Board vs IBM Cognos comparison

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Board International Logo
638 views|421 comparisons
94% willing to recommend
IBM Logo
7,258 views|4,224 comparisons
91% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Board and IBM Cognos based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Reporting solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Board vs. IBM Cognos Report (Updated: March 2024).
767,995 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It has definitely saved us time, especially in our budget and planning processes.""The aesthetics of it are really nice. That is what attracted us to BOARD: the ease and functionality of it.""BOARD technical support is knowledgeable and helpful.""My favourite feature of BOARD is the ability to write back to the OLAP DB, as well as the Rdb, and secure user data allowing databases to be flushed and rebuilt daily.""I think it's flexible. I chose this solution because, even though it wasn't out-of-the-box, you can customize it, and the long-term growth potential of the software is where I see the value.""What is very valuable is the ability to customize. We didn't see a solution out there that really matched exactly what our functional requirements would be. So we were able to work with New Brain, our integrator, and we were able to build from the ground up what we wanted, and I think that's pretty unique to BOARD.""The most valuable features are the reporting and the charts. The reporting functionality is handy for aggregation, when it comes to planning. That ability is fascinating and our users are very happy with it. The charts and the reporting allow our users to see all the data and to see how things are going this year or in the COVID situation. They're seeing everything. Instead of having to check data line by line, they're seeing it in a graph and they're seeing it in charts.""The ability to create a data model and have it in testing within a week is fantastic."

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"Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling.​""Using custom controls, it is possible to extend the application with even more functionality and make the application intuitive and attractive.""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 most valuable feature is developing reports from different data sources, making it a reliable data source.""When it comes to decision-making, the product is very useful and used in many departments since a lot of people prefer the reports to be generated by IBM Cognos.""The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us.""IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."

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Cons
"The engine of the Board should be made powerful like the engine of IBM planning which is more powerful in terms of performance. The consolidated finance area also needs improvement.""I would like to see better relationships with the partners.""Sometimes, the data disappears from the product.""It would be huge in the future if BOARD offered a lot more graphs and presentations, and it was a lot easier to use.""Building similar models entirely from scratch could be made quicker with transfer abilities between databases and capsules.""It would be nice to have more connectors for other data sources. BOARD is a great tool to become the single source of the truth. Making it easier to connect data sources for niche software tools will make it easier to keep everything in one place.""One thing that I personally would like to see is additional visualization tools for visuals.""It would be nice to be able to host your site and actually have BOARD be the driver of your site. So you could have anybody in your organization go to www.myorg.com, for example, and then go through what you allow them to go through. So rather than having to go through the application, to be able to go to actually host it to a website."

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"The solution seems to slow down the servers.""Chart quality: many other competitors have charts and graphics that look much better and that provide dynamic effects. Cognos doesn't.""The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved.""In terms of what could be improved, I would say, monitoring, monitoring, monitoring. Some improvements in monitoring would be helpful. I'd like to see more monitoring of specific reports and fields. The way the auditing is now is very limited, so I'd like to see more of that - of the monitoring.""Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos.""The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget.""They were lacking in the initial phases of development in the area of big data, and they still need to improve that aspect of the product.""Cognos is quite slow - it's missing the performance of the PowerPlay cubes."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Find a partner who will take responsibility for the implementation, and be available for support."
  • "​In terms of the pricing, it was reasonable. BOARD is not the lowest in the market, but it was reasonable for us."
  • "It is not the cheapest product on earth, but you get so much. It provides good value for money."
  • "The solution is quite expensive, if it is made cheaper then we can have more clients. I rate it four out of ten."
  • More Board 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 ."
  • "IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market."
  • "Pricing should be improved."
  • "The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
  • "It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
  • "Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
  • "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."
  • More IBM Cognos Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS generated, the focus is generally on compiling input from various sources and… more »
    Top Answer:All the reports are prepared automatically.
    Top Answer:Sometimes, the data disappears from the product. We have had a few such cases. When I added my comments to the data, it disappeared. A technical specialist tried to restore it. It was not convenient… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Ranking
    20th
    out of 50 in Reporting
    Views
    638
    Comparisons
    421
    Reviews
    3
    Average Words per Review
    470
    Rating
    7.3
    4th
    out of 50 in Reporting
    Views
    7,258
    Comparisons
    4,224
    Reviews
    10
    Average Words per Review
    396
    Rating
    8.2
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
    Learn More
    Overview

    BOARD International - headquartered in Switzerland - is a leading global provider of software for improving business results through better decision making. By unifying Business Intelligence and Corporate Performance Management into a single product, BOARD enables companies to achieve a shared vision of their performance across the entire organization, and thus a single version of the truth.

    BOARD provides seamless solutions for • Reporting & Analysis • Budgeting, Planning & Forecasting • Profitability Modelling & Optimization • Simulation & What-if-Analysis • Scorecarding & Strategy Management • Financial Consolidation. Based on visual modelling, BOARD has enabled global companies to deploy BI and CPM applications without a single line of code in a fraction of the time and cost associated with traditional solutions.

    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:

    • IBM Cognos Insight: Create personal and managed workspaces for data analysis. Using these interactive workspaces, you can share insight results with managers. Cognos Insight supports write-back, and you can also use these workspaces to capture and integrate management goals, commitments, and forecasts.

    • IBM Cognos Workspace: With IBM Cognos Workspace, you can create rich, interactive workspaces using IBM Cognos content as well as data from external sources. You can view and open your favorite workspaces and reports, edit content in your workspaces, and share your workspaces via email.

    • IBM Cognos Analytics: IBM Cognos Analytics utilizes built-in AI and intuitive searches which helps users to quickly create the visualizations and a wide range of reports. Cognos Analytics provides cognitive and managed self-service, enabling you to gain insights from controlled and trusted data.

    • IBM Cognos Report Studio and IBM Cognos Query Studio: Easily create structured and query reports. IBM Cognos allows users to create application and report templates. In addition, report authors can reuse report objects to apply filters, fields, and styles to reports. Users can set the language of the user interface and report content according to the user's native language.

    • IBM Cognos Event Studio: Receive notifications of events that occur within your organization in real time. Event Studio enables the creation of agents that detect the occurrence of business events, failures, or anomalies, based on the change of specific events or data conditions. Notification can be sent via email, publication in the portal, or by triggering reports.

    • IBM Cognos Connection: This is the Web portal for IBM Cognos BI and is the central area for accessing all the IBM Cognos functions. In the web portal, users can schedule and distribute reports, create tasks, administer the server and the access permissions, and more.

    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.”

    Sample Customers
    Coca-Cola, Puma, Desigual, Ricoh, KPMG, H&M, Groupe SEB
    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.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Government20%
    Healthcare Company20%
    Hospitality Company10%
    Pharma/Biotech Company5%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company12%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Wholesaler/Distributor7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Insurance Company8%
    Healthcare Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization58%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Computer Software Company5%
    Government5%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business37%
    Midsize Enterprise40%
    Large Enterprise23%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise62%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise61%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business8%
    Midsize Enterprise61%
    Large Enterprise31%
    Buyer's Guide
    Board vs. IBM Cognos
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Board vs. IBM Cognos and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    767,995 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Board is ranked 20th in Reporting with 35 reviews while IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting with 132 reviews. Board is rated 8.6, while IBM Cognos is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Board writes "A stable solution with good user-experience, easy deployment but needs some improvement with engine ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Cognos writes "Improved the quality of our KPIs, while reducing calls to the IT department". Board is most compared with Anaplan, SAP Analytics Cloud, IBM Planning Analytics, Oracle Hyperion and Microsoft Power BI, whereas IBM Cognos is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, Oracle OBIEE, Tableau, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform and Oracle Hyperion. See our Board vs. IBM Cognos report.

    See our list of best Reporting vendors and best BI (Business Intelligence) Tools vendors.

    We monitor all Reporting reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.