Cognizant, a provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, has been selected as a strategic partner by Telefónica UK, a leading communications company for consumers and businesses in the UK, to develop and manage the Company’s online applications that are critical to improving sales and enhancing customer service.

Under the multi-year, managed services agreement, Cognizant will provide comprehensive business and operational support to Telefónica UK’s online applications and enhance their agility, flexibility, and responsiveness to consumer demands and market changes. These applications perform a wide array of business-critical functions, ranging from promoting and providing access to Telefónica UK’s products and services, to delivering end-user self-service functionalities.

Cognizant will leverage its deep understanding of Telefónica UK’s business requirements and technology challenges to help the company keep its online systems operational and scalable, while providing rapid ongoing enhancements as required by the ever-broadening range of Telefónica UK’s products and services. This will help Telefónica UK increase customer loyalty, expand customer base, drive innovation, maximize returns on IT investments, and boost competitiveness by balancing cost, complexity, and capacity.

Source:  www.top-consultant.com

Cognizant, a provider of global consulting, technology and business process services, and Warwick Business School, an international business school, have published a research report which helps the C-Suite to manage, measure and realize the benefits of innovation delivered through outsourcing. Warwick Business School has developed a six-step framework—the Innovation Ladder—to help global businesses manage outsourced innovation in order to fully exploit the transformational potential of outsourcing relationships.

Warwick Business School’s investigations reveal that client firms expect outsourcing partners to deliver innovation that has an impact on the firms’ operational and strategic performance targets. The report, entitled Innovation in Outsourcing: A Study on Client Expectations and Commitment, lays out a framework to help clients achieve return on innovation (ROI) from outsourcing partnerships and aims to help CIOs and CFOs link this innovation more closely to bottom line growth.

The publication of the report builds on previous Warwick Business School research which Cognizant commissioned earlier this year amongst C-level executives at Europe’s largest businesses, which showed that over two thirds fail to measure ROI from partner engagements, despite the majority believing this innovation has a direct impact on financial success.* With 64% of the respondents—250 CIOs and CFOs—increasing their outsourcing spend, it is vital to ensure a methodology is in place to manage and measure both incremental and radical innovation.

Corné Mulders, Chief Information Officer, ABN AMRO, said, “Outsourcing is a strategic asset. If specific knowledge and innovative solutions are already available with an outsourcing partner, it is very efficient to access that expertise rather than create it within one’s company. Outsourcing gives us access to the latest insights, flexibility in resourcing, faster delivery and crucially, innovation. The past few years we have experienced these advantages in the flawless integration programs and in the product development processes for mobile banking.”

“Faced with a new generation of highly distributed and virtualized business models and new technologies such as cloud computing and mobility, clients are aggressively examining what activities are core to their business and what should be done from somewhere by someone else,” said Sanjiv Gossain, SVP and Head of UK and Ireland operations, Cognizant.

“They are increasingly looking for a partner who not only brings deep vertical, consulting, business and technology knowledge, but can also help them unlock outsourcing-driven innovation to fulfill their operational and strategic goals. It is only by driving a structured and methodical approach to innovation that outsourcing can be taken to the next higher level of intellectual arbitrage.”

The Innovation Ladder comprises six key steps:

* Step One: Strategize innovation

* Step Two: Design measurement instruments

* Step Three: Assess the vendor’s innovative capability

* Step Four: Design a contract for innovation

* Step Five: Build relationships

* Step Six: Measure innovation

“Both outsourcers and their clients alike face a significant challenge: to understand how to demonstrate and quantify innovation,” said Ilan Oshri, Associate Fellow, Warwick Business School. “The journey to achieving innovation in outsourcing is in infancy and therefore needs a commitment to tangible results combined with a systematic and clear innovation delivery system, to ensure value created for all involved. This report—and the framework within—will help set out how global companies can both garner innovation from their outsourcing partnerships and measure the ROI achieved.”

______________________* 70% state that that innovation achieved through their outsourced business arrangements contributes to the financial performance of their organization. (Warwick Business School / Vanson Bourne, 2011)

Source:  www.top-consultant.com

Cognizant to help rationalize the IT portfolio and deliver application maintenance and production support services over a three-year period.

Cambridge Assessment selects Cognizant to transform its examination management and processing

LONDON — Cognizant, a provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, will provide a range of application services to Cambridge Assessment, a not-for-profit examination group owned by Cambridge University. As part of this multi-year, multi-million-pound engagement, Cognizant will work with Cambridge Assessment and help rationalize and consolidate its portfolio of applications, and deliver application maintenance and production support services to enable the organization to improve the management and processing of examinations.

Cambridge Assessment is made up of three exam boards—Oxford Cambridge and RSA (OCR), University of Cambridge International Examinations, and University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations (English for Speakers of Other Languages)—and plays a leading role in the research, development, and delivery of educational assessment to over 8 million learners around the world. Cambridge Assessment engaged with Cognizant in June 2011 to consolidate application support services in its portfolio to ensure efficiencies and competitiveness in a demanding market, as well as the flexibility to continue to respond to the current and future needs of the business.

The current technology portfolio is a diverse mix of over 122 applications—using legacy, web-based, and proprietary technologies—and database applications as well as third-party packages. Cognizant will streamline the applications to ensure the successful management of examination processing, while facilitating the move towards more cost-effective and easy-to-use technologies. Cognizant will also help Cambridge Assessment meet its business objectives by transforming the support function from a reactive to a proactive mode. This involves enabling alert and monitoring capabilities, improving usability and governance of in-house applications, and supporting the business during seasonal workload increases through examination periods.

Cognizant was selected for its professional approach to consulting and execution. “Cognizant has shown it fully understands our business objectives and has the proven capability to make them a reality,” says Bruno Laquet, Director of Group Infrastructure Services at Cambridge Assessment. “We required a partner that offers best-in-class technology services as well as the reliability, quality, maturity, and flexibility to scale according to business demand. We are confident Cognizant embodies these capabilities and has the strategic vision and ambition to help us achieve our business goals.”

“We are delighted to be working with Cambridge Assessment to streamline its applications portfolio and provide services that enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of its core business,” said Sanjiv Gossain, Senior Vice President and Head of the UK and Ireland operations of Cognizant. “Helping companies remain competitive in today’s market through our deep strategic consulting capabilities and technical know-how is always an exciting prospect for us. We look forward to helping transform the way Cambridge Assessment operates to create a reliable and flexible system that can grow with the organization and easily adapt to a changing market.”

Source: www.top-consultant.com

Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH), a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, today announced it has been selected by the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) to be a key supplier as part of its Strategic Outsourcing Framework Agreement (SOFA). The FSA is a leading independent body that regulates the financial services industry in the UK and oversees more than 29,000 firms, which contribute over 6.8% of GDP, employ more than 1.1 million people, and provide services to millions of consumers.

SOFA is important to the FSA’s ability to deliver on its statutory objectives and more proactively intervene when a firm’s actions pose potential systemic risk. The agreement enables the FSA to develop relationships with key third-party suppliers, enhance the scope of services it outsources and ensure greater value for money.

As a key supplier, Cognizant will aim to help the FSA improve the reliability, scalability and flexibility of the IT systems and solutions that support the FSA’s market surveillance operations, supervisory analysis and risk management functions. Cognizant has been awarded five service areas, covering solutions consultancy, application development, application maintenance, testing, and web design and hosting and will initially support a key market surveillance application used by the FSA to monitor compliance with the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II).

“We are pleased to be selected as a key supplier by the FSA for a comprehensive range of services,” said Tony Virdi, Vice President of Cognizant’s Banking and Financial Services Practice for the UK and Ireland. “We are committed to leveraging our strong understanding of the financial services industry and regulatory environment in the UK and consultative engagement model to help the FSA streamline processes, minimise operating costs, enhance productivity and address the need for greater efficiency, innovation and collaboration.”

About Cognizant’s Financial Services Practice

Cognizant’s Financial Services practice, which includes banking, insurance and transaction processing, is the company’s largest industry segment, serving leading financial institutions and insurers in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. These include 9 out of top 15 North American financial institutions, all of the top 10 European banks, and 7 of the top 10 global insurers.

The practice leverages its deep domain and consulting expertise to provide solutions across the entire financial services spectrum, and enables retail and commercial banks, diversified financial enterprises, investment banks, brokerage firms, asset management firms, depositories, exchanges, property and casualty insurers, life insurers, reinsurance firms, and insurance brokers to manage business transformation challenges, create new capabilities, mitigate risks, comply with regulations, capitalize on new business opportunities, and drive efficiency, effectiveness, innovation and virtualization. The Financial Services segment represented around 41% of Cognizant’s revenues in the June-

Source:  www.top-consultant.com

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation, a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, said revenues for the second quarter 2011 rose to $1.485 billion, up 34.4% from the year-ago quarter and 8.3% sequentially.

Net headcount addition for the quarter exceeded 7,100.

Net income was $208.0 million, or $0.67 per diluted share, compared to $172.2 million, or $0.56 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2010.

“We continue to see stronger than anticipated demand for our increasing range of services across the industries we serve,” said Francisco D’Souza, president and CEO. “Over this past year, we have seen clients seeking our services not just to drive operational efficiencies, but also to transform their businesses to adapt to next generation technologies and to a new generation of ‘born digital’ workers and consumers.”

Cognizant expects third quarter revenue to be at least $1.57 billion, with fiscal 2011 revenue to be at least $6.06 billion, up at least 32% compared to 2010.

“Cognizant achieved another strong quarter of industry leading growth,” said Gordon Coburn, chief financial and operating officer. “As our business continues to expand to meet growing client demand—including over 7,100 net employee additions during Q2—we are successfully scaling our people, processes and infrastructure to support this growth and the increasing complexities of the business.”

Source:  www.top-consultant.com

Mick James, Top-Consultant.com’s management consultancy columnist, talks to Mark Livingston, senior vice president of Cognizant Business Consulting, and discovers the company wants to build a world-class advisory firm from a different angle.

Cognizant lays out ambitious growth plans

The integration, or the lack of it, between consulting and IT services has always posed a dilemma for the industry. Everyone agrees in principle that it’s a good thing for technology implementation to be based on the best possible business advice and backed up by the best process design and change management techniques. But achieving this integration commercially has thrown up all sorts of issues and unintended consequences.

No-one knows this better than Mark Livingston, senior vice president of Cognizant Business Consulting, who as an A.T. Kearney partner saw those issues unfold at first hand when the firm was acquired by EDS.

“I got to see how it doesn’t work from the trenches, and all the other mistakes other people have been making,” says Livingston. Nevertheless, he was still prepared to take the call when IT services firm Cognizant approached him to help them build a global consulting capability.

This might have had something to do with the fact that Cognizant has been achieving sector leading growth for nearly a decade now, and recently topped FORTUNE magazine’s “All Stars” list of fastest-growing companies, after appearing in the list eight times.

“Cognizant decided that to continue to get the growth they had, they would have to change the way they went to market, to be more consultative, to become a trusted advisor,” says Livingston. “They wanted to build a select set of CIO advisory services.”

However, to be able to fulfil that role effectively, Livingston believes the consulting arm must be able to work outside the IT function and fulfil the wider CXO agenda.

“We’re not trying to be another McKinsey-style CEO advisor firm,” he says. “We are trying to build a world-class advisory firm from a different angle.”

Although Cognizant’s angle of approach may start from IT, Livingston believes that it’s the broader consultancy target that will make it a success.

“The mistake a lot of IT services firms make is that they configure the consultants in the delivery role, so the consultants become the people selling large BPO and outsourcing deals,” he says. “They forget the consultancy agenda for which they were hired. We measure on consultancy revenues—we avoid being the sales guys for delivery, but if you do a really good job as Cognizant, they’ll come to you and ask for the delivery.”

This also means, says Livingston, that Cognizant becomes a “destination spot” for consultants that want to get out of that delivery rut. Since he took over in early 2010, he has already grown the consultancy practice’s headcount from 1600 people to 2800, mainly through a strategy of bringing in top talent from other consultancies in leadership roles.

“It’s really helped our recruitment engine that we have a different story to tell,” he says.

However, Livingston stresses, it is vital that the consultancy arm remains tightly coupled with the rest of the organisation.

“In other organisations they don’t speak highly of the consultancy guys, they say things like ‘They charge too much’, ‘They’re pompous’, ‘They don’t understand the market’, ‘I don’t like working with them’,” he says. “In Cognizant, they like working with us, we help Cognizant look smarter in the market—we are a good partner.”

This comes, Livingston believes, from the firm’s matrix model: “I believe that’s the only way to go to market; my consultancy guys are embedded in the delivery groups, so they don’t have to worry about access to the market,” he sys. “But all the consultancy guys report to me. I manage them and I give them their targets.”

Because of its relatively small size Cognizant decided to initially go to market through the company’s existing clients: “We had to make bets, so we decide to focus on the current account base, where Cognizant has 700 accounts globally,” he says. “But last year our consultancy team opened up 12 new accounts. It shows we can sell Cognizant as a consultancy and hopefully we’ll open up another 35 this year as we gradually build our brand.”

In some of these wins Cognizant’s size has played to its advantage, with clients feeding back that they “didn’t feel they would be important” to a larger consultancy and that the firm could be more flexible, with faster decision making.

It’s a double-edged sword in recruiting: “Our challenge is to get the people not to keep them,” he says. “I always tell search consultants this is a tough one—you have five minutes to sell the organisation.”

However once they get face-to-face it’s a different proposition: “Where else can you get a chance to come in with a company as successful as Cognizant,” he says. “These other firms are so big and so established, the ability to put your fingers on the organisation and shape it is minuscule. But you’ve got to be a better consultant than at these other firms—we don’t have the name, so if you’re just a guy whose been pulled along by the brand, you won’t be successful here.”

Cognizant is currently recruiting practice leaders in Asia Pacific, India and Europe, where the plan is to grow numbers from 350 to 800 in a couple of years. The firm has already made a couple of “cautious acquisitions”, but Livingston says that a “big play” may come later on when Cognizant Business Consulting is a fully mature consulting firm.

“Acquisition is important, but it’s about capability more than scale,” he says. “It also shows the commitment of the board—we’ve got to get ourselves away from being considered to be IT guys.”

Livingston cites as an example how Cognizant can compete on the federally-mandated Internal Diagnostic Coding programmes in the US: “18 months ago we didn’t have an ICDIO offering, 12 months ago we hired a practice leader and now we are the leading consultancy in that area,” he says. “You can’t be successful on just selling advisory work. We want to be seen as innovative.”

It’s clear that Livingston’s ambition is not just to create a successful consultancy arm for Cognizant, but for Cognizant to become a “Big N” brand in its own right: “The consultancy game is changing, there’s a lot of consolidation and there are going to be fewer and fewer consulting firms. My aim is to be a Tier 1 firm, competing with IBM, Accenture and Deloitte,” he says.

That’s some ambition, but I suspect very few would bet against Cognizant making the FORTUNE list for a ninth year in a row. Strapped to a rocket like that, and now adding its own fuel to the mix, I suspect the sky could well be the limit for Cognizant.

All views expressed in this article are those of Mick James and do not necessarily reflect the views of Top-Consultant.com and Consultant-News.com.

Source:  www.top-consultant.com

Cognizant, a provider of consulting, technology, and business process outsourcing services, is working with Saint-Gobain Building Distribution UK and Ireland (SGBD UK), one of Europe’s largest building materials distributors, on a critical business transformation programme to revamp its business processes, enhance competitiveness, and improve customer service.

As part of the engagement, Cognizant will leverage best practices across 18 representative SGBD UK brands, identify areas of improvement, unlock operational synergies, and define a blueprint for the future of critical processes.

This engagement expands Cognizant’s relationship with SGBD UK. It began in 2006 when Cognizant was selected to run the accounts payable processes for the National Payments Centre of Jewson, a subsidiary of SGBD UK. Subsequently, Cognizant was engaged by SGBD UK for a comprehensive business transformation initiative involving the redesign of critical business processes. Following this process reengineering exercise, Cognizant will also assist SGBD UK in selecting a technical platform to support SGBD UK’s financial and core business processes.

“We were impressed with Cognizant’s consulting-led approach, global engagement model, and a strong commitment to innovation and collaborative working,” said Chris Kenward, Finance Director of SGBD UK and Ireland. “We are most satisfied by Cognizant’s ability to view the business through our eyes. In Cognizant, we have found a partner with the right capabilities to liaise with business stakeholders across 18 representative brands and 900 branches to harmonise our business processes.”

“We are delighted to partner with SGBD UK in this business transformation initiative,” said Sanjiv Gossain, Senior Vice President and Head of the UK and Ireland Operations at Cognizant. “Leveraging our business consulting and domain skills, combined with our delivery and automation capabilities, we are committed to helping SGBD UK define a unified business process framework across brands, thereby improving operational maturity, time-to-market, and overall service levels to its customers.”

Source:  Top-Consultant

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation reported revenue for its third quarter 2010 rose to $1.217 billion, up 10% sequentially and 43% from the year-ago quarter.

GAAP net income was $203.7 million, or $0.66 per diluted share, compared to $136.6 million, or $0.45 per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2009. Diluted EPS on a non-GAAP basis was $0.69. GAAP operating margin for the quarter was 18.8%.

“Yet another strong quarter is continuing evidence that clients are not just seeking cost efficiencies, but are also stepping up investments in their business platforms and new capabilities to drive growth and innovation,” said Francisco D’Souza, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cognizant. “The success of our long-time reinvestment strategy positions us as a credible advisor to our clients, as we work with them to address the critical issues facing their businesses: the new generation of increasingly globalized and virtualized business models, the new generation of millennials as consumers and employees, and the new generation of transformative technologies such as cloud, social computing and mobility.”

The company now expects fourth quarter 2010 revenue to be at least $1.27 billion, while fiscal 2010 revenue is expected to be at least $4.55 billion, up at least 38.8% compared to 2009.

“We are pleased to have delivered two consecutive quarters of double-digit sequential revenue growth. Importantly, our growth was once again broad-based—across industries, service lines and geographies,” said Gordon Coburn, Chief Financial and Operating Officer, Cognizant. “In addition, our record level of cash generation is further evidence of our solid financial model. Despite the strengthening of the Indian rupee, we remain confident in our ability to maintain non-GAAP operating margins within our targeted range.”  

Source:  Top-Consultant

Cognizant, a provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, has acquired The PIPC Group, a global program management consulting firm based in London. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

With more than 200 professionals worldwide, primarily in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and the US, PIPC helps leading global companies drive business transformation by providing industry-leading program management services, methods and tools, including its PMO (Project Management Office) core competency and its PhD (Project Health Diagnostic) tool, which has been successfully deployed in over 800 engagements. PIPC will extend and complement Cognizant’s existing project management and consulting capabilities and further Cognizant’s ability to provide integrated services across consulting, technology, and business process outsourcing.

“We welcome PIPC’s talented program management experts to Cognizant. At a time when cyclical and secular pressures are driving clients to seek new performance thresholds, effective program management is essential to ensure measurable business outcomes. PIPC’s strategic program management offerings will strengthen our ability to manage increasingly complex global projects while expanding our geographic footprint, particularly in Australia, New Zealand and the UK,” said Francisco D’Souza, President and CEO, Cognizant. “This acquisition builds on our long-standing strategy of adding sharply focused business capabilities that complement our existing offerings and enhance the value we offer clients.”

“With 85,500 associates worldwide, Cognizant will provide the global delivery capability, experience and scale to enable PIPC to accelerate its growth ambitions. Our organizations have the right cultural fit, and together we can drive business transformation initiatives that combine high-quality consulting, IT, and business process outsourcing services with our advanced project management offerings,” said Simon Rawling, Group Managing Director at PIPC.

Source: Top-Consultant