Ajay Kumar Khandey

PRN No. 12030241062

Div. B
MBA (ITBM) 2012-2014

Assignment Business Analytics Tools

Table of Contents
Introduction: - IBM Cognos.............................................................................................. 3
Objective:-.................................................................................................................... 4
Observation:-................................................................................................................ 4
Analysis: -..................................................................................................................... 5
Powerful planning and analysis:-................................................................................5
Integrated scorecards and strategy management:-.......................................................5
Flexible modeling:-.................................................................................................. 5
Engagement with more users:-..................................................................................5
Cloud-based deployment option................................................................................5
Implementation:-............................................................................................................ 7
Model Design:-........................................................................................................ 7
Define Dimensions:-................................................................................................ 7
Build Cubes:-.......................................................................................................... 7
Links data between Cubes:-...................................................................................... 7
Create Rules and Processes:-...................................................................................7
Future:-........................................................................................................................ 8
Advantages:-................................................................................................................. 9
Conclusion:-................................................................................................................ 10
Bibliography:-.............................................................................................................. 10

Business Analysis Tool

Introduction: - IBM Cognos

IBM Cognos solutions enable you to collaborate on strategic plans and corporate budgets, perform
sophisticated financial analysis and adapt to change quickly with frequent, driver-based rolling forecasts.
With their mobile capabilities, Cognos solutions enable organizations to engage all users in the planning
process regardless of location or mobility. In addition, the increasing availability of on-cloud deployment
options offers your organization faster time to value even as you support a wider range of users,
locations, and work profiles.

High-participation planning Build plans, budgets and forecasts with contributions from
thousands of users on desktop and mobile devices.
Sophisticated analysis Perform complex multidimensional analysis on planning models based
on large data sets.
Contextual insight With IBM Concert on Cloud, you can see metrics and KPIs in their full
context, through an interface harmonized for multiple performance management capabilities.
Collaborative user experience Engage users across the organization and collaborate through a
range of mobile devices.
Cloud-based deployment Enjoy all the functionality of an on-premise solution with optional
cloud-based deployment.

IBM Cognos is an enterprise planning software platform that can transform your entire planning cycle,
from target setting and budgeting to reporting, score carding, analysis and forecasting. Available as an
on-premise or on-cloud solution, and with extensive mobile capabilities, Cognos enables you to
collaborate on plans, budgets and forecasts. You can analyze data, and create models including
profitability models to reflect a constantly evolving business environment. In addition, integrated
scorecards and strategy management capabilities help you monitor performance metrics and align
resources and initiatives with corporate objectives and market events.

Business Analysis Tool

Objective:

Powerful planning and analysis Create and analyze sophisticated plans, budgets and forecasts,

even those based on large data sets.

Integrated scorecards and strategy management Model metrics to measure progress toward

objectives and link them dynamically to actions and forecasts.

Flexible modeling Develop and deploy even the most complex planning and analysis models

using a guided modeling environment.

Engagement with more users Engage users from across the organization in high-participation
planning and collaborate with remote and distributed users through a range of mobile devices,

including the Apple iPad.

Cloud-based deployment option Provide all the functionality of the on-premise solution with
optional cloud-based deployment.

For modern businesses, particularly in fast-moving sectors such as investment banking its vital to make
detailed business plans that accurately reflect the needs of all business areas. But what happens to the
plans when the business areas themselves are subject to change?
The investment banking division at Credit Suisse wanted to be able to adapt its business plans quickly to
accommodate corporate reorganizations and restructures. This would help finance teams stay on target
to meet strategic and operational goals, regardless of the pace of business change.

Observation:Credit Suisse Group is one of the worlds largest and most respected financial services companies,
advising clients in all aspects of finance, across the globe and around the clock. Investment Banking is
one of Credit Suisses two main business areas, along with Private Banking and Wealth Management.
The investment banking division operates globally, employing approximately 9,000 people in over 500
offices across 50 countries. In terms of standard metrics such as market capitalization, total assets and
assets under management, it ranks as one of the top ten investment banks in the world.
By introducing a new, centralized solution based on IBM Cognos software, Credit Suisse has been able to
dramatically increase the flexibility of all aspects of its planning, budgeting and forecasting processes
within the investment banking division.
As a result, the data collection process has been significantly accelerated instead of one to two weeks,
it can be completed in a single day.

Analysis: Business Analysis Tool

Powerful planning and analysis:

Support driver-based plans and rolling forecasts; link plans together for a cohesive view of all
functions, departments and geographies.
Perform complex cost allocations and profitability analysis to identify the most profitable products,
customers, markets and sales channels.
Execute planning tasks through a personal workspace, connected to the broader enterprise
aggregated results are available to higher levels instantly.
Dramatically improve query execution times with multi-threaded queries that calculate multiple
streams of results in parallel.
Analyze large, frequently changing data sets organized into complex models using a
multidimensional, 64-bit, in-memory OLAP engine.

Integrated scorecards and strategy management:

Add metrics and scorecards to every contributors workspace.

Model and measure key performance indicators (KPIs) in the same environment used for
planning, budgeting and forecasting.
Ensure that strategic plans and measurement systems align capital with business opportunities.
Create highly visual scorecards that include interactive impact diagrams, Balanced Scorecards
and custom diagrams.

Flexible modeling:

Adopt model design and data access to fit your specific business processes; format input
templates for flexibility and ease of use.
Create personalized scenarios to explore an unlimited number of alternatives so individuals,
teams and departments can respond quickly to changing business conditions.
Easily monitor performance metrics for one or more planning servers from a single control panel.

Engagement with more users:

Engage remote and distributed users through a range of mobile devices, including the Apple
iPad.
Contribute to plans from any location. Users can review the status of plans and enter and submit
plan values; managers can review, approve or reject contributions remotely.
Choose the interface best suited to your users: Cognos Analysis for Excel, Cognos Web, Cognos
Insight or Cognos Contributor.
Scale to thousands of participants to support top-down and bottom-up planning budgeting, and
forecasting.

Cloud-based deployment option

Choose from on-premise or on-cloud deployment as the best delivery mechanism for your unique
corporate environmentwithout sacrificing capabilities or limiting future deployment options.
Choose from centralized or distributed planning deployments to support a wide range of users,
locations, environments and work profiles, including offline use.
Allow contribution by remote users and integration with on-premise data sources.

Business Analysis Tool

Business Analysis Tool

Implementation:-

Model Design: Create Dimensions, Cubes, links, and rules to define the business logic for a contributor
Application.
Define Dimensions: Identify dimension such as charts of accounts, products, times, and versions. Create pr
import the dimensions and add attributes to describe the members. Specific dimensions
calculation and formats.
Build Cubes: Identify cubes that serve business requirements, like sales planning or Expense
analysis. Add relevant dimensions to the cubes. Import data to the test logic.
Links data between Cubes: Construct links to move data between cubes, for example to reference assumption data
in planning cube.
Create Rules and Processes: Create Rules for advanced calculation and processes for managing and maintaining the
model. Group processes into chores for ongoing maintenance.

Business Analysis Tool

Future:These tools will give finance team the ability to perform what if analyses that allow detailed
contingency planning for many different scenarios helping to prepare for whatever the future
holds.
In the longer term, the Credit Suisse team is considering the possibilities of predictive analytics
with IBM SPSS software. They starting a proof of concept to see what data-mining techniques
can tell about company business whether there are any patterns that Company missing, or
relationships that Company havent seen. Team like to look at company customers and products
and see what kinds of behavior they can predict but they were also aware that there might be
uses havent even considered yet.
Business Analysis Tool

Advantages:

Real-time calculation: No more worrying about what calc scripts need to be written or
managed it does all calculations as requested, in real-time. If Essbase ever got
dynamic-calc-and-store to actually work.
Ease of maintenance: when the dimension is updated, all cubes that use that
dimension are automatically updated. Coupled with the real-time calculation, this is
painless. In Essbase, you'd have to add them to each cube, and if it's a dense
dimension, it forces a cube restructure. In one application I managed, this took about 36
hours.
User interfaces: With Essbase, you need to build all of these on top; there's usually VBA
involved. With these tools you get all the same power as Essbase on Excel, but also
web interfaces, Cognos Insight desktop, Contributor for planning/workflows, and
Performance Modeler for easy modeling of its applications.
Cubes vs. Models: Essbase builds cubes; builds models - real-time cross-cube
calculations, coupled with real-time calculation, means that users can easily look at
"what-if" scenarios, as well as minimize data input (e.g. exchange rates). Throw in a
super-easy modeling tool (Performance Modeler), and you've got yourself an application
very quickly. Cognos Insight can also be used as a rapid prototyping tool, which can
then be brought into Performance Modeler.
Ownership: Essbase fits in with the Oracle ethos of centralizing everything in IT; it fits
with the Cognos ethos of self-service. Essbase is not an application that sits well with
business ownership; conversely, sits just as well within IT.

Business Analysis Tool

Conclusion:The solution of a new centralized planning and modeling solution based on IBM Cognos
replaced slow, laborious spreadsheet based planning processes, helping to boost business
agility.
The benefit of Planning models can be updated to reflect organizational changes within minutes
rather than days, helping to keep plans aligned with business realities.
Budget data can be collected from circa 45 business areas and loaded and consolidated within
a single day significantly faster than the previous turnaround of up to two weeks. This enables
deeper analysis and more accurate business plans.
IBM Business Analytics software delivers data-driven insights that help organizations work
smarter and outperform their peers. This comprehensive portfolio includes solutions for
business intelligence, predictive analytics and decision management, performance
management, and risk management.
Business Analytics solutions enable companies to identify and visualize trends and patterns in
areas, such as customer analytics, that can have a profound effect on business performance.
They can compare scenarios, anticipate potential threats and opportunities, better plan, budget
and forecast resources, balance risks against expected returns and work to meet regulatory
requirements. By making analytics widely available, organizations can align tactical and
strategic decision-making to achieve business goals.

Bibliography:[1] http://www-03.ibm.com/software/products/en/cognostm1
[2] http://www-01.ibm.com/software/analytics/solutions
[3] http://www-01.ibm.com/software/analytics/solutions/planning-budgeting/products.html
[4] http://www-935.ibm.com/services/in/gbs/bao/?ca=irl_footer
[5] http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21445257&aid=1

Business Analysis Tool