Cognos business intelligence solutions sit on top of Colt Cars’ data warehouse to create customised reports on the status and value of warranty claims in a matter of minutes. The data warehouse is populated from a standard automotive industry database; now rejected claims with the highest cost can be prioritised and quickly settled. This means Colt Cars doesn’t have to foot any upfront settlement costs, creating substantial cost savings.

Previously Colt Cars was using a standard automotive industry database as a stand-alone solution but this took anywhere from three to five days to generate meaningful reports.

A knock-on benefit of the software, implemented by Cognos partner Business & Decision, is the ability for Colt Cars to pinpoint trends in the claims process. This means that common manufacturing problems can be prevented before the cars come off the line, or even recalled as necessary. “We needed to implement a technology that allowed our Warranty Advisors to automate reporting so their time could be better spent supporting dealers and reviewing claims with the manufacturer,” said David Best, Colt Cars general manager. “Cognos’ technology met this objective so that management can now pull off warranty reports at the touch of a button. It has also helped to improve our overall business profitability by allowing us to identify common manufacturing problems and identify parts quality issues.” Best continued, “We selected Cognos’ partner, the IT consultancy company Business & Decision, to assist on this project because we have worked with them in the past. They are reliable and the value they bring in terms of their technological and industry expertise ensured this project was a success. Now, because of that success we are now looking to roll-out further BI solutions to the sales department and the automotive parts division.” “Business intelligence tools enable companies to identify corporate priorities while enhanced reporting enables executives to free up their time and focus their efforts on those priorities,” said Graham Walter, vice-president of the UK, Middle East and Africa at Cognos. “Through Cognos business intelligence solutions, Colt Cars has experienced the power of business intelligence and the subsequent cost-savings and trend-spotting benefits.”

Cognos, the world leader in enterprise business intelligence and corporate performance management, delivers software and services that helps 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 business intelligence (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 www.cognos.com.

Business & Decision specialises in providing solutions and related consultancy in Business Intelligence, Customer Relationship Management, E-Business and Management Consulting. Founded in 1992 and listed on the Euronext Paris (ISIN code FR 00000 7895 8 / BND), the Group has a reputation for its functional and technological expertise and has forged partnerships with all of the key technology vendors. Business & Decision currently employs over 1,200 consultants across the globe and has implemented over 2,100 projects at 1,150 client sites including the NHS, Scottish Widows, Barclaycard, HBOS plc, AXA, Unilever, Aviva, MBNA, Orange and Allianz Group. For more information, visit www.businessdecision.co.uk.

London, England, 9 February 2006

Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management (CPM), has announced that Colt Cars has selected Cognos technology to reduce the reporting of warranty claims to a matter of minutes, while identifying trends in manufacturing problems.