Business Intelligence Solution for SMEs

IBM Cognos® Express is an integrated business intelligence (BI) and planning solution purpose-built to meet the needs of small to midsized companies.

It is not a cut-down version of the enterprise product, but a smart modular tool that delivers SMEs with the reporting, analysis, dashboard, scorecard, planning, budgeting and forecasting capabilities that they need. The solution easily plugs into an organisation’s existing infrastructure and can be up and running in just a few hours. It is designed to be easy to install and to use - and at an affordable price.

What is Cognos Express?

Cognos Express is a Web-based tool. It consists of an Administration core plus four modules that can be bought separately or in any combination:

• Reporter
  This complete reporting and querying tool delivers results extremely quickly. You can create reports and hoc queries using drag-and-drop-style gestures. You can create a chart from a set of chart types with previously selected data, format data, fonts and decimal places.
• Advisor
  The Advisor module is a data analysis and visualisation tool that translates your raw data into clearly presented, sophisticated analysis. It is used for forecasting and exploring "what-if" scenarios, and allows you to spot emerging trends quickly. Identify your most profitable products - and what makes them profitable. Identify your best customers, the effectiveness of your customer service. It creates data cubes that enable fast and flexible analysis and enables you to analyse data collected from relational data sources in a dimensional way.
• Xcelerator
  This module transforms the familiar Microsoft Excel into a valuable tool for data analysis and planning. It allows business users to use existing Excel skills and investments while overcoming the risks and limitations of spreadsheet-only processes.
  
  The module manages data, rules and calculations centrally to help prevent/eliminate compartmentalised data (data silos) and inconsistencies. And it has a powerful in-memory analytics engine which can deliver improved performance over disk-based processing so your results are delivered extremely rapidly. The tool is perfect for a wide range of business analysis and "what-if" scenario modelling.
• Planner
  IT planning automation for all of your business. The planning, budgeting, and forecasting module can transform your company’s planning processes. Replace slow, cumbersome manual planning processes with automated daily, weekly or monthly planning tools using the latest, accurate data. The module enables your business to react quickly to changing operational conditions.

Sample IBM Cognos Express dashboard designed specifically for midmarket users:


Frontline Consultancy

Frontline Consultancy have many years experience working with IBM Cognos and business analytics. We pride ourselves on offering consultancy, support and development to SMEs across the North West in order for them to get the very best from all of their IT investments.

For more information about IBM Cognos Express, or to discuss any aspects of your IT requirements, please call us on 0161 486 4400 or email us with your enquiry.