Cognos Reviews

Pros

It was a positive environment/culture. Very smart people with great ideas that were heard. People were committed to provide tools for sales & services to make and keep the customer happy. The training and services team always helped each other- sharing knowledge, best practices, tips & tricks at any hour of the day. Ron Zambonini was the most passionate and engaging CEO.

Cons

A bubble burst when Ron stepped down as CEO in '04.
I think the prod dev had a big miss with the web dev of analysis studio, very weak against PowerPlay.
Was a boys club and not everyone was allowed in.

Advice to Senior Management

They hired or promoted many people to managers, who didn't have mgmt experience, the right skill set, or the right fit to our culture, which led to people moving to other dept. or leaving the company.

Pros

Great place to contirbute ides and push concepts through to prototype. Good mobility options within the organization that include out of country postings.

Cons

Top-heavy, inward facing management. Spurts of brilliance followed by imaginable incompetence should be cause for concern to anyone looking to work there or... acquire them.

Advice to Senior Management

Remember that meetings in board rooms don't reflect the reality of the market place. Often, your customers (even the unhappy ones) are a good source of inspiration.

Pros

Bright employees who try to do the right thing for the customer
Financially a strong company
Work / life balance is good

Cons

Difficulty cracking the code on the new BI technology reality (open source solutions, etc.)
IBM can make Cognos even more bureaucratic

Advice to Senior Management

Don't discount field realities, Ottawa does not have the sum of all knowledge

Pros

Very dynamic environment, especially deployment activities
A company with a lot of smart employees, so there was a lot of learning techniques and bright ideas for problem solving going on.

Cons

Long hours, lots of travel -- this wasn't always appreciated by management.
Too many managers as the company was trying to beef up.

Advice to Senior Management

None, really. IBM now owns them so hopefully its a much better environment now than before.

Pros

The people at Cognos are very nice to work with.
The compensation and benefits are very good.
The company makes an effort in providing technical instruction.
The company management has changed significantly since I have left. It is now a part of IBM

Cons

There was significant pressure in the position.
People were hesitant to make decisions which might be conceived as unfavorable

Advice to Senior Management

Upper management needs to listen to the rank and file developers to address issues that may come up time to time.

Pros

- 'the matrix' - allegedly you are able to leverage 300k+ employees within the greater organization
 - free gym!
 - consistent messaging

Cons

Integration pains - talk to someone from greater IBM (who is not a talking head) and see if they consider you to be part of the greater team, or if they consider you to be a pawn to do their bidding. No cohesion whatsoever.

Spending has been frozen for a long time. No extras, no training, no opportunities for personal growth...and no free coffee.

Advice to Senior Management

Open the purse strings and address the percieved inequialities

Pros

Training available to advance knowledge and career. Flexible hours and schedule. Lots of good people work there. Friendly Hr Group.

Cons

Distant management. Constant re-orgs. Stress. Lack of communications between different groups. Some mangers setup kingdoms. Some line managers are out of their league.

Advice to Senior Management

More communications between groups.

Pros

Good brand name now its part of IBM

Cons

Too many products from acquired companies. Some of those the result of two or more takeovers. You find yourself selling and recommending products that IBM may dump at any time. Poor moral. Really crummy upper management.

Advice to Senior Management

It seems to be working, the shares did well. Thanks.

Pros

Great brand and market awareness; proven solution; experienced local team with quality resources; satisfied and referenceable customer-base covering all verticals.

Cons

Through the early part of the decade Cognos had a deserved reputation for a great culture. As the market has consolidated the company has had to prepare for acquisition. There have been some notable changes in the senior management team, and culturally Cognos is not the company it once was.

Advice to Senior Management

Clearly your obligations are to the shareholders/future owners of the company, but try not to completely lose the 'secret sauce' that made Cognos the great company that it was.

Pros

The pay is more than decent.

Cons

Middle and lower management are petty, sexist and only ever interested in protecting their arses. Nepotism is rampant and the people managers are not skilled at listening to the people the manage.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a serious look at who you have directly underneath you. Lower-end manangement is all bases on some type of collective arse-protecting buddy system.