Cognos CEO Sets the Record Straight

VB: So what are you doing to better deal with channel conflict?

Ashe: We manage it as best as we can. We have this year tried to make a firmer distinction or delineation between the accounts that our partners address and the accounts that our direct sales force addresses Second, we've reorganized our channels so that the team that services our channel and solution providers is now part of the direct model That allows each of our regional teams to act more like a franchise and understand and embrace the partners more. That's going to be a key step. Third, there's always going to be some conflict. We hope to eliminate or mitigate as much as we can. We very much are promoting a partner-friendly approach throughout the company.

VB: How committed is Cognos to this partner strategy?

Ashe: I've made it one of the company's four objectives this year that we communicate broadly in quarterly updates and sales kick-offs. So we are very committed.

VB: How would you characterize Cognos' past performance with regard to that?

Ashe: We haven't been as partner-friendly as we have the potential to be. Whether it be sales conflict, the way we've built our products and/or the way we've looked at our strategies, if you look at recent product introductions and our investments in the channel, I think we've taken a number of steps to do a better job.

VB: What are you doing to help partners understand where CPM is going?

Ashe: I would say our partners are helping us as opposed to us helping our partners. If you look at most of our partners, they are addressing very specific areas in the business, where a particular vertical may understand that very well, and they bring back to us the performance requirements they're trying to drive out. We provide the tools that allow them to show and display that value.

VB: As you move into the CEO spot, can you tell me what your vision is?

Ashe: The most important thing is the company's vision for CPM, which we have really launched over the past two years. I believe CPM is the next-hardest problem to solve for enterprises, and I think Cognos is in the catbird seat to capture that market and be the leading player. From a vision perspective, it's just getting the company completely focused on pursuing that goal. Specifically, some of the things I'm going to focus on start with go-to-market. We believe strongly we have the right product set. We have invested in R&D and made acquisitions over the past five years to build up the product set to deliver on this value. Our next challenge in terms of go-to-market is how we develop this market and end up in the leadership position in a way that is sustainable for a long period of time.