About the Author

Jason Edwards is an IBM Cognos Planning solutions expert and partner of Agile Strategic Business Consulting. He has extensive experience in application design and development and has effectively implemented highly successful IBM Cognos Planning solutions for a variety of companies. Jason is certified in IBM Cognos Planning and holds a Bachelor's degree in accounting and finance. Jason can be contacted at jason.edwards@agilestrategic.com. Ned Riaz is a Certified IBM Cognos Planning expert and principal partner at Agile Strategic Business Consulting, a consulting company that specializes in IBM Cognos Planning and Business Intelligence implementations. Ned has obtained a B.S. degree in Accounting and Management Information Systems, and he passed the CPA (Certified Public Accountant) exam after finishing his degree. After finishing his education, Ned worked as an auditor, accountant, and finance director in many industries, such as banks, software reselling, and entertainment. He became involved in system development work in the late nineties, and deployed various medium-sized accounting and general ledger systems. Ned joined Adaytum Software, the original manufacturer of Planning products, in late 1999 when Adaytum had less than 50 employees. He has been working with Planning products since Contributor 1.1 and Analyst 2.2 were released in early 2000. While working with Adaytum, Ned designed and built many Planning models for a wide range of customers. During his days in Adaytum and Cognos, Ned designed and deployed models and systems for many large fortune 500 companies in various industries, such as pharmaceutical, hospital, aircraft operations, and retailers. As a partner/employee of Agile Strategic Business Consulting, Ned has been involved in designing and deploying various models and systems at a large information delivery corporation since 2006. Ned and his wife live in Central Minnesota. He enjoys cycling, badminton, and volunteering with rescued rabbits. He can be contacted at ned.riaz@agilestrategic.com and on the Web at www.agilestrategic.com. Rich Babaran has over 20 years of experience in financial modeling and analysis, planning and forecasting, performance measurement development, workflow modelling, and process improvement. He has spent the last 9 years helping organizations improve their planning processes using IBM Cognos Planning. Rich has a Bachelor's degree in Economics and an MBA in Finance. Rich is a partner at Agile Strategic Business Consulting. The authors and Packt Publishing would like to extend their thanks to Janosys Inc. for their gracious support in the development of this book.