Arbolus Intelligence

Cognos

cognos.com · Ottawa, Canada

Cognos is a business intelligence and performance management software company best known for its reporting, analytics, and dashboarding tools used by enterprises to analyze financial and operational data. The company’s products enable organizations to build data models, create reports, and distribute insights across finance, operations, and executive teams. Cognos was acquired by IBM in 2008 and now operates as part of IBM’s analytics software portfolio.

  • Business Intelligence & Dashboards
  • Data Warehousing & Lakes
Listed in
Revenue
$800.0M
Employees
3,500
Founded
1969
Headquarters
Ottawa, Canada

What 21 Arbolus experts think of Cognos

NPS scores range from 1 to 10, with most ratings clustered in the 7-10 band, indicating a predominantly positive but mixed overall outlook. While some high-spending Influencers are not committed to renew, the majority of Users demonstrate satisfaction, reflecting high product stickiness, as all but one expert report long-term implementation. Key positive feedback centers on reporting robustness and embedded BI value, but concerns exist around cost, learning curve, and fit for cloud and future AI-driven BI models.Overall Customer Sentiment: Neutral

Who reviewed Cognos

Total customers 21 16 current · 5 former
Reviews growth +13 in six months
Seniority of respondents
  • C-Suite 61% (13)
  • Director 28% (6)
  • Manager 11% (2)
Strategy Leader Director NPS 9 Not renewing Submitted Jul 2026
Not specified Director NPS 5 Submitted Jun 2026
Data Partner Not specified NPS 8 Not renewing Submitted Oct 2025

Employer names and spend open in the full report, along with the other 18 customers.

Everything 21 customers told us about Cognos.

Employer names, spend, renewal intent and every written answer behind the numbers on this page.

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Sentiment

9 Net Promoter Score, from 21 scored reviews
  • Promoters 7
  • Passives 9
  • Detractors 5

Cumulative NPS by month

+1 over 6 months
  • Feb 7
  • Apr 7
  • Jun 7
  • Jul 8
  • Aug 8
  • Sep 8

Net Promoter Score across 4 reviews, accumulated up to each month. Category median 26 across 4 companies.

Praised

  • Cloud Migration Adaptation
  • Leverage AI-driven Analytics
  • Ease of Use Enhancements
  • Effective Embedded BI

Criticised

  • Cost Concerns
  • Cloud and AI Fit
  • Steep Learning Curve
  • Switching to Modern BI Tools

What customers say

Effective Embedded BI
“Cognos performs very well when embedded in other applications and can be quite fast for enterprise needs.”
Robust Reporting and Visualization
“I find Cognos to be a strong option for pure reporting, data visualization, and light BI, particularly in an enterprise context.”
Flexible Customer Reporting
“We use Cognos mainly for ad-hoc reporting, giving customers a flexible framework to build reports to meet varying daily needs.”

Renewal intent

Plan to renew 9%
  • Will renew 1
  • Undecided 4
  • Not renewing 6

Plan to renew, by seniority

  • C-Suite 13% 8 answers
  • Director 0% 2 answers
  • Not specified 0% 1 answer
  • 9/10 Average score from customers who will renew
  • 7.5/10 Average score from undecided customers
  • 6.7/10 Average score from customers not renewing

Top alternatives

Most weighed by Cognos customers

Report

Customer Report - Oct 2026 Oct 2026 21 + 1

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