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IBM Cognos vs IBM Controller comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

IBM Cognos
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th), Reporting (4th)
IBM Controller
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Cognos is designed for BI (Business Intelligence) Tools and holds a mindshare of 3.6%, down 4.3% compared to last year.
IBM Controller, on the other hand, focuses on Business Performance Management, holds 0.3% mindshare, down 0.4% since last year.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Business Performance Management
 

Featured Reviews

AMOL JAJU - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
TL
User support and consolidation capabilities have strengthened financial reporting
We primarily use IBM Controller for the consolidation of all our company results and yearly reporting IBM Controller appeals significantly to our user group led by the Chief Financial Officer and the team under them. The strong user support and capability in consolidation are standout features.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Mapbox integration for geospatial analytics down to longitude/latitude layers."
"The most valuable features are Report Development (Functionality) and Information Distribution (Flexibility)."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."
"Cognos is the best application with dashboards,batch reporting, jobs, events and ad-hoc reporting for business users."
"We use the account statement report. When you use an account in HSBC, you receive various types of accounts, such as the stock market, fixed accounts, credit cards, and business accounts. We can create one consolidated report called CCS support, which includes all these accounts. In that statement, we are consolidating all those accounts."
"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."
"The main difference that I like about Cognos compared to other solutions is its data splitting functionality. We have all our company data inside the Cognos environment and so we prefer to split the information Cognos itself. It's more efficient this way."
"The strong user support and capability in consolidation are standout features."
"IBM Controller appeals significantly to our user group led by the Chief Financial Officer and the team under them."
 

Cons

"The charts and graphics are weak."
"There are some problems with how Cognos handles huge data sets and when connecting with multiple sources and searching the data."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"I would like to have predictive and forecasting capabilities in Cognos. It's one thing to do reporting, and another thing to easily predict or forecast certain data points, which is very important for all the clients."
"Most of our company's customers want to be able to deploy IBM Cognos on a web application and use it as a desktop application, which is not possible currently."
"The performance is a bottleneck and something that can be improved."
"Extending dynamic cubes aggregate awareness with calculated measures."
"There are some small features that are missing. It would be nice if the graphics were better. You can use external sources for charts, but it's quite complex to use and not easy to implement. If you want a new chart, you can download it from multiple tools and implement it into IBM Cognos."
"I am uncertain about the delivery model of IBM Controller and the direction it is headed."
"I am uncertain about the delivery model of IBM Controller and the direction it is headed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."
"I rate the product price as four or five on a scale from one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"It is pretty expensive."
"I don't know the exact cost, but I believe Cognos is quite expensive, especially when it comes to the support consultants and the procedures that need to be applied."
"There is some additional licensing that we needed to purchase because we were touching data outside of our core data platform. The cost was approximately $25,000 for the additional licenses, which were approximate 45 licenses. For the application itself, updates, and the core platform it was approximately $50,000. Giving a total cost of $75,000 annually for our usage of IBM Cognos."
"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
"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."
Information not available
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
57%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
4%
Manufacturing Company
4%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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.
What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?
There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Controller?
I haven't provided a definitive opinion on pricing. However, knowing our CFO's cost-conscious nature, the pricing is likely very competitive and has never been an issue.
What needs improvement with IBM Controller?
I am uncertain about the delivery model of IBM Controller and the direction it is headed. While the delivery model includes both cloud and on-premises options, it causes confusion. A more straightf...
What is your primary use case for IBM Controller?
We primarily use IBM Controller for the consolidation of all our company results and yearly reporting.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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.
California Franchise Tax Board, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, Mirle Automation Corp., Radware
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