Tracking higher education faculty salaries can be a complicated process, as many college and university professors draw their salary from a number of funding pools that either supplement or replace the base salary paid by their institution. While most of this data is available from existing HR and ERP systems, the multitude of funding sources and complex rules that need to be applied to each case make it exceptionally difficult to obtain a global and consistent view of the total cost of an individual or the total compensation they are receiving.

The Cognos Salary Planning and Position Control Blueprint offers colleges and universities a complete performance management framework that delivers enhanced visibility into the ever-changing demographics of their faculties. Using out-of-the-box functionality from Cognos 8 Planning and Cognos 8 Business Intelligence (BI) – including dashboards, analytical reports and a pre-configured data model – and encompassing higher education industry best practices, the Cognos Salary Planning and Position Control Blueprint lets users track faculty salary sources, plan compensation updates and changes, and determine headcount requirements. Management can then easily develop salary and position funding plans that are properly aligned with current and long-range academic program requirements.

“Increasing competition for students, funding and faculty is forcing higher education institutions to improve their business perspective and gain much greater insight into their operations, what the critical drivers are and will be, and how to effectively manage them,” said Susan Gold, Vice President of Industry Marketing & Solutions at Cognos. “Cognos Salary Planning and Position Control Blueprint enables colleges and universities to gain deep insight into the present, while also peering into the future. Armed with such insights, they can then develop plans and strategies that will help them build a lasting legacy.”

Available immediately to customers, the Cognos Salary Planning and Position Control Blueprint is the second higher education Blueprint launched by Cognos in the last three months, joining the Cognos Enrollment & Tuition Planning Blueprint, released in October 2007. Together, the two Blueprints offer higher education customers an integrated approach to advancing the quality of their education programs, retaining skilled staff, complying with complex regulations, managing costs, and improving overall financial performance.

Cognos also teamed up with Exeter Group and the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) in July 2007 to launch an online, interactive solution designed to help institutions compare tuition discounting management strategies with a peer group and industry norms.

Cognos is a recognized leader in delivering performance management solutions for colleges and universities. Over 1,000 higher education institutions worldwide use Cognos, including Southern Methodist University, The George Washington University, University of Minnesota, University of Toronto, University of Ulster (Ireland) and University of Wollongong (Australia). More information about Cognos solutions for higher education can be found at www.cognos.com/higher_ed.

Note to Editors:

Cognos will be hosting a Higher Education Virtual Conference on Thursday, January 24, 2008 from 1 pm – 4:30 pm Eastern. The Conference includes breakout sessions featuring key Cognos higher education customers, a review of Cognos’ higher education solutions, and a keynote from John Walda, president and chief executive officer of NACUBO. For more information, please visit the conference site at http://events.unisfair.com/index.jsp?eid=191&seid=419.

About Cognos Performance Blueprints:

Cognos offers a full suite of Performance Blueprints to address planning and performance management process areas that directly impact an organization’s ability to create business value. Both functional and industry-specific process areas can now be automated, streamlined and transformed to help organizations quickly create more business value. Developed by the Cognos Innovation Center for Performance Management, the Cognos Performance Blueprints are a key component within the Cognos Performance Management System, which combines technology, best practices, analytical applications and solutions, and a broad network of partners into a single performance management solution. For further information on the Cognos Performance Blueprints see http://www.cognos.com/innovationcenter/blueprint.html.

About Cognos:

Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions, provides world-class enterprise planning and BI software and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance.

Cognos brings together technology, analytical applications, best practices, and a broad network of partners to give customers a complete performance system. The Cognos performance system is an open and adaptive solution that leverages an organization’s ERP, packaged applications, and database investments. It gives customers the ability to answer the questions -- How are we doing? Why are we on or off track? What should we do about it? – and enables them to understand and monitor current performance while planning future business strategies.

Cognos serves more than 23,000 customers in more than 135 countries, and its top 100 enterprise customers consistently outperform market indexes. Cognos 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.

Cognos and the Cognos logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cognos Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Note to Editors: Copies of previous Cognos press releases and Corporate and product information are available on the Cognos Web site at www.cognos.com.