Eastman Chemical Company Selects Cognos as Reporting Standard For Its Enterprise SAP NetWeaver Platform

Fortune 500 chemicals, fibers and plastics manufacturer deploys Cognos to help streamline reporting and minimize end-user disruptions during IT application architecture upgrade

BURLINGTON, MA - Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management (http://www.urldiscovery.com/spacer.gif), today announced that Eastman Chemical Company has selected Cognos to drive enterprise reporting as the company migrates to the SAP NetWeaver® platform.

A Fortune 500 company, Eastman provides key differentiated coatings, adhesives and specialty plastics products; is the world’s largest producer of PET polymers for packaging; and is a major supplier of cellulose acetate fibers. In early 2005, the company initiated an extensive review of its IT application architecture. As an initial step, the company decided to upgrade its corporate data warehouse from its legacy custom-built solution, to the data warehouse component found within SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence. To minimize end-user disruptions, Eastman elected to pursue a phased migration. The challenge was finding a reporting standard that could tap into both data warehouses and present the information to users in a single view.

After a series of product evaluations, Eastman selected Cognos for its open data access, seamless integration with the SAP NetWeaver platform, superior time to deployment and ease of use. Through a proof of concept, company officials were particularly impressed by Cognos’ ability to pull data from multiple sources, simplifying reporting across departments without having to re-train users or re-architect standard reporting processes.

“There are three things that we must always deliver to our clients when implementing a new system – it must meet the user’s needs, it must do so in a useable interface, and it absolutely has to perform. Cognos gives us the flexibility we need to migrate the company to SAP while also providing users with the proven, consistent and accurate reporting they need to continue to do their jobs effectively,” said Larry Perdue, IT manager of business marketing and sales solutions at Eastman.

This migration will eventually enable Eastman to mobilize Cognos for greater data analysis and to streamline performance management reporting. “Cognos performed extremely well in a recent proof of concept and offers us the opportunity to explore how we can incrementally move our business intelligence to the next level, where our end users can evolve from generating reports, to generating business value through focused analysis and insights,” added Perdue.

Cognos actively engages in SAP® solution integration certifications to support customers’ strategic investments in SAP solutions. Cognos was one of the first vendors to achieve “Powered by SAP NetWeaver” certification, and has received SAP certifications reflecting deep integration with three key components of SAP NetWeaver – SAP NetWeaver Portal (pre-packaged iViews); SAP NetWeaver BI (an OLAP BAPI interface into SAP BW); and, SAP NetWeaver Application Server – all of which are part of Eastman’s ongoing plans for the SAP NetWeaver platform. To learn more about Cognos’ integration with SAP, visit http://www.cognos.com/solutions4SAP.

“Eastman is a world-class company that clearly recognizes how effective business intelligence can fortify ERP investments to drive better and stronger corporate performance,” said Paul Hoy, director of manufacturing industry solutions at Cognos. “Cognos is committed to working in lock-step with Eastman as they continue to leverage the full business value of SAP NetWeaver and evolve their business intelligence practice to take advantage of the powerful reporting, analytics, and data visualization that is inherent within each Cognos deployment.”

A core component of the Cognos Performance Management System, Cognos’ reporting capability helps business users receive a comprehensive and consistent view of corporate performance information. Organizations can deliver simple or sophisticated reports through a single, intuitive, browser-based interface, making reports accessible to users at all levels of the enterprise. In addition to reporting, the Cognos Performance Management System offers the best-in-class technology capabilities of scorecarding and dashboards, planning, analysis, query and event management, fully aligned with best practices and a partner ecosystem. More information can be found at http://www.cognos.com/products/corporate_performance_management/index.html. For information on Cognos’ latest performance management platform release, Cognos 8 BI, please see http://www.cognos.com/products/cognos8businessintelligence/index.html.

Cognos is a recognized leader in delivering business intelligence and corporate performance management solutions for the manufacturing industry, including energy, natural resources and chemical production companies. In addition to Eastman Chemical, other leading manufacturing customers include Dow Chemical, Eka Chemicals, Kennemetal, Mold-Masters and Advantis Technologies. For more information about Cognos solutions for the manufacturing industry, please visit http://www.cognos.com/solutions/industry/manufacturing/index.html

About Eastman Chemical Company:
With headquarters in Kingsport, Tennessee, Eastman Chemical Company (NYSE: EMN) manufactures and markets chemicals, fibers and plastics worldwide. It provides key differentiated coatings, adhesives and specialty plastics products; is the world’s largest producer of PET polymers for packaging; and is a major supplier of cellulose acetate fibers. Founded in 1920, the company has approximately 12,000 employees and had 2004 sales of $6.6 billion. For more information about Eastman and its products, visit http://www.eastman.com.

About Cognos:
Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management, delivers software and services that help companies drive, monitor and understand corporate performance.

Cognos delivers the next level of competitive advantage - Corporate Performance Management (CPM) - achieved through the strategic application of BI on an enterprise scale. Our integrated CPM solution helps customers drive performance through planning; monitor performance through scorecarding; and understand performance through business intelligence.

Cognos serves more than 23,000 customers in over 135 countries. Cognos enterprise business intelligence and performance management solutions and services are also available from more than 3,000 worldwide partners and resellers. For more information, visit the Cognos Web site at http://www.cognos.com.

Posted On: 2006-01-31, 9:51 am

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