Cognos Targets Banks' Customer Data With Latest Performance Blueprint

Cognos has unveiled business performance software that it says helps retail and corporate banks get the most out of their customer data.

The new Customer Segment Performance Blueprint, released Monday, lets business managers tap into customer information to analyze behavior, revenue streams, and profitability by customer or groups of customers. The analytics can then be used to target, plan, track, and measure new sales and marketing initiatives.

Cognos has a variety of blueprints targeting several industries, including banking and financial services, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and life sciences, the public sector, and retail. The vertical-focused software leverages Cognos 8 Planning and Cognos 8 Business Intelligence technology.

The latest blueprint provides bank managers with dashboards and reports to monitor performance, and analytics to help forecast profits and losses across customer segments. In addition, the software's initiative-planning capabilities help managers choose the most profitable products to promote within a customer segment, identify effective means of reaching customers, and provide simulations across multiple marketing initiatives to help choose the one with the highest predicted success.

Corporate and retail versions of Customer Segment Performance Blueprint are currently available. The new product follows by about six months the launch of the Branch Performance Blueprint, which helps banks optimize revenue and expense planning and reporting for bank branches.

Cognos is one of a handful of vendors that provide a common platform on which to base their operational and financial planning, Ventana Research says. Those vendors also include Applix, Extensity, and Hyperion.