- Leading airline standardizing on Cognos to gain efficiencies over financial reporting and improve performance management decision-making - LAS VEGAS, COGNOS FORUM, June 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence (BI) and performance management solutions, today announced that WestJet's (TSX: WJA) implementation of Cognos enterprise planning and business intelligence will help WestJet streamline profitability analysis and improve organizational effectiveness over financial reporting processes. WestJet is Canada's leading low-fare airline offering scheduled service throughout its 33-city North American network. As a rapidly growing services provider, WestJet required an end-to-end solution that would provide greater visibility and automation of certain management accounting processes for maximizing profit and quickly responding to market changes while reducing costs and improving efficiencies over financial reporting processes associated with C-SOx compliance. With Cognos as its enterprise planning and business intelligence standard WestJet will gain: * A better understanding of how various routes and schedules contribute to overall profitability through fine-grained analysis down to the fare, flight path and other dimensions of a single airline seat. * The ability to perform financial "what-if" analysis to support decision-making and assess the impact of utilizing different drivers and allocations of cost elements on profitability analysis. * Standard reporting for business stakeholders and a corporate dashboard for executives to monitor key operational metrics on a daily basis. WestJet is the overall winner of Cognos' "Performance Metrics Excellence" customer award presented today at Cognos Forum in Las Vegas. The company was also a finalist for Cognos' "Operational Excellence" and "Innovation and Best- Practices" awards. "Our continued growth is making profitability analysis increasingly more complex and we were beginning to exceed the capabilities of our current spreadsheet-based system," said Hugh Dunleavy, Vice-President - Revenue WestJet. "With Cognos, we will have a familiar, spreadsheet-like environment for enterprise-level planning across our profitability processes. Our key business data will then be made available in an organized and intuitive fashion for reports which will allow for more detailed drill-down analysis. The net result will be a more efficient, timely, secure and reliable business process that has the capability to extend to other operational areas in the future." Enterprise planning, reporting and analysis and data management are key capabilities of 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 customers. "WestJet's application of our performance management solution is truly an innovative example of the process and performance improvements customers can gain with Cognos," said Rich Lanahan, vice-president, Cognos Performance Management. "With greater automation and integration of its financial and operational processes, WestJet is now able to gain greater efficiencies out of recurring management processes and enjoy improved visibility and control over enterprise performance." ABOUT WESTJET: Marking its tenth anniversary this year, WestJet is Canada's leading low-fare airline offering scheduled service throughout its 33-city North American network. Named Canada's most respected corporation for customer service in 2005, WestJet pioneered low-cost high-value flying in Canada. With increased legroom and leather seats on its modern fleet of Boeing Next-Generation 737 aircraft, and live seatback television provided by Bell ExpressVu on the majority of its fleet, WestJet strives to be the number one choice for travellers. 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. Media Contacts: Carrie Bendzsa Cognos, 613-738-1440 Doreen Maciak Lois Paul & Partners, 781-782-5832 Investor Relations: John Lawlor Cognos, 613-738-3503 DATASOURCE: Cognos CONTACT: Media: Carrie Bendzsa of Cognos, +1-613-738-1440, ; or Doreen Maciak of Lois Paul & Partners, +1-781-782-5832, ; or Investor Relations: John Lawlor of Cognos, +1-613-738-3503, Web site: http://www.cognos.com/ Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/107867.html

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