BURLINGTON, Mass.--(Business Wire)--Cognos(R) (NASDAQ: COGN) (TSX: CSN), the world leader in business
intelligence and performance management solutions, today announced
that Cognos TM1 enables Envision Credit Union, a Florida-based
financial institution, to improve the overall efficiency of its
finance department processes while simultaneously improving the
quality and timeliness of reporting, and analysis of business
performance.
"To streamline the finance department's planning, forecasting and
reporting processes, it was critical that we deploy a state-of-the-art
solution such as Cognos TM1," said Dan McGowan senior vice president
and CFO, Envision Credit Union. "Consolidating all the reporting and
analysis activities into a single platform enables us to facilitate
both internal and external financial reporting and analytical
activities and do it much nearer to our ultimate real-time goal."
Envision Credit Union is dedicated to effectively managing about
$190 million for its 32,000 members. "To remain competitive, the
finance team is always in search of innovative solutions that address
operational challenges," said McGowan. "From my experience, most
organizations do not have existing mechanisms in place to provide
quick and cost effective answers to the frequently posed but
non-standard questions from executive management. With Cognos TM1,
Envision has the business analytic platform needed to answer those
ad-hoc questions essential to gaining insight and improving business
performance."
In addition to streamlining financial reporting for external
stakeholders, directors and executive management, TM1 has enabled
Envision Credit to make significant strides in operational
efficiencies spread over a dozen projects with varying degrees of
complexity. Capabilities that have improved the company's view into
performance include the modeling of fee-related income, analysis of
charge offs and recoveries, reporting of financing activity trends,
comparative analysis of all income statement and balance sheet
accounts with 'point and click' ease. Reporting and analysis often
employs percent thresholds bringing management focus to significant
performance variances from plan or forecast expectations. A typical
example of the efficiency impact is illustrated through the reduction
of monthly teller activity reporting from 20-plus manual labor hours
to less than 10 minutes. Overall, Cognos TM1 has reduced effort, paper
utilization, keying errors, and process redundancies while also
enhancing timeliness and quality of management decision making.
"We've managed to accomplish all of this, and more, in our first
year as a Cognos TM1 client, and yet feel we've only scratched the
surface as to what we can do in the years ahead. In the immediate
future, the Accounting Department will be expanding the scope of
services offered to executive management and other departments using
TM1's Web interface," McGowan said.
"Both large and mid-sized enterprises constantly require new
levels of information about past, present and future performance, and
Cognos TM1 provides users with the flexibility and responsiveness to
rapidly access and evaluate that total view and apply it to their
day-to-day operations and to long-term strategic plans," said Doug
Barton, vice president of product marketing, Cognos. "Armed with more
sophisticated, timely and appropriately detailed information, the
business users and executives within companies of all sizes can
understand the bottom line impact of potential business decisions and
drive superior performance."
Award Winning Leadership
McGowan's creativity and innovative financial solutions have been
publicly recognized. He has been honored with "Best Practices" awards
in the areas of innovations for operational efficiency and advances in
business intelligence from Inside Risk Magazine and the Credit Union
Journal. McGowan is a member of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA)
and the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), and served a three
year term on the Board of Regents of the Institute of Certified
Management Accountants (ICMA), the standards setting, governing body
for the Certified Management Accountant (CMA) professional
credentials.
About Envision Credit Union:
Established January 26, 1954, Envision Credit Union has grown its
initial $50 investment to over $190,000,000. This full service
financial institution serves about 32,000 members at ten financial
centers, and around the world via the Internet.
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.
Cognos TM1 is a registered trademark of Cognos Incorporated. 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
Media:
Cognos, Inc.
Connie Costigan, 613-738-1440
Connie.Costigan@cognos.com
or
Lois Paul & Partners
Frank Tutalo, 781-782-5761
Frank_Tutalo@lpp.com
or
Investor Relations:
Cognos, Inc.
John Lawlor, 613-738-3503
john.lawlor@cognos.com
Copyright Business Wire 2008
