Board vs IBM Cognos comparison

Board International and IBM are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. Board International is ranked #24 with an average rating of 7.7, while IBM is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.0. Board International holds a 0.5% mindshare in BIT, compared to IBM’s 3.6% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Board International users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Board

Read 36 Board reviews

586 Views
409 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

IBM Cognos

Read 134 IBM Cognos reviews

6,494 Views
3,383 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Board

IBM Cognos

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Board and IBM Cognos are competitors in the business intelligence and analytics sector. IBM Cognos often has the upper hand due to its comprehensive features, although Board's pricing and customer support are seen as favorable by many users.

Features: Board is known for its flexible data modeling and planning capabilities, offering dynamic analytics and user-friendly design elements. It provides customized solutions with minimal IT intervention. IBM Cognos offers robust reporting and integration capabilities, with advanced analytics features for in-depth insights. It supports complex data ecosystems with extensive data integration options, making it suitable for large enterprises requiring comprehensive solutions.

Room for Improvement: Board could enhance its scalability for larger data volumes and improve its graphical data presentation. It also needs to expand its integration capabilities for diverse data sources. IBM Cognos could simplify its setup process and enhance user experience with a more intuitive interface. It would benefit from improved real-time analytics and reduced reliance on IT for report customization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Board offers a straightforward cloud-based deployment model with quick setup and dedicated customer support, which is ideal for businesses with limited technical resources. Its deployment simplicity is enhanced by responsive service. IBM Cognos provides both on-premises and cloud options, allowing for detailed customization and integration. However, this complexity might require more IT resources and support for setup and maintenance.

Pricing and ROI: Board's competitive pricing structure often allows for a quicker ROI due to its cost-effective deployment. It suits organizations with budget constraints needing efficient solutions. In contrast, IBM Cognos, despite a higher initial cost, promises a potentially higher ROI for users requiring complex analytical solutions, justifying the investment for larger enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed Board vs. IBM Cognos Report (Updated: February 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Board vs. IBM Cognos

February 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Board

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

24th

Ranking in Reporting

20th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Performance Management (10th)

IBM Cognos

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

7th

Ranking in Reporting

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

134

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Board is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.6%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

Wiboon Thabsuwan

Senior Consultant at IMD Company Limited

Easy to use and requires less time to learn or understand its features

I think the product is good in terms of ease of use. The interface looks really nice and very easy to use. Every command appears in the icon. It looks like you don't have to understand everything about the command. You do not necessarily have to know more, or I would say that there is less time for our study about the products. Functionality-wise, it is quite easy to use and requires less time to understand or learn about the product. I am a software vendor, so I do not use the tool myself. I use it for my clients. My clients mostly use it for budgeting and timing purposes. I would say that's really less maintenance at all because they can do everything by themselves. It is good in terms of ease of use.

Read full review

AMOL JAJU

Senior BI-ETL Consultant at CMA Consulting Services

Offers ad hoc analysis reports and good for operational dashboarding

There used to be many valuable features, but in the last three or four years, whatever IBM is doing with enhancements, it has taken a lot of time to build and develop. But the best usage of Cognos is the ad hoc analysis reports. I really like that. Our customers also like that. But now the usage of Cognos and OBIE is reduced by various business users because people and business users are now more focused on analytics, slice and dice, and the dashboard, and the widgets.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"What is very valuable is the ability to customize. We didn't see a solution out there that really matched exactly what our functional requirements would be. So we were able to work with New Brain, our integrator, and we were able to build from the ground up what we wanted, and I think that's pretty unique to BOARD."

"Our clients have improved a lot in terms of coordination and communication. This has improved their internal performance."

"My favourite feature of BOARD is the ability to write back to the OLAP DB, as well as the Rdb, and secure user data allowing databases to be flushed and rebuilt daily."

"The ability to create a data model and have it in testing within a week is fantastic."

"The benefits are getting the data in one spot, the ability to report dynamically, and version control."

"The support from the BOARD team and their consultants is great. Whenever I use technical support, they are good."

"All staff can now see their relevant scorecards online."

"It is useful for self-analysis regarding company data and helps to find areas where we can improve."

More Board pros

"Dashboarding, reporting, and ad hoc reporting are the valuable features of IBM Cognos."

"The correlation analysis is excellent. It's one of the best that I have used to date."

"We use IBM Cognos for enterprise analytics and reporting."

"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."

"IBM Cognos improves the effectiveness of the sales team."

"The Report Studio that is aimed at professional report writers."

"Previously, we were doing static reporting. Management would request a report, and it would take staff a week or more to provide it. With Cognos, we have dynamic reporting, and it has reduced both reporting and decision making times significantly. With the solution's dashboard, the company's management team has updated records at their fingertips. This means that they can directly access the data they need to make decisions."

"When it comes to decision-making, the product is very useful and used in many departments since a lot of people prefer the reports to be generated by IBM Cognos."

More IBM Cognos pros

Cons

"We are looking at ways to improve how we deal with security in BOARD and other similar things. "

"Some of our users are still using an MS Office add-in for Excel for certain calculations, and when they export from Board, some of the values, some of the totals and column names, are not coming through into Excel."

"We are looking for ways to distinguish zeros versus nulls in BOARD."

"Building similar models entirely from scratch could be made quicker with transfer abilities between databases and capsules."

"The initial setup was very complex for us."

"It would be nice to have more connectors for other data sources. BOARD is a great tool to become the single source of the truth. Making it easier to connect data sources for niche software tools will make it easier to keep everything in one place."

"In terms of scalability, I would say that there are some limitations in the solution. It cannot handle data that is too big."

"What could be better is the manual... nowadays, most people use a web client, but on the Board manual website, a lot of the information is only about the Windows client. If they could update that, it would be helpful."

More Board cons

"I rate pricing as a four, meaning it is more expensive compared to other solutions."

"Compared to Tableau and PowerBI, the IBM interface is easier to use. However, the drag-and-drop functionality isn't as straightforward. Formatting is also more challenging in the cloud than in other applications, like Power BI. Also, if you encounter an issue, it takes more time to resolve it on the formatting side."

"There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness."

"Extending dynamic cubes aggregate awareness with calculated measures."

"There are many problems with the product's stability part, making it an area where improvements are required."

"The tool needs to improve the connectivity since I see that, at times, there is a need to increase the memory in the database."

"One thing that we really want is the ability to have data portrayed on an image. Cognos is not able to do it at the moment, and that's becoming a requirement from the business side: having an image and then plotting your dataset on top of the image as a map."

"I think the GIS pieces maybe not as good as we would like."

More IBM Cognos cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of the pricing, it was reasonable. BOARD is not the lowest in the market, but it was reasonable for us."

"Find a partner who will take responsibility for the implementation, and be available for support."

"It is not the cheapest product on earth, but you get so much. It provides good value for money."

"The solution is quite expensive, if it is made cheaper then we can have more clients. I rate it four out of ten."

"The tool's price is a bit high compared to other solutions."

"My company uses IBM Cognos with another IBM product, so I think only one license is used."

"On a scale from one to ten where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate this solution at eight."

"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."

"It is averagely priced."

"The cost of IBM Cognos it's more or less the same as most of the other solutions on the market. They're very competitive with the rest of the market and it is not the most expensive product."

"Pricing should be improved."

"IBM Cognos price is on the higher side of the spectrum. However, with the features that it brings, such as correlation analysis, it's worth the money. They should look at the pricing more clearly because it's a little on the higher side."

"It is pretty expensive."

More IBM Cognos pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head at NVidia

Feb 4, 2015

Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho

1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Insurance Company

Educational Organization

57%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?

We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS generated, the focus is generally on compiling input from various sources and simu...

See all answers

What do you like most about Board?

All the reports are prepared automatically.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Board?

Some of my company's customers are interested to see the predictive analytics part of the tool. Some customers would like to leverage or prioritize predictive analytics as the main feature, but som...

See all answers

Seeking lightweight open source BI software

It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Cognos?

The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?

There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness.

See all answers

Comparisons

Anaplan vs Board

Compared 30% of the time

Pigment vs Board

Compared 13% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Board

Compared 10% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs Board

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Board

Compared 9% of the time

More Board Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Cognos

Compared 12% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs IBM Cognos

Compared 10% of the time

Tableau vs IBM Cognos

Compared 10% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs IBM Cognos

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs IBM Cognos

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM Cognos Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Board

March 2025

Download Board product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos

March 2025

Download IBM Cognos product report

Also Known As

No data available

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics

Overview

BOARD International - headquartered in Switzerland - is a leading global provider of software for improving business results through better decision making. By unifying Business Intelligence and Corporate Performance Management into a single product, BOARD enables companies to achieve a shared vision of their performance across the entire organization, and thus a single version of the truth.

BOARD provides seamless solutions for • Reporting & Analysis • Budgeting, Planning & Forecasting • Profitability Modelling & Optimization • Simulation & What-if-Analysis • Scorecarding & Strategy Management • Financial Consolidation. Based on visual modelling, BOARD has enabled global companies to deploy BI and CPM applications without a single line of code in a fraction of the time and cost associated with traditional solutions.

Board International

IBM Cognos Business Intelligence provides a wide range of tools to help you analyze your organization's data. IBM Cognos BI allows businesses to monitor events and metrics, create and view business reports, and analyze data to help them make effective business decisions.

IBM Cognos applies techniques to describe, summarize, and compare data, and draw conclusions. This allows users to see trends and discover anomalies or variances that may not be evident by simply reading data. Data sources that contain information from different areas of a business can be stored in separate packages. Users can see only information that they have been granted access to, based on their group or role.

IBM Cognos BI consolidates the following business intelligence functions into a single web-based solution:

IBM Cognos Insight: Create personal and managed workspaces for data analysis. Using these interactive workspaces, you can share insight results with managers. Cognos Insight supports write-back, and you can also use these workspaces to capture and integrate management goals, commitments, and forecasts.
IBM Cognos Workspace: With IBM Cognos Workspace, you can create rich, interactive workspaces using IBM Cognos content as well as data from external sources. You can view and open your favorite workspaces and reports, edit content in your workspaces, and share your workspaces via email.
IBM Cognos Analytics: IBM Cognos Analytics utilizes built-in AI and intuitive searches which helps users to quickly create the visualizations and a wide range of reports. Cognos Analytics provides cognitive and managed self-service, enabling you to gain insights from controlled and trusted data.
IBM Cognos Report Studio and IBM Cognos Query Studio: Easily create structured and query reports. IBM Cognos allows users to create application and report templates. In addition, report authors can reuse report objects to apply filters, fields, and styles to reports. Users can set the language of the user interface and report content according to the user's native language.
IBM Cognos Event Studio: Receive notifications of events that occur within your organization in real time. Event Studio enables the creation of agents that detect the occurrence of business events, failures, or anomalies, based on the change of specific events or data conditions. Notification can be sent via email, publication in the portal, or by triggering reports.
IBM Cognos Connection: This is the Web portal for IBM Cognos BI and is the central area for accessing all the IBM Cognos functions. In the web portal, users can schedule and distribute reports, create tasks, administer the server and the access permissions, and more.

Reviews from Real Users

IBM Cognos stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its powerful analysis tool and its reporting capabilities.

Prasad B., a senior software engineer at a financial services firm, notes, “The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report. We can receive automated reports as well. They are easy to schedule on a weekly or monthly basis. It is very fast. I mean in means of report output, it's very fast compared to the actual clients involved.”

IBM

Sample Customers

Coca-Cola, Puma, Desigual, Ricoh, KPMG, H&M, Groupe SEB

More than 23,000 leading organizations across multiple industries use Cognos. Some examples of Cognos customers include BMW Financial Services, Quinte Health Care, Troy Corporation, Michigan State University, and GKN Land System.

Buyer's Guide

Board vs. IBM Cognos

February 2025

Free Report: Board vs. IBM Cognos

Find out what your peers are saying about Board vs. IBM Cognos and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.

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