively address business challenges for greater operational effectiveness.

Cognos Controller automates and structures the financial consolidation process, provides centralized control and collection of data, supports the improvement of the internal controls environment and ensures delivery of certified, financial performance information for internal and external reporting. Customers get a transparent, accurate and timely enterprise view of financial performance. Cognos Planning is a finance-managed solution that provides real-time visibility into resource requirements and future business results. It supports best practices such as driver-based planning and rolling forecasts, and serves as the cornerstone for enterprise-wide performance management.

Consolidated Graphics (CGX) is a leading commercial printing company with a far reaching footprint across North America. CGX selected Cognos 8 Controller to deliver a single, secure, and robust corporate reporting platform to be driven by the company's finance department.

"As a fast growing business with operations across North America, we wanted to enhance financial performance management by streamlining our data reporting processes with a robust solution that would be readily used across the organization," said Tracy Crawford, senior accountant at CGX. "Using Cognos 8 Controller, our organization will shorten and improve our close, consolidation and reporting processes and give our many locations more timely access to accurate, quality financial data."

Vermilion Energy Trust is a premiere Canadian-based international energy trust headquartered in Calgary, Alberta. Having experienced significant growth in the past four years, Vermilion selected Cognos 8 Controller to automate and streamline the company's consolidation process enabling a more efficient close.

"We have a complex consolidation process that previously relied on numerous spreadsheets requiring considerable effort to provide consolidated financial results on a timely basis," said Jeremy Kalanuk, supervisor of financial reporting at Vermilion Energy Trust. "We chose Cognos 8 Controller to give us a centralized, Web-based, scalable corporate reporting solution that can be managed by the finance team. With Cognos 8 Controller, we don't need to tie up IT resources, and our consolidation process is much more efficient."

While consolidation is a formidable effort for most companies, financial and operational planning can also consume valuable corporate cycles and resources. With a global network of more than 700 offices in 63 countries, Crawford & Company is the world's largest independent provider of claims management solutions to insurance companies and self-insured entities. To assist in corporate planning, the senior management team needed a detailed monthly budget and forecast report, with a particular focus on compensation.

"We were looking for a planning solution that could be easily deployed and updated, require minimal keystrokes, yet support significant built in calculations," said Stacy Swanson, director of operations support at Crawford & Company. "With Cognos Planning, our organization has a solid accurate budget view which delivers increased visibility and control to drive better business decisions, without using significant employee resources."

"The task of closing the books, consolidating results and financial reporting, coupled with meeting compliance requirements, is too complex and time consuming to do manually. And obtaining a forward-looking view of the business that adapts to changes in market conditions, customer behavior, and resource availability can only be achieved with a robust performance management solution," said Doug Barton, vice president, performance management at Cognos. "With Cognos Financial Performance Management solutions, our customers are able to set performance targets, align resource plans and forecast business results to meet or beat expectations. Companies are easily able to combine financial consolidation and planning with business intelligence capabilities to define, understand and lead the company's decision-making for better financial performance management."

About Cognos:

Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions, provides world-class enterprise planning and BI software and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance.

Cognos brings together technology, analytical applications, best practices, and a broad network of partners to give customers a complete performance system. The Cognos performance system is an open and adaptive solution that leverages an organization's ERP, packaged applications, and database investments. It gives customers the ability to answer the questions -- How are we doing? Why are we on or off track? What should we do about it? - and enables them to understand and monitor current performance while planning future business strategies.

Cognos serves more than 23,000 customers in more than 135 countries, and its top 100 enterprise customers consistently outperform market indexes. Cognos performance management solutions and services are also available from more than 3,000 worldwide partners and resellers. For more information, visit the Cognos Web site at http://www.cognos.com

Cognos and the Cognos logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cognos Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Note to Editors: Copies of previous Cognos press releases and Corporate and product information are available on Cognos' Web site at http://www.cognos.com

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