Cognos Analytics

Rules of the Game

Following the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the dynamics of our world have shifted in more ways than one --- labor changes, supply chain shortages, increasing inflation, increased regulation and more.

These unexpected market forces have changed the rules of the game – challenging organizations to make data driven decisions in an increasingly disrupted world. This translates to users facing increased time pressure for decisions; however, they often lack the access to the type of analytics needed to confidently move forward.

Choose Your Player

Every business relies on a team of players and tools to succeed in their field. Arming your firm for success means providing the right tools, at the right time, and in the best possible way. This is why we created the IBM Business Analytics Enterprise, a bundle which includes Cognos Analytics + Planning Analytics + Analytics Content Hub.

By bringing together best in class business intelligence and extended planning and analysis or xP&A, firms now have a duet of insights coming from both Cognos and Planning Analytics. With both of these strong tools, organizing them seamlessly in the Analytics Content Hub makes it easily consumable and scalable to meet all your analytics needs in a single unified environment that every player on your team can leverage. With that being said, let the games begin!

Single Player Mode

In order to address the ever changing rules of the business landscape, it’s best explored through an analogy to video games that exemplify the challenges customers face. First, to set the scene - Forrester notes 61% of organizations use four or more BI platforms. The main reason for the widespread footprint is the belief that each department needs a specialized BI tool which is consistent with the notion that all types of users require data to make more confident decisions. (See example chart below)

Single player mode is an analogy to how analytic content engagement currently functions. With the average customer having 4+ BI tools which include reporting, budgeting/planning, and dashboarding tools, single player mode is not as effective. To help unearth the problem we are solving, here are 3 tiers of challenges customers face, explained as levels of a game.

Level One – Firms have a continuous internal migration or duplication of analytic content from one tool to another as departmental responsibilities and resources shift. This is a cycle that leads to overlapping asset creation and general searching confusion, especially since each BI tool serves as its own data silo

Level Two – Finding the right data, for the right people, at the right time is the next layer of complexity firms must navigate on the path to fast insight and action. Figuring out what content is relevant, quality assured, and engagement with the asset is a monumental task regardless of the number of tools being used. This is not easy to solve – it requires time to browse content, communication to vet quality content, and then separate systems for feedback or collaboration.

Level Three – The hardest level usually known as the “boss” level is what all players (users) strive to beat, which in the analytic space means converting insight into tangible action. Now that users have found the right assets, been able to qualify and engage relevant content, they need to be able to swiftly make data driven decisions. To beat this level, players (users) must battle inefficiencies such as viewing assets in multiple silos by logging into each tool every day, finding the content again, latency between toggling between different reports, browser tabs, or desktop files and the list goes on.

• Marketing: Optimize wallet share.
• Sales: Uncover client needs.
• Operations: Automate business processes.
• Finance: Accurately forecast performance
• HR: Attract top talent.
• IT: Optimize IT spending.

Multi-Player Mode

The IBM Analytics Content Hub enables Business Analytics in multiplayer mode in a few major ways:

1. The IBM Analytics Content Hub is a clean streaming experience to visualize relevant analytic content by pulling in content not only from IBM but from other analytics providers such as Microsoft, Google, and Tableau.
2. The Hub helps amplify a clean workflow by allowing multiple personas to collaborate on analytic content via page editing, centralized feedback, and quality scoring content all through a single sign-on while respecting the security and previous entitlements of other vendors.
3. The epitome of Mutli-Player mode is the ability to combine insights from different BI tools to create a composite dashboard with elements from each. Meaning, now users can benefit from seeing the complete picture, move faster during their work flow, collaborate with each other. This eliminates the friction all 3 player levels create so your users can “win” the game by turning insight to action.

Now, organizations can leverage the strong assets created in Cognos Analytics or Planning Analytics in conjunction with other BI content in a single pane of glass. Move forward faster, with more confidence, and together with other users in an organization to tackle every challenging level of our new disruptive world.

In the demo video, we will explore the Content Hub’s key capabilities in content discovery, personalization, and showcase a composite dashboard! Enjoy!

I also encourage you to join the IBM Business Analytics live stream event on October 25, to hear more case studies on how others have used our business analytics products to accelerate decision making. Register for the live stream event

Thanks and please reach out to me with any questions.
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