Cognizant, the New Jersey headquartered IT services major with a significant employee presence in India has consistently outperformed the overall industry growth rate by making investments ahead of time to tap the potential business opportunities. In line with this strategy, Cognizant is now aiming at garnering significant marketshare in the rapidly growing digital segment riding on its strong consulting capability, says Debashis Chatterjee, president, Technology Solutions, Cognizant in an interview with FE’s P P Thimmaya. Excerpts:
How do you see the overall demand environment for IT services?
The demand environment remains very strong and we also see a healthy deal pipeline. However, there certain dynamics which are changing in the marketplace. There has been the dual mandate of run better and run different for a while where clients are focused on higher efficiency as well as transformation. We believe that the whole innovation engine is happening faster than ever. We think we are better positioned and looking at avenues where can get market opportunities. Today there are conversations with clients where they are talking about business outcome and not just the inputs that we provide.
What factors are driving this growth momentum for Cognizant?
We are continuing on the growth momentum as we have been investing ahead of time, which has been the case with digital also. At this point of time we are fairly engaged with many clients where we are driving digital, innovation and other transformation at scale. This is something which is driving growth for Cognizant on both the digital and innovation agenda.
How are the digital opportunities for Cognizant?
Today we look at the existing business models and see how we can bring about the transformation. How this will impact the entire business cycle from end to end? When there is the talk about digital it is about helping the client to redefine the business model. It is a kind of transformation that they are going through. In this whole drive, it is our consulting and technology services segment which is helping our digital business. This segment accounts for 58% of our revenues and Cognizant business consulting is a key contributor to the digital growth. This has helped us to participate and gain marketspace in the digital segment.
What is the strategy on automation for Cognizant?
Automation is definitely a driver for us. However, one needs to understand that the kind of automation that are being employed. One is the base level of automation in our various horizontal services which we are already doing. There is the second level of automation tools which is quite advanced like robotics, machine learning, though i must say these are very early stages. We are watching, experimenting and some of these things will evolve over a period of time. From a client perspective, when we talk about automation, it is more about a lower total cost of ownership and outcome based.
Going forward, how do you see the North America market and healthcare vertical performing for Cognizant?
The North America is on a steady path and there are many opportunities for us with companies looking to run different which is largely a transformation kind of exercise. Continental Europe still remains robust and do not see any concern. The healthcare vertical remains stable and we have also announced a very interesting project with Genomics England, a wholly owned company of the Department of Health, to help design and implement the IT operating environment for the 100,000 Genomes Project.
