BURLINGTON, MA, July 22, 2002—Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence (BI), today announced that COBE Cardiovascular, the leading supplier of perfusion products, has implemented SSA Global Technologies, Inc.™ (SSA GT™) BPCS Sales Analysis, which is based on Cognos Analytic Applications. As one of the world's leading companies involved in delivering therapeutic solutions in the treatment of cardiovascular disease, COBE executives needed a solution that would help maintain high customer service levels while providing the ability to analyze sales trends. The solution, one in a suite of BPCS Enterprise Performance Analytics (EPA) applications and powered by Cognos Analytic Applications, allows COBE to gain timely, comprehensive insight into customer buying behavior and sales performance trends across the enterprise.

"Cognos Analytic Applications gives our sales force access real-time interaction with information, allowing them to accurately anticipate the needs of our customers. The sales staff has access to current sales information within hours instead of waiting days and weeks for reports to be generated," said Marsha Williams, vice president of Information Technology, COBE Cardiovascular. "Because Cognos and SSA Global Technologies partnered to pre-build this solution specifically for BPCS, SSA GT's flagship ERP solution for the industrial sector, we were able to cut deployment time from a planned five months to a mere eight weeks. In fact, within a two-week period, we had populated the warehouse and begin analyzing data."

Selecting sales analysis to create a business intelligence infrastructure, COBE Cardiovascular benefits from powerful analysis of the key factors driving corporate performance, as well as the monthly, daily, and ad hoc reporting demanded by the organization's fast-paced business. As a result, COBE is able to pinpoint and graphically portray buying trends, customer satisfaction levels, product line performance and distribution, and fulfillment data to ultimately deliver the highest service levels in the industry.

"The Cognos Analytic Applications solution doubles as a customer relationship management solution for our sales force," continued Williams. "Our users are able to quickly analyze, view, and record data and trends about a specific customer prior contacting that customer. We were confident that Cognos Analytic Applications would provide our sales team high-level, overview data, but we did not anticipate that the solution would satisfy our CRM requirements."

"SSA GT is partnering closely with Cognos in the development of the analytic applications to provide our customers with the capability to use BPCS data for business performance measurement - facilitating rapid, effective decision making," said Graeme Cooksley, executive vice president of Global Sales and Marketing, SSA GT. "We are especially pleased to leverage Cognos' use of business industry experts in the development of standard measurements and reports. Undoubtedly, the most successful organizations will be those that use BPCS Enterprise Performance Analytics based on Cognos Analytic Applications to make consistent, coordinated decisions, and share it with partners, suppliers, and customers to grow the business and strengthen the value chain."

"COBE Cardiovascular realized not only a fast deployment, but immediate, measurable results with Cognos Analytic Applications thanks in part to our strategic partnership with SSA Global Technologies," said David Kleinhans, area vice president, Cognos Analytic Applications. "Organizations are turning to Cognos Analytic Applications to get their business intelligence infrastructure up and running quickly with minimal IT effort, and are rapidly reaping the benefits of improved corporate performance management."

To better manage corporate performance management, COBE is planning on adding additional analytic applications, including General Ledger and Inventory Analysis.

ABOUT COBE CARDIOVASCULAR:
COBE Cardiovascular, founded in 1964, is a member of the SNIA family of companies dedicated to delivering therapeutic solutions in the treatment of cardiovascular disease. The SNIA family of four unique companies — COBE Cardiovascular, Dideco, Sorin and Stöckert — has a long rich history in providing innovative products for the cardiovascular surgeon, the perfusionist and the patient.

SNIA, a company listed on the Italian Stock Exchange since 1922, is one of Italy's main industrial groups, with headquarters in Milan and operating units in the European Union, the United States, Australia and Japan.

ABOUT SSA GLOBAL TECHNOLOGIES:
SSA Global Technologies, Inc., is a leading provider of enterprise software and services to the world's industrial sector companies with a focus in the automotive supply, consumer goods, pharmaceutical/chemical and general manufacturing industries. SSA GT's enterprise resource and planning (ERP) platforms easily integrate with strategic partner applications to deliver e-commerce, business intelligence, customer relationship management (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM) solutions. Headquartered in Chicago, SSA GT serves more than 9,000 longstanding, market-leading companies in over 90 countries from more than 70 worldwide offices. For additional information, visit the SSA GT web site at www.ssagt.com.

BPCS is a registered trademark; SSA Global Technologies and SSA GT are trademarks of SSA Global Technologies, Inc. Other products mentioned in this document are registered, trademarked or service marked by their respective owners.

ABOUT COGNOS ANALYTIC APPLICATIONS:
Cognos Analytic Applications are pre-built reporting and analysis applications with pre-packaged business content and a production-ready architecture designed to extend the value of existing investments in ERP and other operational systems. With six analytic applications — sales, accounts receivable, general ledger, accounts payable, inventory and procurement — organizations can benefit from a single, integrated, 360-degree view of business operations built upon a common foundation for enterprise-wide corporate performance management.