Editor's note: This article focuses on The Randstad Group's experience as a Cognos Training customer. In his own words, Randstad's Rob Bakker discusses Cognos Training and the impact it has had.

What a Cognos Customer Has to Say about Cognos 8 Business Intelligence Training

"Cognos Training has given our developers enough knowledge and self confidence to perform in the projects," says Rob Bakker, Senior Project Manager, The Ranstad Group, "The training for end users has made everyone very enthusiastic on the possibilities and user friendliness. It made them eager to start using the software. Cognos Training is not to be missed."

Background: The Customer

The Randstad Group is one of the largest temporary and contract staffing organizations in the world. It is the market leader in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland, and the southeast United States. The Randstad Group's mission is to rank among the world leaders in matching demand and supply of labor and HR services.

Rob Bakker, Senior Project Manager, The Randstad Group

Views and Experiences

Here are the views and experiences of Rob Bakker, Senior Project Manager, The Randstad Group …

Challenges Faced

Within the Randstad Group Netherlands, there was a need to consolidate multiple existing business intelligence (BI) solutions into a single platform. The benefits? For IT: better exchange of skills, one common way of working. For business: single version of the truth, self-service ad hoc querying. So in 2005, a small workgroup explored the various BI vendors' solutions and ultimately decided that Cognos 8 BI had the best fit.

This project has been solely run by the BI competency centre. The Ranstad Group BI Competency Centre had no experience with Cognos and little experience with OLAP and meta data layers. We wanted to give everyone in the team the same basic knowledge of the Cognos 8 BI suite, so we sent approximately 15 developers to various Cognos 8 BI training courses.

In addition to project team knowledge, our internal customers had little experience with a self-service ad hoc querying tool. To ensure the end users were trained on Cognos 8 BI, 60 knowledge workers attended two days of training on the use of Query Studio and Analysis Studio. This means that in the future, these customers no longer need the BICC for their query needs and the BICC will only be required as second-line support.

Benefits Realized

The training has given our developers enough knowledge and self-confidence to perform in the project(s). Four months after the first training days, we produced numerous deliverables for end customers. The training for end users has made everyone very enthusiastic about the possibilities and user-friendliness of Cognos 8 BI. It has made them eager to start using the software.

Cognos Training responded promptly to all of our requirements. We saw immediate results from the training. The knowledge attained during the courses and the course materials are being used to their full extent.

To sum up the value we received from the Cognos Training – well worth the investment and not to be missed!