Cognos Unveils CRM Solution

Cognos (NASDAQ: COGN; TSE:CSN), one of the world's largest business intelligence (BI) companies, today unveiled a comprehensive BI solution (including interactive reporting, data analysis, and scorecarding) for the customer relationship management (CRM) marketplace. The announcement was part of an aggressive CRM market initiative showcased at Cognos's Enterprise 2000 conference to an audience of corporate executives and industry experts. Cognos showcased its Cognos business intelligence for CRM solution as providing the extensive interactive reporting, analysis and scorecarding functionality critical to organizations looking to better attract and retain customers.

CRM is generally understood to refer to an integrated information system that is used to plan, schedule and control the presales and post sales activities in an organization. Although the dividing lines are not well-defined, CRM has generally not been understood to include the marketing function. The theory behind CRM initiatives is to improve a company's understanding of their customer's needs and preferences. Theoretically, this will create greater customer retention and easier customer acquisition.

Joanne K. Masingill, Cognos's Senior Vice president of marketing stated that "an effective CRM system is no longer a 'nice-to-have' but a must-have requirement for competing and winning in the Internet economy. Cognos allows organizations to consolidate data, across inventory to sales and customer information, to deliver the operational efficiencies and high-touch customer relationships demanded by today's customers."

Market Impact

Cognos is a very strong competitor in the business intelligence space. It is logical for them to enter the extremely hot CRM market. Their extensive experience with tools that use multi-dimensional databases (i.e., Cognos PowerPlay) should enable them to hit the ground running, giving companies the ability to drill down and across product lines, and customers the power to discover developing trends. They also have the advantage of being able to sell into their huge installed base. Companies already using Cognos's CRM solution include Send.com and United Guaranty.

In order to further accelerate their entry into the CRM market, Cognos has joined the Siebel (NASDAQ: SEBL) alliance program as a premier partner, along with 92 other vendors (at current count), many of which are also in the business intelligence space, who provide competencies not core to Siebel's business. Siebel is currently the largest CRM vendor on the operational side, but is partnering to provide some of the analytics. "The basis for successful loyalty relationships is providing a full-service approach. Siebel Systems enjoys a leading position in the customer-facing eBusiness market and Cognos is excited to be a partner," said Patrick O'Leary, Cognos vice president of strategic alliances. "CRM is a natural complement for our enterprise business intelligence solutions. Cognos and Siebel bridge the gap between business processes to ensure that customers, partners and suppliers are making consistent, coordinated decisions to grow the business and strengthen e-business relationships."

The key to this alliance is for Siebel to provide the operational CRM (such as sales force automation), and then work with other vendors to effectively analyze the data. Some of Siebel's competitors, such as E.piphany, have already made strides in this direction.

User Recommendations

The combination of Cognos's analytical product suite and Siebel's experience in what they refer to as "customer-facing eBusiness applications" should prove to be a powerful tool for companies entering the customer relationship management arena. It should be noted, however, that the product is brand new, having only been announced on October 3, 2000 at the Cognos User Conference. There will be a period of time while the kinks are worked out of the General Availability (i.e., post-beta) release.

Other vendors which should be placed on a list for consideration include Hyperion, Microsoft, MicroStrategy, and Oracle. Any companies considered should have strong underlying analytical engines, since it is the quality of the analysis that yields business value, not the mere capturing of the data

Can Auditing and Project Management Co-Exist in an ERP Environment?

It is hard to recall the last time an ERP implementation team included an auditor as an active member. Could it be because of availability? No defined role? Never been asked? No perceived benefits? This article explores key points in a project's lifecycle where the audit function should be involved and the deliverables to be expected. Whether internal or external, an auditor, preferably experienced in IT matters, can provide benefits while the software is being implemented and, afterwards, when the software is being used.

For whatever reason, having an auditor as part of the ERP project implementation team is a rarity. In fact, involving an auditor in the selection of ERP software is fairly rare as well. These same folks are going to have to toil in the ERP software fields after the systems go live. Would it not make sense to involve auditors up front and, for sure, when the software is being implemented? Of course, it does and I will make a case as to why this proactive approach can save time and money in the long run.

First, for argument sake, let's define the basic ERP implementation project lifecycle as containing the following phases:

* Project Planning and Organization
* Business Process Pilot
* Solution Integration
* Integrated Pilot
* Go Live

The following paragraphs will identify how an auditor can be effectively utilized in the various phases and the expected results.

Project Planning and Organization

In the Project Planning and Organization (PPO) phase, the overall workplan and time schedule are defined and training for the project team is completed. As you would do with any business process owner/leader, assurance must be obtained as to the availability of resources to include the audit function. More importantly, in this phase it would be appropriate to specify the audit role or, better yet, have the auditor articulate his or her role.

Business process owners need to understand what the auditor will be examining in terms of input/output and processing controls. This will become more obvious when developing customized business conditions. Training for the auditor must be scheduled and should be held together with the team. While a detailed understanding of the each process may not be required, an overview of the entire ERP function must be gained and understood by the auditor, particularly the process-to-process flows and exchange of data.

If the above observation, namely that an auditor's involvement is, indeed, rare, inclusion of the audit function in the planning phase should become as commonplace as other business process owners. Furthermore, business process owners will be relieved to know that the burden of accountability and control is being shared with the subject expert.

Business Process Pilot

The Business Process Pilot (BPP) phase is where testing is performed solely within the confines of the process. In this phase you take a selfish approach to testing and verify that the process works within its own boundaries. At this point, you are not concerned what happens up or downstream.

Before this testing can be done, however, business conditions must be developed and/or tailored to your company's environment. In this regard, the auditor should review the conditions and suggest additional conditions to substantiate the financial integrity of the software. In the ordering process, a business process owner is concerned that, for each order, an invoice is produced. The audit implication is that the dollar value of order, typically already communicated to the customer, is reconcilable to the value of the invoice.

Whereas the business process owner is worried that the correct products are picked for an order, the auditor is concerned that appropriate costs are relieved from inventory. The former keeps the customer happy but the latter condition keeps the company profitable and the project team gainfully employed. Auditors are attuned to look for these types of checks and balance and are, in fact, the experts. Someone should do it. Why not let the experts do what they are trained to do? Why not let the auditor review the business conditions to ensure that the accountability aspects as well as the operational functions of the software are being verified?