| Business
Intelligence: Cognos
In modern businesses, increasing standards, automation and technology
usage have led to vast amounts of data becoming available. Business
Intelligence (BI) is the art of sieving through that data, extracting
pertinent information, turning it into knowledge upon which actions
can be taken, and making that knowledge accessible to the key decision
makers in an organisation.
"In the absence of BI, a 'fact gap' exists: a condition where
users make decisions and assess risk and opportunities based upon anecdotal,
incomplete or outdated information. This isn't much better than guessing,
leaving most businesses seriously exposed."
Source: Gartner Group 07/01
Conissaunce have many years of BI experience, particularly with products
from Cognos, one of the leading providers of BI tools.
The foundation of all Cognos (and other vendors') reports is the metadata,
whether this be an Impromptu catalog or the newer Framework Manager
model. The purpose of metadata is to present users with a business view
of the data so that they need not understand the structure of the underlying
database. At Conissaunce we understand that it is crucial to the long
term success of any reporting implementation that users are able to
create accurate reports quickly and easily, so we always get this right
before moving on to report generation.
Our main expertise lie in the following Cognos offerings:
As with many large IT projects a high proportion of BI projects fail.
(Gartner has put the figure as high as 50%). Some of the key reasons
for this are:
- Poor Data Quality
- Business Requirements Not Met
- Solution is Not Extendable
- No Unified View of Information
- Project Scope too Large
Source: Giga Information Group, July 2001
Conissaunce has a proven track record of implementing BI projects on
time and on budget. Key projects have included TUI-UK (Thomson Holidays)
and UnumProvident.
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