India’s Outsourcing Giants Continue to Grow Amid Uncertainty
March 13th, 2012
By Clayton Browne
India has been the dominant player in offshore outsourcing since its infancy in the 1980s and today represents around half of the total international IT outsourcing and BPO industry. Indian outsourcing companies employ more than 2.2 million people and expect to earn more than $50 billion in total revenue in 2012.
Arrogance, Attrition or Economics: What’s Troubling Accenture Argentina?
August 25th, 2011
A CIO and his deputy point to underperformance by both Accenture and Cognizant
Will Infosys Stabilize Under Kamath?
August 22nd, 2011Source: The Economic Times
KV Kamath has offered reassurance that Infosys, which has appeared somewhat unsettled in recent months, will embrace change wholeheartedly while preserving the ethos of the company’s founder, NR Narayana Murthy.
Kamath, a towering personality himself in the banking industry, suggested a new openness to acquisitions, re-orientation of strategy and radical innovations for productivity increases.
“We understand what the challenges are and our response is ready,” he told ET in an interview on his first day as the new chairman of India’s second-largest software exporter. He succeeds Murthy, who held the job for more than 30 years, building Infosys into a respected global brand with annual sales of $6 billion (Rs 27,000 crore).
“If I look at Infosys, it has been a company that for a long time adapted to markets. I’m very clear that the adaptation to the market which is just now being called …
Cognizant Claims to Be India’s Number Three IT Company
August 3rd, 2011CHENNAI — Cognizant announced that its revenue rose 34.4% to $1.49 billion in the quarter ended June, and in the process displaced Wipro Technologies as India’s No. 3 IT firm in terms of revenue. Wipro reported a revenue of $1.41 billion in the quarter.
Cognizant said it is expecting a revenue of $1.57 billion in the September quarter. Wipro’s guidance for the quarter lies in the range of $1.39-1 .42 billion. Cognizant has also narrowed the revenue gap with Infosys to less than $200 million. Infosys earned $1.671 billion in June quarter, and its guidance is $1.73 billion for September quarter.
Cognizant’s net profit jumped 20.83% to $208.04 million in the April-June 2011 quarter, up from $172.17 million in the year-ago period.
The NASDAQ-listed firm, which has more than 70% of its software developers in India, has also been aggressive on the recruitment front. In the June …
Cognizant’s Move from Body Shop to Smart Store
January 13th, 2011
Sekaran of Cognizant is looking to buy to expand
Global delivery head forecasts acquisitions, expansion in LatAm
By Kirk Laughlin
The days of cost arbitrage in the global outsourcing market are numbered, according to Chandra Sekaran, president and managing director of Global Delivery for Cognizant. For global BPO/ITO players to thrive they will need to accelerate their ability to offer “intellectual arbitrage,” where value to the client will be built around domain-level expertise.
So how will Cognizant, with its relatively small presence in Latin America, climb higher on the smartness meter and differentiate itself from rivals? Sekaran explains below.
Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys Technologies and Wipro may be the best-known Indian software services companies, but a much smaller U.S. firm has raced ahead of the Big Three in financial performance.
Cognizant Technology Solutions (with Latin American facility in Argentina), which was spun off from credit-information provider Dun & Bradstreet Corp. in 1996, is headquartered in Teaneck, N.J., and listed on the Nasdaq, but most of its operations and three-quarters of its work force are in India.
On Tuesday, it said its revenue rose 6.3% to $960 million for the quarter ended in March, compared with the prior quarter. It forecast a $55 million increase for the current quarter ending June 30.
The growth forecast is aggressive even when compared with bellwether Infosys, which expects a $34 million to $44 million revenue increase in the current quarter.
Cognizant added 52 clients and expanded its staff by 7,100 employees last quarter, indicating …
Backed by Big Indian Firms, Lobbyists Fight Anti-Outsourcing Attacks
January 25th, 2010Melanie Carter-Maguire and Robert Hoffman are regulars at Capitol Hill, rubbing shoulders with lawmakers to try and influence events at the centre of US power. But the two lobbyists have perhaps their toughest assignments yet, as they brace to drum up support for their companies on immigration and outsourcing, high-strung issues in the US after the Great Recession.
Ms Maguire, who was hired by India’s third-largest software exporter Wipro last week, and Mr Hoffman, who joined as first vice-president of global public policy last year at Cognizant, another top IT company, have been entrusted with pushing their companies’ cases in a key market where the public outcry against outsourcing is getting shriller by the day.
India’s $60-billion technology services industry, which has had a largely uninterrupted run in its key market, has recognised that political lobbying is the need of the hour to educate local lawmakers about the economic benefits of outsourcing, …
Big Indian Players Answer the Call to be Closer to US Clients
December 9th, 2009Coinciding with a turnaround in business sentiments in its largest market, top-tier IT companies such as Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technologies appear to be aggressively ramping up North America-based delivery capabilities.
While Infosys Technologies has bought McCamish Systems based in Atlanta, Georgia, HCL Technologies has completed the acquisition and upgradation of a data centre in Parsippany, New Jersey. In the last four months, Cognizant has announced the expansion of two of its delivery centres in Phoenix (Arizona) and more recently in Toronto, Canada.
Market watchers are of the opinion that industry seems to be carrying on from where it left-off when global financial crisis put a spanner on client IT spends.
“The slowdown hit demand visibility, as customers held back purchase decisions or pruned their budgets. During that period, we saw IT services companies focus on internal costs and efficiencies. But now that the bad news has subsided, the IT industry is hopeful …
Cognizant Boosts Presence in Canada
December 3rd, 2009Press Release (Dec. 3 /PRNewswire):
Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH), a leading provider of consulting, technology, and business process outsourcing (BPO) services, has announced the opening of an expanded delivery center in Toronto. The delivery center will continue to serve a growing roster of U.S. and Canadian clients, as well as the Canadian subsidiaries of global clients that seek the resource flexibility and time zone advantages of near-shoring.
“Since opening our first Toronto office in 2004, we have steadily grown our presence and investment in the Canadian market, serving clients in banking and financial services, insurance, life sciences, retail, and other sectors,” said Chandra Sekaran, President and Managing Director, Global Delivery, Cognizant. “With the support of an outstanding university system and local talent pool, our Toronto center will continue to attract IT and business professionals with deep domain expertise.”
“Cognizant is one of the world’s fastest growing companies, and we welcome Cognizant’s decision …
Shared Services a Major Engine for Cognizant’s Latam Strategy
November 6th, 2009US IT services firm Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) expects Latin America to represent 3-5% of global sales within the next three years, the company’s country manager for Argentina, Cristián Argüello, told BNamericas.
Latin America currently represents less than 1% of the firm’s global sales, which hit US$2.82bn in 2008. Cognizant expects global revenues to reach US$3.1bn this year.
Within Latin America, Cognizant has a development center in Argentina, which serves 15 global clients in industries such as insurance and pharmaceuticals. Cognizant focuses on providing those firms with business application support and maintenance.
Argüello said the company has started work on a new development center in Brazil and an office expansion plan in Mexico to help capture IT outsourcing business opportunities.
“We have an expansion and business development plan for the region,” he said. “The center in Brazil will focus on developing the domestic market. It will not affect development at the center in …
