Technology firm Cognos has been named a leading performance management vendor by a new IDC report.

The company, a world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions, has the top market share position among independent pure-play performance management companies according to IDC’s new report "Worldwide Financial Performance & Strategy Management Software 2006 Vendor Share", the company said in a statement.

Applix, a leading performance analytics company, acquired by Cognos on October 25, 2007, was cited in the report as achieving fastest year over year revenue growth.

According to IDC, Financial Performance and Strategy Management (FPSM) software consists of applications that measure, analyse, and optimise financial and business performance and analytic processes that support enterprise-wide initiatives typically driven by finance. This includes the application areas of budgeting and planning, financial consolidation, strategy management and profitability management.

The report shows that of all independent pure-play BI and performance management-focused vendors, Cognos has the highest market share based on 2006 revenue.

“Cognos continues to maintain its market position while focusing on the important elements of delivering a strong FPSM solution and strategy. Three main themes continue to drive its efforts:  standardisation and the requirements for a strong performance management platform; the importance of complementing an ERP solution with specialised FPSM applications, and accelerating implementations through the use of performance blueprints,”  said Kathleen Wilhide research director of BMP and GRC solutions at IDC.
 
“IDC views the acquisition of Applix by Cognos very positively – it almost doubles the number of performance management customers for Cognos, and the Applix in-memory OLAP engine also strengthens the overall Cognos Business Intelligence platform. Cognos has the ability to deliver on short-term requirements and execute on a long-term vision as a focused, independent performance management company.”

Cognos Financial Performance Management solutions enable enterprises to continuously align resources and opportunities with strategic objectives while ensuring cost-effective and sustainable compliance.

With offerings that automate and transform planning, budgeting, forecasting, reporting, and analysis processes; co-ordinate, control, and automate the close, consolidate, and reporting process and support analysis and optimization of company performance, finance can dramatically improve corporate reporting, management control and decision-making effectiveness across the enterprise.

“Our market position as the leading pure play, independent performance management vendor and the fastest growth position attained by Applix in the IDC report are clear validations of our strategy. Cognos now stands as the leading Independent Performance Management provider in the market. We are committed to giving customers equal access to our entire infrastructure, applications and data sources,” said Derek Morrison, Regional General Manager, Cognos Middle East.

“This is a great position for us to be in. Unlike other vendors who are consolidating share and duplicating product lines, we are committed to providing customers who wrestle with disparate transaction systems and data sources with a single, elegant software platform and business focus on performance management.” he added. – TradeArabia News Service