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IBM Cognos vs UNIT4 prevero comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th), Reporting (4th)
UNIT4 prevero
Average Rating
0.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (22nd)
 

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 3.8%, down 4.4% compared to last year.
UNIT4 prevero, on the other hand, focuses on Business Performance Management, holds 1.1% mindshare, up 0.6% since last year.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Business Performance Management
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Larrad Salgado - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved the quality of our KPIs, while reducing calls to the IT department
I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality. The user experience is also very important. Cognos is not very easy to understand sometimes, especially when they change the layout but keep the functionality the same. The help is not very graphic and they have no examples. Cognos has to make a big effort to help with understanding the functionality by improving the documentation. There is a lot of documentation, but the examples are hard to find and they should make their help section easier to understand for non-technical users.
AS
Workflow is straightforward and simple to understand, but there should be more automation and more simplicity from an end-user point of view
There is a little bit of reliance upon understanding the syntax of the actions that you want to take. Some of the other competitors have moved forward with that in terms of being able to make it more drag and drop and more logical, but there is still some way to go for UNIT4 in doing that, but they're getting there. With all these things, automation helps. The more they can do to simplify some of the complexities from the financial reporting, evaluation, and analysis sides, the better it would be. I'd like to see more automation and more simplicity from an end-user point of view.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution allows you to input a wide range of file formats."
"The most valuable features of IBM Cognos are governance and enterprise reporting."
"It's enabled us to report directly from our main application systems. We're removing islands of data and we're removing inefficiencies, where people or small divisions had their own store of information."
"The most valuable features are Report Development (Functionality) and Information Distribution (Flexibility)."
"The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."
"The basic platform comes with several meta-modelling tools."
"The initial setup is quite straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Cognos is security. The solution has updated features that other competitors' solutions come out with long after IBM Cognos has had them."
"Its workflow is straightforward and simple to understand."
 

Cons

"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."
"I think the GIS pieces maybe not as good as we would like."
"It would be nice to offer free online training on the tool for end-users."
"The charts and graphics are weak."
"It would be better if it is was easier to implement without extensive training for it."
"Data modeling needs to be improved. We use the ETL process, and when we get errors, we then need to identify which structural change is required. The error messaging should be better. They should be descriptive rather than semantic."
"One key area for improvement is the need to improve the self-service nature and functionality of the product in terms of visual analytics."
"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."
"There is a little bit of reliance upon understanding the syntax of the actions that you want to take. Some of the other competitors have moved forward with that in terms of being able to make it more drag and drop and more logical, but there is still some way to go for UNIT4 in doing that, but they're getting there. With all these things, automation helps. The more they can do to simplify some of the complexities from the financial reporting, evaluation, and analysis sides, the better it would be. I'd like to see more automation and more simplicity from an end-user point of view."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
"It is averagely priced."
"IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market."
"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."
"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."
"It is quite pricy. I think Microsoft BI is cheaper. Tableau might also be cheaper, but it also depends on the usage. If you have very many users, Cognos can be a problem. It could be cheaper than Tableau but not for so many users. If you have a few thousand users, Tableau, which is generally quite expensive, can be cheaper than Cognos."
"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."
"It's perhaps on the slightly richer side of pricing for the markets that we focus on because we tend to focus on the SME or the small to medium enterprise market, whereas a lot of UNIT4 ERP customers are in local government, universities, etc. Some years ago, they were launching an initiative to be keenly priced for that SME market, but today, the foot has come off the accelerator a bit. It isn't the cheapest, but it is also not the most expensive one."
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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
56%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Government
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?
I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older versions like IBM Cognos 10 or 8. Additionally, the Event Studio, which offered great f...
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Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
prevero, Winterheller
 

Learn More

 

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.
Amprion GmbH, BKW AG, Bocholter Energie- und Wasserversorgung GmbH, DEW21, DSW 21, Energienetze Mittelrhein GmbH & Co. KG, EWR Netz GmbH, FairEnergie GmbH
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