OIL & GAS

BURLINGTON, Mass. -- Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management, today announced SSL Americas is using Cognos enterprise-wide to increase visibility into the organization's sales and financial performance. SSL Americas, a global medical and consumer products company, has slashed the time it takes to close its books each month, provided sales professionals rapid access to customer reports and supplied its CFO and financial professionals with dynamic financial reports with the help of Cognos. SSL America Business Intelligence Manager, Susan Dean, was recently selected the "People's Choice" award recipient for best customer presentation at the Cognos Tech Forum in Orlando. Dean will also be speaking in Cognos Enterprise 2003 Business Forum on Nov. 20. With Cognos EBI data integration, SSL Americas has rapidly built a data warehouse for sales and a financial data mart is in process. Today SSL Americas decision-makers in the US, Canada and Latin America are able to get immediate access to key reports on sales trends, inventory levels and customer information. Marketing two key lines of products - Biogel (R)and Durex(R) - SSL Americas has radically reduced the time it takes to analyze and report on key information within the company. "Cognos makes reporting and tracking so much easier. Previous to the deployment of Cognos, SSL Americas had no reporting solution, and no easy means to access the key information driving our business. When we started to roll out the information in Cognos, people were literally blown away," said Susan Dean, Business Intelligence Manager, SSL Americas. "Multidimensional profit and loss statements gave us the ability to see down to the lowest level of our general ledger," adds Dean. "We can see patterns in sales data that enable us to spot market opportunities. We also have visibility into inventory levels in the branch warehouses of our key distributors. Cognos EBI has given us the ability to be proactive instead of reactive." Cognos EBI Series 7 reporting and analysis is deployed throughout the entire organization, with decision-makers accessing key reports via Intranet. With a limited IT staff, SSL Americas has created a 'self-service' reporting environment for sales, management and finance professionals. Through the robust security in Cognos EBI Series 7, users only have access to the information they are entitled to see based upon role-based user access.