IBM Cognos Analytics
What is IBM Cognos Analytics?
Web-based BI suite for reporting, analysis (visual, advanced), dashboards with a Jupyter Notebook integration.
About IBM Cognos Analytics
Self-description of the vendor
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IBM Cognos Analytics BARC Review & Rating
Provider and product description
IBM® is one of the world’s largest vendors of IT hardware, software and services. The company has a global workforce of approximately 270,000 employees and is active across the globe. In 2007, IBM purchased the BI vendor Cognos and made its software the center of its BI & analytics product offerings.
IBM offers a broad portfolio of analytics, performance management and advanced analytics solutions to support its customers with their businesses and increase productivity. Major offerings in this area include IBM Cognos Analytics, IBM watsonx and IBM Cloud Pak for Data. IBM supports a wide range of deployment requirements by offering both cloud and on-premises options as well as the option of a client-preferred IaaS provider or IBM Cloud data centers (single or multi-tenant).
Cognos Analytics – IBM’s BI & analytics platform – concentrates its functional strengths in enterprise reporting, self-service dashboards and AI-assisted analytics. It combines ease of use with elaborate governance features in an end-to-end platform. The product can be used in large-scale scenarios supporting the needs of many concurrent users as well as large data volumes.
Cognos Analytics provides AI-powered insights including NLQ, automated insights and intent-driven modeling. Automation and ML capabilities across data modeling, dashboards, data exploration (‘Exploration’) as well as an AI assistant are intended to provide faster results for all users. The chat-based Cognos Analytics AI assistant allows users to explore data by asking natural language questions and by receiving insightful answers with a presentation-ready dashboard or report. Cognos’ built-in ML capabilities can also identify trends and forecast results, helping companies to identify relevant influencers and correlations, and to calculate quick predictions.
IBM also works continuously on extending the advanced and predictive analytics capabilities of Cognos Analytics, bringing business analyst and data scientist workloads closer together. The integration of Jupyter Notebooks in the user interface provides flexibility in data preparation, statistical analysis and ML. Cognos Analytics also has an integration with IBM watsonx BI, enabling the use of GenAI capabilities for ad hoc query and analysis within the user’s existing analytics workflow. IBM watsonx is the vendor’s advanced analytics platform targeted at data scientists and developers. Besides its widely known visual modeling capabilities, watsonx includes coding modules based on Jupyter Notebooks for development in R and Python, AutoML and embedded decision management. Watsonx also offers IBM’s proprietary Granite and third-party LLMs, along with Prompt Lab and Tuning Studio components. Cognos Analytics can also be deployed as part of IBM Cloud Pak for Data to enable many types of analytics use cases. Customers seeking a solution to help business users access their analytics content in one place may find it in IBM Analytics Content Hub, an OEM used by IBM to provide a central point of access not only to IBM’s products, such as IBM Cognos Analytics and IBM Planning Analytics, but also for third-party providers.
Strengths and challenges of IBM Cognos Analytics
BARC’s viewpoint on the product’s strengths and challenges.
Strengths
- Cognos Analytics is a well-integrated end-to-end platform for governed analytics for business users that spans data preparation and modeling to analysis, reports and dashboards.
- Cognos Analytics supports report creation by business users on the web which can then be polished by professionals and distributed to a large audience.
- Automated insights in ‘Explorations’ help to find relationships in large data sets, discover relevant drivers for a metric and create detailed forecasts.
- Jupyter Notebook integration for advanced analytics use cases and additional possibilities through the integration with other IBM products such ad IBM watsonx and IBM Cloud Pak for Data.
- Versatile use of the platform through more deployment options and improved openness (APIs).
Challenges
- ‘Reports’ requires better-trained users than ‘Explorations’ and ‘Dashboards’, limiting the possibilities for business analysts to create highly formatted print-oriented reports.
- The ‘Reports’ and ‘Dashboards’ modules are not fully integrated, so there are several different visualization engines and objects such as ‘Custom Controls’.
- Broader support for business users through a more powerful LLM-based natural language assistant (IBM watsonx BI) is expected to be generally available at the time of this report’s publication. Given the novelty of the solution, its effectiveness in practical application remains to be demonstrated.
IBM Cognos Analytics User Reviews & Experiences
The information contained in this section is based on user feedback and actual experience with IBM Cognos Analytics.
The information and figures are largely drawn from BARC’s The BI & Analytics Survey, The Planning Survey, The Financial Consolidation Survey and The Data Management Survey. You can find out more about these surveys by clicking on the relevant links.
Why users buy IBM Cognos Analytics and what problems they have using it
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Full user reviews and KPI results for IBM Cognos Analytics
All key figures for IBM Cognos Analytics at a glance.
- Get independent information on software solutions, market developments and trends in data, analytics, business intelligence, data science and corporate performance management.
- Make data & analytics decisions based on numbers, data, facts and expert knowledge
- Access to all premium articles and all our research, including all software comparison studies, scores and surveys.
- Unlimited access to the BARC media library
- Consume unlimited content anywhere
Individual user reviews for IBM Cognos Analytics
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Look-and-feel, good set of libraries of pre-built analytical models, online help with explanations.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Rising license costs.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Size correctly your usage requirements to avoid being overpriced. Nominate high-power users to train new users before deployment.
How would you sum up your experience?
Great partner who is committed to innovation and product excellence.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Very flexible.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Not user-friendly.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Invest in traning.
How would you sum up your experience?
We are not 100% satisfied, final users complain about the tool, probably we will change to Power BI in the future.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Extrem flexibles, seitenbezogenes Online-Reporting.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Visualisierungs- / Grafikmöglichkeiten werden eher zögerlich weiterentwickelt, stattdessen fließen viele Entwicklerkapazitäten in überflüssige KI-Assistenten.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Ihr braucht kooperative Datenbankadministratoren.
How would you sum up your experience?
Keine Liebe auf den ersten Blick, aber etwas für die langfristige Bindung.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Reporting capabilities, audit, on-prem as a possibility, all-in-one BI solution.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Need more data sources.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
All-in-one BI solution, best reporting tool, and very good distribution possibilities.
How would you sum up your experience?
Excellent BI tool.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Produktvielfalt, viele Use Cases.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Immer wieder Bugs bei Software Releases, Migrationen sehr aufwendig, Betrieb der Software aufwendig.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Schnelle In-Memory-Datenbank verwenden für performante Abfragegeschwindigkeit, eher weniger Server nutzen, um Maintenance im Betrieb zu reduzieren oder ggf. direkt ein Cloud-Szenario aufbauen.
How would you sum up your experience?
Positiv, Nutzer sind überzeugt vom Self-Service. Self-Service funktioniert gut. Viele Nutzer.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Sehr umfangreicher Toolumfang. Proof of Concepts können mittels Excel-Upload und Dashboard-Funktionalität in wenigen Stunden oder Tagen erstellt werden. Die Möglichkeit, mit Datenmodulen Fachbereiche selbstständig modellieren zu lassen, war ein Game Changer für den Bereich Self-Service.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Kosten für neue Lizenzen sind tendenziell sehr hoch. Der Support von OLAP-Tools wie Power Cubes, Dynamic Cubes und DMR-Modellen wird eingestellt. Die Alternative soll Planning Analytics sein – dies ist jedoch ein eigenständiges und teures Produkt. Ich erwarte eine Möglichkeit, OLAP-Funktionalitäten auch in Cognos selbst modellieren zu können.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Die Business-Anwender von Anfang an mit einbinden. Gleich auf eine verteilte Architektur setzen (ggf. sogar auf Cloud Pak for Data).
How would you sum up your experience?
Wir haben in den letzten Jahren viel Erfahrung sammeln können und können dank dieser Erfahrung ohne externe Hilfe mit einem kleinen Team Cognos betreiben und aktuell halten. Bisher konnten wir zusammen mit Planning Analytics jeden Use Case umsetzen.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Flexibilität der Lösungen.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
IBM sollte eine klarere Weiterentwicklungsstrategie verfolgen.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
-
How would you sum up your experience?
In Summe positiv, wenn auch IBM wenig auf Kundenwünsche eingeht.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Security: das Abbilden eines Rechtemodells. Entwicklung von Reports, welche auch über Datenmodelle hinaus gehen.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Die vollständige Integration vom IBM Planning Analytics (TM1). Es sind aktuell nicht alle Funktionen gegeben und der Hersteller positioniert für Planning Analytics eigene Weboberflächen für Dashboarding und Reporting.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Die Auswahl eines guten Implementierungspartners.
How would you sum up your experience?
-
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Kann gut skaliert werden.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Handhabung, Reaktion auf den europäischen Markt.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Lizenzen gut verhandeln und gut beraten lassen, was man braucht.
How would you sum up your experience?
Gutes Produkt, gut skalierbar, für Reporting und Analysen gut geeignet, Dashboarding hinkt hinter der Konkurrenz nach.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Flexibilität, Skalierbarkeit, AI-Integration.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Benutzeroberfläche des Fat-Cliens wirkt altmodisch.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Seien Sie bei dert Einführungsplanung realistisch und trauen Sie nicht dem Softwareverkäufer.
How would you sum up your experience?
Einführung hat sich gelohnt und meilenweit vorwärts gebracht.
