Cognos (NASDAQ: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions, is continuing its strong industry momentum with the launch of two new performance solutions designed to help manufacturers drive more effective sales & operations planning (S&OP) and trade promotions management.
Matching product demand with production and supply chain capabilities is a key driver among manufacturers looking to improve business performance in today’s dynamic marketplace. Yet, organisations have struggled with their S&OP processes due to a lack of coordinated planning, metrics and reporting across all departments. The new Cognos Sales and Operations Planning Blueprint enables management to reconcile sales and demand forecasts with supply plans using a single, integrated performance management framework that ensures enterprise-wide alignment. Users can model and assess the financial impact of supply/demand scenarios to create a multi-plant S&OP view, and then monitor the plan on an ongoing basis using score carding and analytics, making ‘right-time’ adjustments as needed.
“As new opportunities arise, manufacturers need to plan quickly and in detail. Success is contingent on a number of ingredients – enterprise-wide integration of systems, ubiquitous information visibility across the supply chain, a strong ‘what-if’ capability, and deep analytics for comparing outcomes, so management can anticipate the impact of potential actions across business functions,” said Colin Snow, vice-president and research director of operational and supply chain performance management at Ventana Research. “The Cognos Sales and Operations Planning Blueprint empowers organisations to react quickly to ad-hoc exceptions – like changes in demand, supply, capacity and product – plan effectively and measure the progress of responses against key performance objectives.”
Another significant challenge for manufacturers is the inability to understand and measure the effectiveness of their retail trade promotions, given limited information access and an increasingly complex marketing and promotions mix. The Cognos Trade Promotion Management Blueprint enables brand and category managers as well as sales executives to evaluate multiple trade promotions scenarios, helping them more effectively plan promotional activities that lead to the greatest sales and margin lift.
“Many manufacturers today are relying on spreadsheets to drive their sales & operations planning and trade promotions management. While they may be passable, short-term fixes at the departmental levels, their localised capabilities fall well short in enabling a consolidated, coordinated, enterprise-wide intelligence that can positively impact an organization’s overall performance,” said David Brierley, regional manager, Cognos Middle East and Africa. “Cognos’ new Performance Blueprints provide managers with the information required to effectively assess the trade-offs that are vital to ensuring the right mix of production, outsourced resources and trade promotions to maximize sales effectiveness and meet demand.”
Anchored on Cognos 8 Planning and Cognos 8 BI, the Cognos Sales & Operations Planning and Trade Promotion Management Blueprints are the first Manufacturing-specific solutions planned by Cognos, and the latest in a series of industry-specific performance solutions to be rolled out this year. Since January, Cognos has launched Performance Blueprints for retail store operations, retail store development, bank branch performance, pharmaceutical clinical trials and pharmaceutical sample optimization.
Cognos is a recognised leader in delivering performance management solutions for the manufacturing industry. Currently, 19 of the top 20 consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers, nine of the top 10 high tech companies, and all of the top 10 automakers use Cognos to improve sales and operations performance, marketing effectiveness, and supply chain management.
About Cognos:
Cognos, a leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management, delivers software and services that help companies drive, monitor and understand corporate performance.
Cognos delivers the next level of competitive advantage - Corporate Performance Management (CPM) - achieved through the strategic application of BI on an enterprise scale. Our integrated CPM solution helps customers drive performance through planning; monitor performance through scorecarding; and understand performance through business intelligence.
Cognos serves more than 23,000 customers in over 135 countries. Cognos enterprise business intelligence and 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.
For more information on Cognos solutions for the manufacturing industry, please visit http://www.cognos.com/solutions/industry/manufacturing/index.html
ABOUT COGNOS PERFORMANCE BLUEPRINTS:
Cognos offers a full suite of Performance Blueprints to address planning and performance management process areas that directly impact an organization’s ability to create business value. Both functional and industry specific process areas can now be automated, streamlined and transformed to help organizations quickly create more business value. The Cognos Performance Blueprints are a key component within the Cognos Performance Management System, which combines technology, best practices, analytical applications and solutions, and a broad network of partners into a single performance management solution for customers. For further information on the Cognos Performance Blueprints see http://www.cognos.com/innovationcenter/blueprint.html.
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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.
