SAP Crystal Reports and IBM Cognos compete in the business intelligence tools category for generating reports. IBM Cognos seems to have the upper hand with its enterprise reporting capabilities and AI integration.
Features: SAP Crystal Reports delivers flexibility through its connectivity to multiple data sources and strong customization options, allowing significant control over report formatting and presentation. Its capability to produce pixel-perfect static reports is noteworthy. IBM Cognos provides a powerful suite for enterprise reporting, benefiting from AI capabilities and drag-and-drop functionality that simplifies ad hoc report creation. It supports sophisticated analysis and dashboard creation.
Room for Improvement: SAP Crystal Reports needs improvement in compatibility with third-party products and multi-source integration. Users report cumbersome data linking and limited export formatting options. IBM Cognos faces critique for complexity and visualization capabilities compared to tools like Tableau. Users express the need for enhanced data modeling and self-service analytics.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SAP Crystal Reports primarily operates on-premises, with reports of dissatisfaction regarding technical support, often driving users to community resources. IBM Cognos offers private, public, and hybrid cloud deployment options, although it shares critiques of higher pricing and mixed customer service, with some noting slow support.
Pricing and ROI: Pricing for SAP Crystal Reports is viewed as expensive, but reasonable for larger organizations with bulk licenses, providing high ROI through ERP reporting efficiency. IBM Cognos is considered a premium option with higher licensing costs, yet is seen as worth the price for extensive features, offering robust analytical capabilities linked to strong ROI for large enterprises.
I rate technical support from IBM as eight out of ten, indicating a high quality of service.
It can be scaled out to other teams, but requires building cubes and implementing policies.
I rate the stability of this solution as nine out of ten, indicating it is highly stable.
There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness.
I rate pricing as a four, meaning it is more expensive compared to other solutions.
IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting.
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:
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.”
Turn information from almost any data source into a sophisticated, interactive report with SAP Crystal Reports. This powerful, user-friendly application for small businesses and departments can help you deliver key insights to the right decision maker, at the right time, in the right format.
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