Nearshore Americas

Cognizant Adds to Argentina – Is Mexico Next?

US IT services firm Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) will be expanding services offered from its Argentine delivery center, the company’s country manager for Argentina, Cristián Argüello, told BNamericas.

Cognizant currently focuses on providing business application development, support and maintenance from its center, which is located in Buenos Aires. Argüello said the division will be developing business process and infrastructure management services, primarily for Cognizant’s global clients that are either expanding to Latin America or are looking to the region to complement their existing outsourcing plans.

“We are referring to value-added business processes and also device, network, server, database and operating system monitoring,” he said.

The life sciences, financial and consumer goods sectors represent Cognizant’s main regional clients, with each market accounting for 20-25% of the Argentine delivery center’s revenues. Argüello noted that market consolidation – especially in the life sciences industry – is also helping to generate new IT service business opportunities. Other 2010 priorities include beefing up Cognizant’s financial sector offering, as well as capturing new clients in the US and Europe.

Cognizant will continue to consider the construction of new delivery centers, the executive added, noting that the company is most interested in Brazil and Mexico.

“We do not rule out the possibility of opening centers in various countries or even opening more than one center in one country,” he said. “But we have not yet made a concrete decision.”

Cognizant expects regional revenues to grow at least 20% this year, but Argüello was unable to disclose the percentage of the company’s overall sales that currently comes from Latin America.

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Globally, Cognizant billed US$3.28bn last year and expects overall revenues to top US$3.9bn in 2010. The company has 78,000 employees and 50 delivery centers worldwide that serve 589 clients, including 46 of the Fortune 100 companies.

Kirk Laughlin

Kirk Laughlin is an award-winning editor and subject expert in information technology and offshore BPO/ contact center strategies.

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