Cognizant Technology Solutions

This article is about the corporation. For a definition of the word "cognizant", see the Wiktionary entry cognizant.

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation

Type	Public
Traded as	NASDAQ: CTSH
Industry	IT services, IT consulting
Founded	1994
Founder(s)	Kumar Mahadeva
Headquarters	Teaneck, New Jersey, United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	John E. Klein (Chairman) Francisco D'Souza (President & CEO) Lakshmi Narayanan (Vice Chairman)
Services	IT, business consulting and outsourcing services
Revenue	$4.59 billion (2010)[1]
Operating income	$861 million (2010)[1]
Profit	$733 million (2010)[1]
Total assets	$4.58 billion (2010)[1]
Total equity	$3.58 billion (2010)[1]
Employees	130,000 (Q3, 2011)[1]
Website	cognizant.com

Cognizant Technology Solutions (Cognizant) (NASDAQ: CTSH) is an American multinational provider of custom information technology, consulting and business process outsourcing services headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey, USA. The company is a member of NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500 and Fortune 500. Cognizant has been named to Fortune magazine's 100 Fastest-Growing Companies list for nine consecutive years, including 2011 when it was ranked first in the "All-Stars" list of 16 companies that appear on the fastest-growing list year after year.^[2]

History

Cognizant was started as an arm of Dun & Bradstreet Corporation (D&B) in 1994. D&B, which first had a 76 per cent stake in the venture, bought Satyam’s 24 per cent after the second year of operations.^[3]Kumar Mahadeva ^[4] was its Chairman and CEO.^[5] The company was spun off as an independent organization two years later and moved its headquarters to the US. Kumar Mahadeva resigned in 2003 when Lakshmi Narayanan took charge as CEO.^[6]

Cognizant currently provides a wide range of business, technology and consulting services including business process outsourcing (BPO) and has significant practices in Banking and Financial services, Communications, Consumer Goods, Energy & Utilities, Health care, Information, Media & Entertainment, Insurance, Life Sciences, Manufacturing, Retail, Technology, Transportation & Logistics and Travel and Hospitality.

Financial Health

Cognizant was listed on NASDAQ in 1998 and moved to the NASDAQ-100 Index in 2004. After the close of trading on 16 November 2006, Cognizant moved from the mid cap S&P 400 to the S&P 500. The company claims to be in excellent financial health, reporting over $2.2 billion in cash and short term investments for the quarter ending June 30, 2011.^[7]

Revenue Mix

Major portion of the revenue for Cognizant is derived out of clients from US.^[8]

North America: 77.2%, Europe: 19.2%, Rest of World: 3.6%

Financial Services: 42.3%, Health-care: 25.9%,Manufacturing, Retail & Logistics: 18.6%, Communications, Information, Media & Entertainment and Technology: 13.2%

Management

Management : Executive Team

• Lakshmi Narayanan, Vice Chairman
• Francisco D'Souza, President and Chief Executive Officer
• Gordon Coburn, Chief Financial and Operating Officer
• Chandra Sekaran, President & Managing Director, Global Delivery
• Rajeev Mehta, Chief Operating Officer, Global Client Services^[9]

Board of Directors

• John E. Klein, Chairman of the Board

Services

Cognizant provides a range of information technology, consulting and Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) services, including Business and Technology Consulting, Complex Systems Integration, Application Development and Maintenance, Business Process Outsourcing, IT Infrastructure Services, Analytics, Web Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, CRM and social CRM, Supply Chain Management, Engineering Management Solutions, ERP, R&D Outsourcing, and Testing solutions.

The company's revenue from IT services is split roughly evenly between application development (which is considered discretionary spend and hence arguably more susceptible to the economic climate) and application maintenance.

Cognizant's largest horizontals are Testing and DW/BI (Data warehousing and business intelligence).

Its business process outsourcing unit leans towards "higher-end" services i.e. work that involves unique skills and domain knowledge, such as legal services or healthcare claims processing rather than simple voice-based support services.

Acquisitions

The company has a stated policy of doing only small, "tuck-in" acquisitions.

List of companies acquired by Cognizant

Company acquired	Geography	Announcement Date	Area of Business
Zaffera	United States	September 27, 2011	SAP Consulting
CoreLogic	India	July 26, 2011	Mortgage processing
Galileo Performance	France	June 17, 2010
UBS India Service Center	India	October 15, 2009	Business process outsourcing, industry research
Pepperweed Advisors	Europe, Australia	September 8, 2009	Business Consulting, Program Management
Strategic Vision Consulting	United States	June 9, 2008	Business Consulting for media and entertainment companies
marketRx	United States, India	November 16, 2007	Life Sciences Analytics
AimNet	United States	September 5, 2006	IT infrastructure services
Fathom Consulting	Canada	April 18, 2005	Telecom & FinServices IT
Ygyan Consulting	United States, India	February 22, 2004	SAP consulting
Aces International	US, India	April 1, 2003	Siebel CRM consulting

Offshoring and Hiring in the U.S.

Cognizant is among the Top 10 companies receiving L1 visas to bring highly skilled immigrant workers to the United States. In their SEC 10-k filing of 2/23/2011, they recognize their dependence on the practice: "Our future success will depend on our ability to attract and retain employees with technical and project management skills from developing countries, especially India. The vast majority of our professionals in the United States and in Europe are Indian nationals. The ability of Indian nationals to work in the United States and Europe depends on their ability and our ability to obtain the necessary visas and work permits.^[10]

The company has been steadily increasing its U.S. work force. In January 2011, the company announced plans to expand its U.S. delivery centers including a new 1,000-person facility in Phoenix, Ariz.^[11] In Feb 2011 the company said it had 60 full time recruiters actively hiring in the U.S.^[12] Over 70% of its 120,000-plus employees are based in India or other offshore service locations like Philippines, China, Hungary and Argentina.^[13]

In 2009, a Department of Labor (DOL) investigation found Cognizant in violation of the H-1B provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Administrative Act. Out of the several thousand non-immigrant workers that the company employs, 67 were found to have been underpaid. Per the Department of Labor Press release "An investigation by the department's Wage and Hour Division found that the company violated the law when it failed to pay computer professionals hired under the H-1B program the proper wages, failed to offer all H-1B workers equal benefits or eligibility for equal benefits, and failed to maintain required records." The company paid $509,607 in back wages to these employees. While these were administrative errors, the Department of Labor did not find a pattern of wrongdoing. According to a DOL statement: "'Cognizant Technology Solutions has taken immediate steps to correct all identified violations and ensure future compliance,' said Joseph Petrecca, director of the Wage and Hour Division's Northern New Jersey District Office. 'This level of cooperation sets a standard for others in the industry.'"^[14]

Corporate Social Responsibility

• Cognizant's philanthropic efforts are conducted worldwide through the voluntary efforts of Cognizant employees and the financial and administrative support of the Cognizant Foundation. Registered in March 2005 as a "Charitable Company" under the Indian Companies Act, the Cognizant Foundation helps underprivileged members of society gain access to quality education and healthcare by providing financial and technical support; designing and implementing educational and healthcare improvement programs; and partnering with Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), educational institutions, healthcare institutions, government agencies and corporations.

• Through its Project Outreach, Cognizant's employees volunteer to support schools and orphanages through more than 400 initiatives reaching more than 200,000 children worldwide.

• Cognizant's sustainability efforts include a "Go Green" initiative launched in 2008 focused on energy conservation, recycling, and responsible waste management.

• At the 2011 Maker Faire, the company announced plans to fund a Maker Space at the New York Hall of Science, a Making the Future after-school program and a partnership with Citizen Schools to promote STEM education in the United States.^[15]

• In October 2011, Newsweek magazine announced their annual Green Rankings; Cognizant moved up from 138^th to 16^th place in the Green Rankings of the 500 largest publicly traded companies in America.^[16]

Community

The company's flagship customer conference is Cognizant Community -- sometimes simply called Community. It is usually held in the spring in the United States and in the fall in Europe. The summit, which features notable keynote speakers in the world of business, technology, economics and even adventure sports, has been praised as "a model industry event".^[17]

Cognizant Academy

All learning programs are conducted through Cognizant Academy, the in-house training center. The four key educational initiatives are: Continuing Education, Role-based Training, Executive Training program, Certification. In addition to internal training programs, associates undergo management-specific training at notable universities and colleges, including Harvard University, Indian Institute of Management, and the Indian Institute of Technology. In addition to the formal learning in classrooms, Cognizant Academy takes learning to employees' desktops. They use multi-modal learning, as well as Technology-Based Training (TBT) material.^[18]

Global Offices

• In addition to its headquarters and delivery center in Teaneck, N.J., Cognizant has five additional delivery centers in the United States of America: Bentonville, Arkansas; Bridgewater, New Jersey; Chicago, Illinois; Holliston, Massachusetts; and Phoenix, Arizona
• The company also has local, regional and global delivery centers in the UK, Europe, India, China, The Philippines, Canada, Argentina, and Mexico.
• The majority of the company’s employees are based in India: Chennai, Coimbatore, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Gurgaon and Cochin.

• 

  Cognizant's Delivery Center in Pune, India.

• 

  Cognizant's Delivery Center in Chennai, India.

• 

  Cognizant's Delivery Center in Kolkata, India.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f} "Cognizant Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2010 Results". Cognizant Technology Solutions Investor Relations. http://news.cognizant.com/index.php?s=14083&item=20277/. Retrieved 2011-03-16. 
2. ^ "Cognizant Tops All-Star List of Fastest Growing Companies". http://news.cognizant.com/index.php?s=14090&item=6295&year=2011. 
3. ^ http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/cognizant-back-in-searchsatyam/353949/
4. ^ http://www.alumni.hbs.edu/bulletin/2003/september/mahadeva.html
5. ^ http://www.rediff.com/money/2003/dec/22cognizant.htm
6. ^ "Cognizant founder steps down". The Hindu Business Line. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2003/12/23/stories/2003122302000700.htm. Retrieved 2010-09-27. 
7. ^ "Cognizant (CTSH) Financials". Google Finance. http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:CTSH&fstype=ii. Retrieved 2011-08-29. 
8. ^ http://www.cognizant.com/RecentHighlights/Corporate_Fact_Sheet.pdf
9. ^ "Cognizant Management Team". http://www.cognizant.com/aboutus/management. 
10. ^ "Cognizant 10-K". http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/displayfilinginfo.aspx?FilingID=7747225-80385-174615&type=sect&dcn=0001193125-11-043696. 
11. ^ "Cognizant Expands North American Delivery Center Footprint to Accommodate Rapid Growth". http://news.cognizant.com/index.php?s=14083&item=20272. 
12. ^ "Twitter status". Cognizant. 2011-02-24. http://twitter.com/#!/Cognizant/status/40842155698159616. 
13. ^ "India Outsourcing Boosts Cognizant". http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2011/01/20/india-outsourcing-boosts-cognizant-ctsh/. 
14. ^ "Teaneck N.J. information technology company agrees to pay more than $509,000 in back wages following U.S. Labor Department investigation". http://www.dol.gov/whd/media/press/whdpressVB3.asp?pressdoc=Northeast/20090330.xml. 
15. ^ "Cognizant to Unveil 'Making the Future' STEM Education Initiative at World Maker Faire, New York Hall of Science". http://news.cognizant.com/index.php?s=14083&item=20312. 
16. ^ "Newsweek Green Rankings 2011". http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/features/green-rankings/2011/international.html. 
17. ^ "Cognizant Community: a model industry event". Vinnie Mirchandani. 2011-03-15. http://dealarchitect.typepad.com/deal_architect/2011/03/cognizant-community-a-model-industry-event.html. Retrieved 2011-03-16. 
18. ^ "Cognizant Academy". http://www.cognizant.com/aboutus/cognizant-academy. Retrieved 2011-03-16. 

External links

• Cognizant official website
• Cognizant's official YouTube account
• Cognizant's official Twitter feed
• Cognizant's official Facebook page
• Cognizant's official Slideshare channel
• Cognizant's official photo gallery on Flickr

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