IBM Cognos vs D23.io for AU Enterprise Analytics

Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary: Why This Matters Now
2. IBM Cognos: The Incumbent Legacy Stack
3. D23.io: The Open-Source Alternative
4. Feature-by-Feature Comparison
5. Cost Analysis: TCO for Australian Enterprises
6. Migration Timelines and Risk
7. Real-World AU Enterprise Context
8. Decision Framework
9. Implementation and Next Steps

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Executive Summary: Why This Matters Now {#executive-summary}

Australian enterprises running IBM Cognos are facing a critical inflection point. Cognos deployments—often 10+ years old—were built for a different era of analytics: batch reporting, static dashboards, and heavyweight infrastructure. Today’s business demands real-time insights, self-service analytics, and cloud-native flexibility.

D23.io represents a fundamentally different approach: open-source, lightweight, and built for modern data stacks. But is migration realistic? What does it actually cost? How long will it take?

This guide provides Australian decision-makers with a framework grounded in concrete timelines, real cost data, and honest assessment of what migration entails. We’re not selling you on either platform—we’re helping you choose based on your operational reality.

Enterprise analytics modernisation is exactly the kind of platform re-platforming project that PADISO specialises in. We’ve guided Australian mid-market and enterprise operators through similar transitions, and we know the hidden costs, timeline risks, and governance challenges that don’t appear in vendor whitepapers.

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IBM Cognos: The Incumbent Legacy Stack {#ibm-cognos-legacy}

What Cognos Is (and Isn’t)

IBM Cognos is a mature business intelligence platform that emerged in the late 1990s. It’s designed for enterprise-scale reporting, dimensional analysis, and compliance-heavy analytics workflows. If your organisation has been running Cognos for 8+ years, you likely have:

• Hundreds of reports baked into business processes
• Deep integration with SAP, Oracle, or other legacy ERP systems
• Complex security models built around role-based access control (RBAC)
• Significant institutional knowledge embedded in your BI team

Cognos excels at what it was designed for: deterministic, scheduled reporting at enterprise scale. It’s battle-tested, auditable, and deeply integrated into Fortune 500 workflows across APAC.

The Cognos Cost Structure

Cognos licensing is notoriously opaque, but Australian enterprises typically encounter:

Software licensing: AUD $50,000–$250,000+ per year, depending on:

• Named user seats (expensive)
• Concurrent user licenses (better for large orgs)
• Module add-ons (forecasting, advanced analytics, mobile)

Infrastructure and support: AUD $30,000–$150,000+ annually for:

• On-premises or cloud hosting
• Database licensing (often Cognos + Oracle or SQL Server)
• IBM support contracts (mandatory for compliance)
• Internal BI team salaries (typically 3–8 FTEs for medium enterprises)

Modernisation debt: The hidden cost. Cognos environments typically accumulate:

• Brittle ETL processes (often hand-coded in COBOL, Python, or shell scripts)
• Legacy data models that nobody fully understands
• Technical debt in report code (thousands of lines of MDX, SQL, or JavaScript)
• Upgrade risk (moving from Cognos 10 to 11 is non-trivial)

Total annual cost for a medium AU enterprise: AUD $150,000–$600,000+, including people, software, and infrastructure.

Why Cognos Feels “Stuck”

Australian enterprises report consistent pain points:

1. Report refresh cycles are slow: Changes to a single report often require QA, UAT, and formal change control. A simple modification can take 2–4 weeks.
2. Self-service is limited: Business users can’t explore data independently. They’re dependent on the BI team for ad-hoc requests.
3. Mobile experience is poor: Cognos mobile apps exist but feel bolted-on, not native.
4. Integration is manual: Pulling data from cloud sources (Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.) requires custom ETL development.
5. Scaling is painful: Adding new data sources or users involves infrastructure planning, licensing negotiation, and often re-architecture.

These aren’t Cognos “bugs”—they’re architectural consequences of a platform built for a different era.

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D23.io: The Open-Source Alternative {#d23io-alternative}

What D23.io Is

D23.io is a modern, open-source analytics platform designed for cloud-native organisations. It’s built on a fundamentally different philosophy:

• Cloud-first: Runs on Kubernetes, serverless, or managed cloud services.
• Data-agnostic: Connects to 100+ data sources natively (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, Postgres, etc.).
• User-centric: Emphasises self-service analytics and visual exploration.
• Developer-friendly: APIs, SDK, and code-as-config approach.
• Open-source: No vendor lock-in; full transparency into the codebase.

D23.io is part of a broader ecosystem of modern BI tools (Metabase, Superset, Looker, Tableau) that have fundamentally changed how enterprises think about analytics.

D23.io Strengths

1. Cost model: D23.io is open-source and free to self-host. You pay for:

• Cloud infrastructure (typically AUD $5,000–$20,000/year for a medium enterprise)
• Optional managed hosting (AUD $15,000–$50,000/year)
• Internal engineering time (see migration section)

No per-user licensing. No vendor lock-in.

2. Speed to insight: D23.io dashboards can be built in hours, not weeks. Changes deploy immediately.

3. Self-service: Business users can build their own charts, apply filters, and export data without BI team involvement.

4. Modern integrations: Native connectors to Salesforce, Stripe, Google Analytics, and 100+ other cloud sources. No ETL middleware needed.

5. Flexibility: You own the code. Need a custom feature? Fork it, modify it, deploy it.

D23.io Limitations

Honestly, D23.io isn’t right for every enterprise:

1. Operational maturity: Cognos is battle-tested across millions of deployments. D23.io is newer and less widely deployed in traditional enterprises.

2. Support model: No 24/7 vendor support. You’re relying on community, documentation, and internal expertise.

3. Governance and audit: D23.io has audit capabilities, but they’re less mature than Cognos. If you need SOC 2 or ISO 27001 compliance, you’ll need to implement additional controls. (This is where PADISO’s Security Audit service comes in—we help enterprises achieve audit-readiness via Vanta regardless of platform choice.)

4. Scaling complexity: D23.io scales, but you need to manage Kubernetes, databases, and infrastructure. Cognos abstracts that away.

5. Institutional knowledge: Your BI team knows Cognos. They’ll need to learn D23.io, which takes time.

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Feature-by-Feature Comparison {#feature-comparison}

Reporting and Dashboards

Feature	Cognos	D23.io
Scheduled reports	Native, mature	Via API/webhooks
Interactive dashboards	Yes, but slow to build	Yes, fast iteration
Ad-hoc queries	Limited (OLAP cubes)	Full SQL access
Mobile support	Basic	Good (responsive design)
Embedded analytics	Yes, via iframes	Yes, via API
Drill-down/drill-through	Excellent	Good

Data Connectivity

Feature	Cognos	D23.io
SQL databases	Yes (Oracle, SQL Server, Postgres)	Yes (all major DBs)
Cloud data warehouses	Limited (requires connectors)	Native (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift)
SaaS integrations	Via third-party ETL	100+ native connectors
Real-time data	Via polling	Yes, streaming support
Data federation	Via Cognos Data Manager	Via SQL/APIs

Security and Compliance

Feature	Cognos	D23.io
Row-level security (RLS)	Native	Via database views/policies
Column-level security	Yes	Via database layer
Audit logging	Comprehensive	Configurable
SSO/SAML	Yes	Yes
Encryption in transit	Yes	Yes
Encryption at rest	Yes (with config)	Yes (with config)
SOC 2 ready	Yes (IBM certified)	Requires custom implementation
ISO 27001 ready	Yes (IBM certified)	Requires custom implementation

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Cost Analysis: TCO for Australian Enterprises {#cost-analysis}

Year 1 Cognos TCO (Medium Enterprise, 100 users)

Software

• Cognos licensing: AUD $120,000
• Database licensing (Oracle): AUD $40,000
• Infrastructure (on-prem or cloud): AUD $50,000

People

• BI team (4 FTEs at AUD $90k–$130k): AUD $420,000
• Project management (0.5 FTE): AUD $60,000

Support and maintenance

• IBM support contract: AUD $30,000
• Infrastructure maintenance: AUD $20,000

Year 1 Total: AUD $740,000

Year 1 D23.io TCO (Medium Enterprise, 100 users)

Software

• D23.io: AUD $0 (open-source)
• Database licensing (Postgres, BigQuery): AUD $15,000
• Cloud infrastructure: AUD $25,000

People

• Migration project (3 months, 2 FTEs): AUD $80,000
• New BI team (2.5 FTEs at AUD $90k–$130k): AUD $300,000
• Infrastructure engineering (0.5 FTE): AUD $60,000
• Training and knowledge transfer: AUD $20,000

Support and maintenance

• Community support / external consulting: AUD $30,000

Year 1 Total: AUD $530,000

5-Year TCO Comparison

Cognos: AUD $3.8M–$4.2M (assuming 3% annual growth in licensing and people costs)

D23.io: AUD $2.1M–$2.5M (lower licensing, but ongoing engineering investment)

Cumulative savings with D23.io: AUD $1.3M–$2.1M over 5 years

However, this assumes:

• Successful migration (see risks below)
• No major re-architecture of data models
• Stable team headcount
• No unexpected compliance or governance requirements

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Migration Timelines and Risk {#migration-timelines}

Realistic Migration Timeline

Migrating from Cognos to D23.io is not a “lift and shift.” You’re rebuilding your analytics layer. Here’s what a typical medium-enterprise migration looks like:

Phase 1: Assessment and Planning (4–6 weeks)

What happens:

• Inventory all Cognos reports and dashboards (often 200–500+)
• Audit data sources and dependencies
• Assess team skills and training needs
• Define success metrics
• Create detailed migration plan

Effort: 2–3 FTEs

Cost: AUD $40,000–$60,000

Deliverables:

• Detailed report migration roadmap
• Data architecture diagram for D23.io
• Risk register and mitigation plan

Phase 2: Infrastructure and Setup (6–8 weeks, parallel with Phase 1)

What happens:

• Provision cloud infrastructure (Kubernetes, managed D23.io, or self-hosted)
• Set up databases (migrate from Oracle/SQL Server to cloud DW if applicable)
• Configure security (SSO, RBAC, encryption)
• Set up CI/CD pipelines
• Implement audit logging and compliance controls

Effort: 1–2 FTEs (infrastructure/DevOps)

Cost: AUD $30,000–$50,000 (labour) + AUD $15,000–$25,000 (cloud infrastructure setup)

Deliverables:

• Production D23.io environment
• Data connections validated
• Security policies implemented

Phase 3: Core Report Migration (12–16 weeks)

What happens:

• Prioritise reports by business impact (Pareto principle: 20% of reports drive 80% of value)
• Rebuild high-priority reports in D23.io (typically 20–30 reports)
• Validate data accuracy against Cognos
• User testing and feedback
• Iterative refinement

Effort: 2–3 FTEs (BI developers, data engineers)

Cost: AUD $80,000–$120,000

Deliverables:

• 20–30 production dashboards
• Validated data accuracy
• User sign-off on core reports

Phase 4: Secondary Reports and Optimisation (8–12 weeks)

What happens:

• Migrate remaining reports (often 70–80% of the volume)
• Many of these are low-traffic or can be consolidated
• Optimise data models and queries
• Train business users on self-service analytics
• Decommission Cognos for migrated reports

Effort: 1–2 FTEs

Cost: AUD $40,000–$70,000

Deliverables:

• Full report migration complete
• User training materials
• Runbook for ongoing maintenance

Phase 5: Cutover and Decommissioning (2–4 weeks)

What happens:

• Final validation of all reports
• User acceptance testing (UAT)
• Cutover to D23.io as primary analytics platform
• Decommission Cognos infrastructure
• Knowledge transfer and handoff to operations team

Effort: 1–2 FTEs

Cost: AUD $20,000–$40,000

Deliverables:

• Production cutover complete
• Support runbook
• Post-go-live monitoring

Total Migration Timeline: 6–9 months

Total migration cost: AUD $210,000–$365,000

Parallel operations cost: AUD $30,000–$60,000 (maintaining Cognos during migration)

Total Year 1 investment: AUD $240,000–$425,000 (migration) + AUD $300,000 (ongoing operations) = AUD $540,000–$725,000

Risk Factors and Mitigation

Risk 1: Report Complexity and Rebuilding Effort

The problem: Some Cognos reports are complex. They use advanced MDX, custom JavaScript, or bespoke OLAP cubes that don’t have direct equivalents in D23.io.

Reality check: 20–30% of reports will require significant rework. Some may need to be redesigned entirely (which is often an opportunity to simplify them).

Mitigation:

• Conduct a detailed technical audit of Cognos reports early
• Identify “hard” reports and plan alternative approaches
• Consider consolidating low-value reports into self-service dashboards
• Budget 30–40% extra time for complex reports

Risk 2: Data Model Migration

The problem: Cognos often uses OLAP cubes or dimensional models built on top of legacy databases. Migrating to D23.io may require re-architecting your data warehouse.

Reality check: If you’re moving to a cloud data warehouse (Snowflake, BigQuery), this is an opportunity to modernise. But it adds 4–8 weeks to the project.

Mitigation:

• Evaluate your data warehouse strategy independently of the BI tool
• If you’re staying on Oracle/SQL Server, D23.io works fine with dimensional models
• Use this as an opportunity to consolidate fragmented data sources

Risk 3: User Adoption

The problem: Users are familiar with Cognos. D23.io looks and feels different. There’s a learning curve.

Reality check: Most users adapt within 2–4 weeks. Self-service analytics is actually a significant improvement for many.

Mitigation:

• Invest in training (AUD $15,000–$30,000)
• Provide a transition period where both platforms run in parallel
• Assign “analytics champions” in each business unit
• Offer office hours and support during the first month

Risk 4: Compliance and Audit Requirements

The problem: If you need SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification, D23.io requires additional setup.

Reality check: This is achievable but adds 4–6 weeks and AUD $20,000–$40,000 in effort.

Mitigation:

• Engage a compliance partner early (like PADISO’s Security Audit service)
• Use Vanta to automate compliance evidence collection
• Document your security controls and audit procedures from day one
• Plan compliance implementation in parallel with Phase 2 (infrastructure setup)

Risk 5: Team Skill Gaps

The problem: Your BI team knows Cognos. They may not know SQL, Python, or modern data engineering.

Reality check: This is solvable with training and hiring, but it takes time.

Mitigation:

• Assess team skills early in the assessment phase
• Invest in training (SQL, data modelling, D23.io) for existing staff
• Hire 1–2 new engineers with D23.io/modern BI experience
• Consider a fractional CTO or AI & Agents Automation partner to guide technical decisions

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Real-World AU Enterprise Context {#au-context}

Why Australian Enterprises Are Considering This Now

Three factors are driving Australian mid-market and enterprise organisations to re-evaluate their analytics stack:

1. Cloud Migration Wave

Australian enterprises are moving to AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. Cognos was built for on-premises data centres. Running Cognos on cloud infrastructure is expensive and awkward. D23.io is cloud-native—it’s designed for this environment.

2. Data Modernisation

Companies are moving from legacy databases (Oracle, SQL Server on-premises) to cloud data warehouses (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift). These platforms have different query patterns and cost models. D23.io integrates natively; Cognos requires middleware.

3. Speed and Agility

Australian businesses are competing globally. They need analytics that move at the speed of business, not at the speed of BI team scheduling. D23.io enables self-service analytics and rapid iteration.

AU-Specific Considerations

Data Residency and Compliance

Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) and industry-specific regulations (e.g., APRA for financial services) require data to remain in Australia or be subject to strict controls.

Cognos: Can be run on-premises or on Australian cloud regions. IBM has Australian data centres.

D23.io: Can be deployed on Australian cloud infrastructure (AWS Sydney, Azure Australia, Google Cloud Sydney). No vendor lock-in to US-based infrastructure.

Advantage: D23.io, because you control the deployment and can ensure data residency.

Cost of Cognos in AU

Cognos licensing in Australia is expensive due to:

• Currency exchange rates (AUD vs USD)
• Limited local support (fewer IBM Cognos experts in Australia compared to the US)
• Infrastructure costs (Australian cloud pricing is higher than US pricing)

D23.io sidesteps this by being open-source and running on standard cloud infrastructure.

Talent Availability

Australian BI talent is split:

• Cognos experts: Declining pool, mostly in large enterprises
• Modern BI tools (D23.io, Looker, Tableau): Growing pool, especially among younger engineers

If you’re hiring, D23.io skills are easier to find in Sydney and Melbourne.

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Decision Framework {#decision-framework}

Not every Australian enterprise should migrate from Cognos to D23.io. Here’s how to decide.

Stay with Cognos If:

1. Your report portfolio is stable: You’re not adding new reports or making significant changes. Cognos is mature and reliable for steady-state reporting.

2. You have deep Cognos expertise: Your team knows Cognos inside-out. Migration costs would exceed the benefits.

3. You need 24/7 vendor support: Cognos support is available 24/7. D23.io is community-supported. If you need guaranteed SLAs, Cognos is safer.

4. Regulatory requirements mandate it: Some highly regulated industries (e.g., certain APRA-regulated institutions) may have specific requirements for vendor-supported platforms.

5. Your data is on-premises and will stay there: If you’re not moving to the cloud, Cognos on-premises is fine. The cost of migration exceeds the benefit.

6. Your total Cognos spend is under AUD $200k/year: For small deployments, migration costs are proportionally higher. Stick with Cognos unless you’re planning a broader modernisation.

Migrate to D23.io If:

1. You’re already moving to the cloud: If you’re migrating to AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, D23.io fits naturally into that journey.

2. Your Cognos bill is AUD $300k+/year: The economics favour migration. You’ll recover the migration investment within 2–3 years.

3. You need faster time-to-insight: If business users are waiting weeks for reports, D23.io’s self-service model is transformative.

4. You’re integrating with modern SaaS tools: If you’re using Salesforce, HubSpot, Stripe, etc., D23.io’s native connectors save months of ETL work.

5. You want to reduce vendor lock-in: D23.io is open-source. You’re not dependent on IBM for updates, support, or licensing.

6. You have the engineering talent: If you have a strong data engineering or platform team, D23.io’s flexibility is valuable.

7. You’re planning a broader platform re-platforming: If you’re also modernising your data warehouse, ERP, or CRM, D23.io fits into a cohesive strategy.

The Hybrid Approach

Some Australian enterprises are taking a hybrid approach:

• Keep Cognos for legacy, stable reports that feed into compliance or regulatory processes
• Build new analytics in D23.io for self-service and modern use cases
• Gradually migrate as Cognos reports reach end-of-life or require significant updates

This approach reduces risk but increases complexity (you’re maintaining two platforms).

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Implementation and Next Steps {#implementation}

Step 1: Conduct a Detailed Assessment (2–4 weeks)

Before committing to migration, you need clarity on:

• Report inventory: How many Cognos reports do you have? Which are critical?
• Data architecture: Where does your data live? What’s your cloud strategy?
• Team skills: What’s your BI team’s technical depth?
• Compliance requirements: Do you need SOC 2, ISO 27001, or other certifications?
• Business drivers: What are you trying to achieve? Faster insights? Cost reduction? Agility?

Deliverable: A 10–15 page assessment report that answers these questions and recommends a path forward.

Cost: AUD $15,000–$30,000 (if outsourced to a partner like PADISO)

Step 2: Define Your Target Architecture

Based on the assessment, define:

• Data warehouse: Will you stay on Oracle/SQL Server, or move to Snowflake/BigQuery?
• D23.io deployment: Self-hosted on Kubernetes? Managed hosting? Cloud provider’s managed service?
• Security model: How will you implement SSO, RBAC, and audit logging?
• Integration strategy: Which SaaS tools will you connect to D23.io?
• Compliance framework: If you need SOC 2/ISO 27001, what controls do you need?

Deliverable: A technical architecture document (5–10 pages) with diagrams and implementation details.

Cost: AUD $20,000–$40,000 (technical architecture engagement)

Step 3: Build a Business Case

Create a detailed financial model:

• Cognos TCO: What are you spending now?
• D23.io TCO: What will you spend after migration?
• Migration costs: What’s the one-time investment?
• Payback period: When will you break even?
• Non-financial benefits: Faster insights, reduced vendor lock-in, agility, etc.

Deliverable: A 5-year financial model with sensitivity analysis (best case, base case, worst case).

Cost: AUD $10,000–$20,000 (financial modelling)

Step 4: Get Executive Buy-In

Present the assessment, architecture, and business case to your leadership team. You need alignment on:

• Timeline: 6–9 months is a long project. Do you have the patience?
• Budget: AUD $240k–$425k for migration. Is this approved?
• Risk tolerance: What if the migration takes longer than expected?
• Team commitment: Will you dedicate the best people to this project?

Deliverable: Executive sign-off on the migration plan and budget.

Step 5: Engage a Migration Partner (Optional, but Recommended)

Migrating from Cognos to D23.io is complex. Many Australian enterprises benefit from external guidance.

A good partner will:

• Reduce risk: They’ve done this before. They know the pitfalls.
• Accelerate delivery: They can parallelize work and avoid rework.
• Build team capability: They transfer knowledge to your team, so you’re not dependent on them long-term.
• Navigate compliance: If you need SOC 2/ISO 27001, they can guide the implementation.

At PADISO, we partner with Australian enterprises on exactly this kind of platform modernisation. Our approach:

• Assessment and planning: We audit your Cognos environment and define a realistic roadmap.
• Architecture design: We design a cloud-native analytics stack tailored to your data and compliance requirements.
• Implementation: We co-build the D23.io environment, migrate your core reports, and train your team.
• Compliance and security: We help you achieve audit-readiness via Vanta, ensuring your new analytics platform meets SOC 2 and ISO 27001 standards.

We’ve guided AI agency for enterprises Sydney through similar platform transitions. We understand the Australian enterprise context—data residency requirements, local talent constraints, and the need for pragmatic, outcome-focused delivery.

Step 6: Plan Your Migration Phases

Once you’ve decided to migrate, break the project into manageable phases:

Phase 1 (Weeks 1–6): Infrastructure setup and core report migration

Phase 2 (Weeks 7–16): Secondary reports and optimisation

Phase 3 (Weeks 17–26): User training, UAT, and cutover

Phase 4 (Weeks 27–36): Post-go-live support and decommissioning

Each phase should have clear deliverables, success criteria, and risk mitigation strategies.

Step 7: Establish Governance and Monitoring

Once D23.io is live, you need:

• Data governance: Who owns which dashboards? What’s the approval process for new reports?
• Performance monitoring: Track query performance, user adoption, and data accuracy.
• Compliance monitoring: If you’re SOC 2/ISO 27001 certified, maintain your audit controls.
• Cost monitoring: Track cloud infrastructure costs and optimise as needed.

Many Australian enterprises use frameworks like AI agency metrics Sydney to measure the success of their analytics transformation. Track metrics like:

• Time-to-insight: How long does it take to answer a business question?
• User adoption: What percentage of your user base is actively using D23.io?
• Report SLA compliance: What percentage of reports are delivered on time?
• Cost per dashboard: What’s the infrastructure cost per active dashboard?

These metrics help you justify the investment and identify optimisation opportunities.

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Conclusion: Making the Call

IBM Cognos vs D23.io isn’t a simple technical decision. It’s a business decision about how you want to operate your analytics function.

Cognos is a mature, battle-tested platform. It’s right if you want stability, vendor support, and proven compliance frameworks. But it’s expensive, slow to change, and increasingly misaligned with modern cloud and data strategies.

D23.io is modern, flexible, and cost-effective. It’s right if you’re building a cloud-native analytics platform, you have the engineering talent to support it, and you’re willing to invest in a 6–9 month migration project.

For Australian enterprises, the decision often comes down to:

1. Are you moving to the cloud? If yes, D23.io is the natural choice.
2. Is your Cognos bill AUD $300k+/year? If yes, the economics favour migration.
3. Do you have the team and budget? If yes, migration is feasible.
4. What’s your timeline? If you need results in 3 months, stay with Cognos. If you can invest 6–9 months, D23.io is worth it.

If you’re uncertain, start with an assessment. A detailed technical and financial assessment (AUD $15k–$30k) will give you the clarity you need to make an informed decision.

And if you’re ready to move forward, consider engaging a partner who understands both the technical complexity and the Australian enterprise context. We’ve guided mid-market and enterprise organisations through AI agency consultation Sydney and platform modernisation projects. We know the hidden costs, the timeline risks, and the governance challenges that don’t appear in vendor whitepapers.

The future of your analytics function is worth getting right. Take the time to assess, plan, and execute thoughtfully. Your business will thank you for it.