February 11th, 2021
Are you using software like Cognos Analytics BI and in desperate need of a Cognos upgrade? Or maybe you are manually using Excel for your budget and forecasting process and with the rapid changes required, need a better solution like Cognos Planning Analytics? At the end of the day, you need to know, The Secret to Getting Funding for Your Cognos Projects.
Funding is Not Blocked.
You may have been told, there is no budget for new projects or a Cognos upgrade. Well, I don’t believe that to be true. In fact, I have experienced many times where clients were told there was no funding for their Cognos upgrade, but funds magically appeared when we positioned the Cognos upgrade to solve a bigger challenge, help the organization achieve a strategic goal or showed how the Cognos upgrade mitigated a huge unforeseen risk.
Cognos Funding is Not Your Problem, Positioning Is.
The Problem is not lack of funding. The problem is you are not positioning the benefits for your Cognos or Cognos Planning Analytics upgrade or investment in a way that benefits people that can make funding appear. You do know that almost every CFO has a discretionary funds bucket, right?
To position your project to benefit the people with the money, you also need to understand how they are wired. How do they make decisions? Are they risk adverse? Once you discover how they are wired, then you want to present in a way that makes the decision to fund your Cognos project easy and comfortable, which includes addressing all their possible objections.
Bad Experience with Previous Upgrade.
You also want to explore what experiences has the decision maker had in the past with IT projects? If the CFO, who typically is risk adverse, had a bad Cognos upgrade 10 years ago, he or she may not be willing to fund your IT project or upgrade. The secret to getting funding then is to make sure you show them the process you will be taking and ensure mistakes of the past will not happen again.
There are so many tips we can share about getting funding for Cognos, that we decided to create a webinar on the topic. Here’s a link to our webinar which was the first of our monthly Client Success Webinars, How to Get Funding for Your IT Projects.
If you would like to join our future Cognos Client success webinars see our events page.
Additionally, you might want to check out our previous blog
5 Steps To Get Project Funding
Need Help Positioning Your Cognos Upgrade?
If you are an IBM Analytics customer looking to get funding for your Cognos Planning Analytics TM1 or Cognos Analytics upgrade or additional licenses, you don’t have to go it alone! Lodestar Solutions is happy to help you strategically design your pitch for funding using are proven method and secrets to getting funding for your Cognos projects. Just email us at Services@lodestarsolutions.com so we can help show you a better way.