Cognos, an IBM (NYSE: IBM) company together with IBM Global Business Services (GBS) today announced a new blueprint to help companies manage and evaluate cost containment, profit and capital programs, and associated funding alternatives aligned with short and long-term objectives. The Strategic Investment Management Blueprint – a pre-defined analytical model – blends software and services together, providing CFOs and senior finance executives with the analytical tools necessary to improve strategic investment management and decision support in an increasingly volatile business environment.

Finance departments are expected to define, manage, and optimise a portfolio of strategic initiatives that drive business outcomes within realistic internal funding constraints across the enterprise. For example, a shared service for Finance and Accounting will reduce annual General and Administrative (G&A) spending which in turn will help fund the purchase of new manufacturing equipment to reduce product cost and increase profits. 

“Global organisations benefit immensely with increased long-term visibility into operations, especially when data they’re viewing is actionable,” said Steve Kowalke, advisor to the Cognos Innovation Centre for Performance Management and former vice president and treasurer, Target Corporation. “In a time when surprises are becoming increasingly common, senior finance officials need the most robust solutions like this blueprint to track progress of initiatives with respect to goals and objectives, and also to show what’s in store for the long-term.”  

The IBM Cognos Strategic Investment Management Blueprint blends IBM Cognos 8 software including planning, dashboards, reporting, and analytical reports with services through the application of Intellectual property assets from IBM Global Business Services.   

The blueprint is a performance management accelerator designed to expedite time-to-value and further drive customer success. Senior finance executives can better manage and fund strategic programs with the help of this blueprint because it:

- Facilitates integrated business planning over an organisation’s strategic time horizon

- Provides a dynamic dashboard to monitor and assess the gap between targets and forecasts

- Enables the planning and evaluation of multiple strategic programs and their associated funding initiatives

- Enables M&A planning and evaluation

- Facilitates comparison and analysis of “what-if” scenarios

- Enables commitment and execution tracking of capital investments linked to strategic programs

- Automates the workflow and process management aspect of ensuring the organisation stays focused on these strategic programs

“In these uncertain times brought on by a worldwide capital market crisis, companies are struggling to evaluate, fund and manage strategic profit and growth programs,” said William Fuessler, global leader, financial management service line, IBM Global Business Services.

“By blending analytical software and services, this unique blueprint can help companies anticipate performance gaps, revise long-range targets and manage and fund strategic programs to make necessary course corrections. The timing is right for a tool like this; access to funding in the capital markets and corporate lenders is challenging at best, and organisations have more pressure than ever to achieve communicated financial outcomes.”

About IBM Cognos Performance Blueprints
Cognos, an IBM company, offers a full suite of performance blueprints to address planning and performance management process areas that directly impact an organisation’s ability to create business value. Both functional and industry-specific process areas can now be automated, streamlined and transformed to help organisations quickly create more business value. Developed by the Cognos Innovation Centre for Performance Management <http://www.cognos.com/innovationcenter/index.html> , the IBM Cognos Performance Blueprints are a key component within the IBM 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 further information on the IBM Cognos Performance Blueprints see  <http://www.cognos.com/innovationcenter/blueprint.html.

About Cognos, an IBM company
Cognos, an IBM company, is a world leader in  <http://www.cognos.com/> business intelligence and performance management <http://www.cognos.com/> . It provides world-class enterprise planning and BI software and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance. Cognos was acquired by IBM in January 2008. For more information visit  <http://www.ibm.com/software/data/> and http://cognos.com.