IBM has announced major enhancements to its performance management software (see FSN Product Review) designed to help CFOs and finance managers accelerate the adoption of business analytics and drive better decision making. In a bold move, IBM says the new analytic finance solutions can reduce customer planning cycles in half and reduce reporting cycles from days to minutes. They told FSN the claim is based on past performance from pre-9.5 version customers.
Features added to IBM’s analytic solutions include, new business analytic capabilities for end users to provide dynamic hierarchies and allow unlimited flexibility for end user scenario building.
New financial consolidation capabilities with enhanced allocations and stronger formula calculations for preparing financial reports and analyses were also announced. Finally IBM announced new industry blueprints to help customers quickly gain stronger insights into key performance metrics. These pre-built models include product profitability and financial analytics, demand planning for consumer packed goods customers, and an executive underwriting dashboard for insurance clients.
The newly announced capabilities have been added to IBM Cognos TM1 and IBM Cognos 8 Controller.
Quiznos is one of the fastest-growing restaurant chains with more than 5,000 outlets in the U.S. and worldwide. With a complex business and information structure consisting of 35 separate legal entities in five business segments, the company currently uses IBM analytics to simplify financial reporting and planning across its global operations “With IBM business analytics, we’ve been able to turn information into a strategic driver for business optimization and make it a competitive differentiation for our company,” said Michael McConnaughey, Financial Systems Applications Developer at Quiznos. “With the new IBM Cognos software, all of our business units will be able to use the same assumptions and the same drivers when building budgets and making key financial decisions in real time. Teams will also be able to view business variances and use predictive insights to understand the impact on the organization.”
The new version of IBM Cognos 8 Controller extends core financial consolidation capabilities with enhanced allocations and stronger formula calculations used for preparing financial reports and analyses. IBM says that seamless, real-time synchronization with IBM Cognos TM1 extends certified financial data into the full functional reporting and analytics environment for business understanding.
“As a consolidation tool, IBM Cognos 8 Controller helps us streamline the monthly reporting process and supplement the quarterly close report that we have in place for SEC reporting,” said Connie Rosengarten, accounting manager at Liberty Media. “With Financial Analytic Publisher in the new version, we expect to be able to create and deliver reports leveraging the full range of IBM Cognos 8 BI to deliver key financial information to our business stakeholders.”
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