CLOUD

Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management (CPM), today announced that Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) has selected Cognos for its enterprise planning requirements. ARC is the planning and intergovernmental coordination agency for a 10-county area in Georgia including the City of Atlanta. ARC is a public, non-profit organization funded by local, state, and federal government sources and created to provide comprehensive planning for the Atlanta region. The Cognos solution, which includes enterprise planning, scorecarding, reporting and analysis capabilities, enables ARC to efficiently manage its project planning and budgeting processes across all divisions and project managers. The new Cognos Enterprise Planning Series Microsoft Excel Add-In will allow the Atlanta Regional Commission to transition its traditional budget preparation spreadsheets to a more informative format for greater organizational effectiveness. Embracing spreadsheets in the budget planning process is key in order to drive organization wide usage and acceptance. ARC expects Cognos' enterprise planning capabilities will deliver a more comprehensive view of the overall project planning and budgeting process. Enterprise planning is one of three core elements of a corporate performance management solution. It is designed to provide accurate guidance on future performance, to enable broad-based collaboration in the budget planning process across organizations, and to enable customers to respond to changing conditions quickly and with confidence. "State and local governments and non-profit organizations need to drive higher levels of performance and accountability, to tie program success to budget allocation, and to increase responsiveness to the communities they serve," said Doug Barton, vice-president, Enterprise Planning Product Marketing, Cognos Inc. "ARC is embracing innovative performance management practices to drive efficiencies across its planning and budgeting process. We are pleased to work in partnership with ARC as it implements these essential process improvements."