Joseph Signs Up Cognos to Cut Out Spreadsheets

Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management (CPM), announced today that international clothing retailer, Joseph, is investing in a Cognos enterprise planning solution to improve budgeting and planning processes across its business. It is estimated that the company will cut its current budgeting and planning process by at least 25% of the time currently taken.*

The solution will be rolled out by Cognos partner Tahola, a retail solutions specialist. It will be used by the finance team to prepare annual, quarterly and monthly reports and rolling forecasts into sales figures, retail trends and profit margins.

Currently, the finance team at Joseph relies on spreadsheet applications to manage its budgeting and planning. The company takes a bottom up approach, from store level upwards, resulting in a very cumbersome and complex process. Any subsequent changes to the data can slow the whole procedure down even further and result in inaccuracies in the final reports.

“By implementing Cognos Planning we’ll be able to do away with the complex spreadsheet system that we use at present and prepare budgets and forecasts more quickly and more accurately than before – an absolute must in the fast moving retail sector,” explained Kathleen Starkey, finance director at Joseph. “For the first time, we’ll be able to truly integrate profit and loss (P&L), balance sheet and cash flow information, leading to better business management all round.”

“Working with Tahola we’ve found a partner with an excellent track record in retail and one that really understands our business. The team demonstrated a real dedication to making the project happen,” Starkey added.

“Joseph was struggling with the same problems that many retailers face, namely the inflexibility of spreadsheets as enterprise planning and forecasting tools. Cognos Planning will resolve all of those issues while providing the capabilities to easily test many different ‘what-if’ scenarios. We look forward to working with the team at Joseph,” said Geoff McClure, managing director of Tahola Ltd.

“Our technology will give the finance team at Joseph valuable insight into sales information, trends and margins, enabling the company as a whole to improve its budgeting and planning practices,” said Dave Laverty, senior vice-president, Global Marketing, Cognos.

Tahola will begin the implementation of Cognos Planning in February 2006 and the solution is due to go live in early March 2006.