Cognizant Company Analysis

Introduction:

Cognizant is leading With 50 global delivery centers and approximately over 64,000 associates, cognizant combine a unique onsite/offshore delivery model infused by a distinct culture of customer satisfaction. A member of the NASDAQ-100 Index and S&P 500 Index, Cognizant is a Forbes Global 2000 company and a member of the Fortune 1000 and is ranked among the top information technology companies in Business Week’s, Hot Growth and Top 50 Performers listings. Cognizant is the pioneer in Offshore Outsourcing. They bring their clients the economic advantages, with the industry experience and the local expertise. Today, Cognizant’s clients are benefiting from 4th Generation services. Operating as their technology partner, Cognizant provides the expertise to help Cognizant’s clients realize their objectives. 4th Generation Offshore Outsourcing provides seamless integration between the customer and Cognizant. Cognizant go far beyond the established onsite/offshore model by offering in-depth local consulting presence, onsite teams focused on the customer’s business applications, and the management depth that partners closely with cognizant clients. The business culture is either India-centric or exclusively Cognizant in style, striking the best balance of all the offshore firms. Most of cognizant management team has extensive US or European experience, and understands cognizant clients’ culture. In India, Cognizant is considered a ‘local’ player with a very strong reputation for excellence. Clients benefit from cognizant non-hierarchical, responsive “can-do” approach to business. Cognizant has deep technology expertise across a wide range of competencies. Technology competency and the quality of cognizant people are the highest-rated attributes in cognizant Customer Satisfaction Survey. Cognizant brings a strong project culture to every engagement. They did not start as a staffing company, but instead as the development arm of Dun & Bradstreet. Their development heritage has given us an edge on delivering larger, complex, end-to-end projects. Their project expertise is reflected in a strong methodology and the development and use of cognizant proprietary tools. They track the progress of projects and programs with eCockpit, the proprietary engagement management tool that is available to all of cognizant clients. ECockpit provides a graphic representation of project-related status, such as productivity, effort, cash flow, and defects density. It also looks at personal metrics such as targets and individual progress.

Key Points

Cognizant’s single-minded passion:

Dedicating cognizant global reorganization, industry intelligence and systems expertise to working with cognizant clients to make their businesses stronger. Cognizant is leading the market from the last few years.89% of client’s rate overall cognizant Customer Experience as “Much Better, Better or About the Same as Competition”. Cognizant’s growth record in ‘07 to ’08 was amazing. That was Employee growth was +11.4%, Revenues with +32% and the net income +23% (GAAP) systematically nurtured Growth. Cognizant is the only major offshore company organized around verticals and horizontals rather than just regions and development centers. With the deep domain expertise in key verticals and large-scale horizontal solution, the highly project-oriented firm that can take complete responsibility for large development and integration projects, and for delivering bottom line results from application management. Cognizant having a strong track record of successfully executing very large scale, complex, transformational development and integration projects offshore. These are the kinds of projects that have not been traditionally considered “off-shore”. Cognizant has deep technology expertise across a wide range of competencies. Technology competency and the quality of cognizant people are the highest-rated attributes in cognizant Customer Satisfaction Survey.

Cognizant has a blue chip client base with many industry leaders that cognizant are proud to partner with and to contribute to the growth of their businesses. The clients go to extensive lengths to serve as references and champions of cognizant growth and innovation. Their client testimonials say Cognizant people go to extraordinary lengths to solve problems, or just help out. Cognizant people model attracts talented, highly motivated, client- focused individuals with a “can-do” attitude. Cognizant never had a termination for project failure or for non-performance. This fact is reinforced by all of cognizant customers in the annual customer satisfaction survey conducted by a third-party. The flexibility, responsiveness, ownership and the assurance that they will never let you down is core to cognizant delivery model. Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. NASDAQ, a leading provider of custom software development, integration and management services, employees are the most satisfied among Indian IT services companies. “Cognizant has always been committed to providing the most interesting projects and the best possible training and career development opportunities. The quality of the people that cognizant attracts, and Cognizant’s superior ability to develop cognizant associates will remain a strong competitive edge as the demand for IT professional worldwide continues to increase.” The Info pulse acquisition allows Cognizant to better serve customers in the Benelux region by adding local client partners, industry expertise, and local language capability. The acquisition further strengthens Cognizant’s industry leading 4th generation offshore delivery model, which has senior executives based close to clients in the US and Europe who are tightly integrated with a robust SEI CMMI Level 5 offshore capability. “Customers in banking and financial services have been among the first European companies to adopt a large scale offshore strategy, and Info pulse helps Cognizant further strengthen its position in this vertical.” “This acquisition will help cognizant current customers because they will get large scale offshore capabilities as cognizant as industry specific IT services,” which has for several years’ leveraged offshore development in Eastern Europe. “Cognizant has a strong track record in the financial sector and also values customer focus, has very high customer satisfaction, and a culture that provides an excellent balance between business and technology.”

Perspective:

A public company has two key responsibilities to its shareholders, value creation and transparency. At Cognizant, transparency is essential to cognizant business. Especially in uncertain times, it builds trust between a company and its shareholders. And cognizant believe transparency is the best way to recognize long-term investment in the company. In an uncertain economy it is even more critical that cognizant provide you with key information about cognizant corporate governance policies. These policies provide a frame work for the proper operation of cognizant company, consistent with cognizant shareholders’ best interests and the requirements of the law. Ensuring that Cognizant’s financial results fairly reflect the results of cognizant operations is of paramount importance to the company and to cognizant investors. Cognizant have made the decision to provide cognizant shareholders and investors additional information to clarify cognizant policies, processes and controls to avoid uncertainty for shareholders and investors. Cognizant’s management has always assumed full accountability for maintaining Compliance with cognizant established financial accounting policies and for reporting cognizant results with objectivity and the highest degree of integrity. It is critical for investors and other users of the Consolidated Financial Statements to have confidence that the financial information that cognizant provide is timely, complete, relevant and accurate. Management is responsible for the fair presentation of Cognizant’s Consolidated Financial Statements, prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), and has full responsibility to their integrity and accuracy. Management, with oversight by Cognizant’s Board of Directors, has established and maintains a strong ethical climate so that cognizant affairs are conducted to the highest standards of personal and corporate conduct. Management also has established an effective system of internal controls. Cognizant’s policies and practices reflect corporate governance initiatives that are compliant with the listing requirements NASDAQ and the corporate governance requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley. Cognizant are committed to rigorously and diligently exercising cognizant oversight responsibilities, maintaining the highest standards of integrity and principles of ethics, and exceeding the corporate governance requirements.

Level 1 Analysis:

Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a global information technology services and consulting company with headquarters in Teaneck, New Jersey, United States and with significant operations in Chennai, India. Cognizant has been named to the 2009 Fortune 100 Fastest-Growing Companies List for the seventh consecutive year. Cognizant has also been named to the Fortune 1000 and Forbes Global 2000 lists for 2009. It has consistently ranked among the fastest growing companies including the 2009 Business week 50 list of the top-performing U.S. companies, the Business week Hottest Tech Companies 2009, and the Forbes Fast Tech 2009 list of 25 Fastest Growing Technology Companies In America. Even though it is headquartered in New Jersey, USA, most of Cognizant’s employees are based in India. It has offices in Chennai, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Gurgaon, Kochi and Budapest since 2008, development centers in Shanghai, Buenos Aires and Amsterdam. Cognizant has over 64,000 employees. Cognizant Coimbatore center became the first company in the world to be certified for CMMI-Level5 per the latest model. Cognizant is among the top 10 companies receiving H-1B visas to bring foreign workers to the United States. The company recognizes the risk this poses to their business model. In a November 2008 SEC 10-Q filing, the company said “Cognizant future success will depend on cognizant ability to attract and retain employees with technical and project management skills from developing countries, especially India. The vast majority of cognizant IT 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 cognizant ability to obtain the necessary visas and work permits.” the company has been increasing its U.S. work force. In August 2009, the company announced plans to hire 100 people in Phoenix. Cognizant has seen year-over-year revenue growth of 32% in calendar year 2008, from $2.13 billion to $2.81 billion (USD). This growth has been realized across all the industries Cognizant serves including financial services, healthcare, retail, manufacturing and logistics. After the close of trading on 16 November 2006, Cognizant moved from the mid cap S&P 400 to the S&P 500. Cognizant operates in the IT services, business process outsourcing and consulting domains. Its primary competitors are Accenture, IBM, Capgemini, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro. Other competitors include IT services companies such as Computer Sciences Corporation, Perot Systems, Mahindra Satyam and HCL Technologies. Competitors in the Business Process Outsourcing space include Genpact and MphasiS (a division of EDS)
(As of Wikipedia)

Research Findings:

As a pioneer in the field of outsourcing information technology work to India, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. has done famously–and so have its shareholders. A $10,000 investment made in the stock in early 2001 would be worth more than $120,000 today. After soaring another 38% so far this year, though, the Teaneck, N.J.-based company’s shares are due for a leveling off. Investors would be wise to pass them by. At a closing price of $69.25, the stock is trading at 51 times its per-share earnings over the last 12 months. That amounts to a huge premium over India-based outsourcing companies Wipro, which trades at a multiple of 37 times earnings, and Infosys Technologies, which trades at 42 times earnings. In Historically, Cognizant has earned its fat premium because of its superior management and its distinct model. Unlike IT outsourcing firms that are based in India, Cognizant has several thousand staff members here who work directly with U.S. clients in their offices. Those on-site staffers are backed up by an army of 23,000 employees in India who develop software for clients including major banks, health care companies, manufacturers and retailers. But Cognizant’s on-shore/off-shore niche is under threat as more multinational consulting firms follow the company’s lead. In March, IBM announced it would open a new software development.
(Tom Fredrickson, New York Business, 2006)

Level 2 Analysis:

The Company’s principal services include technology strategy consulting; complex systems development; enterprise software package implementation and maintenance; data warehousing and business intelligence; application testing; application maintenance; infrastructure management, and vertically-oriented business process outsourcing (V-BPO).

The Company operates in focused business segments: Financial Services, Healthcare, Manufacturing/Retail/Logistics and Other, which includes communications, media and information services and high technology. In September 2009, the Company announced the acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Pepper cognizant advisors; the IT consulting services division of Pepper cognizant consulting.

Financial Services During the year ended December 31, 2008, the Company’s Financial Services business segment represented approximately 45.6% of its total revenues. This business segment provides services to its customers operating in the industries, such as capital markets, banking and insurance. Cognizant focuses on the needs of dealers, asset management firms, depositories, clearing organizations and exchanges. The Company focuses on retail and commercial banks, and diversified financial enterprises. Cognizant assists these clients in such areas as consumer lending, cards and payments, wholesale banking, risk management, investment management, corporate services and retail banking. It assists with the needs of property and casualty insurers, life insurers, reinsurance firms and insurance brokers. The Company focuses on such areas as business acquisition, policy administration, claims processing, management reporting, regulatory compliance and reinsurance.

In 2008, its other business segment represented approximately 14.2% of its total revenues. The Company’s communications industry practice serves communications service providers, equipment vendors and software vendors. Some of its solutions include supply chain management solutions, from pre-press to material procurement, circulation, logistics and vendor management; business solutions covering advertising management, online media and e-business; workflow automation covering the product development process for broadcasters; spot ad buying systems covering agency of record, traffic management, post-buy analysis and financial management; digital asset management (DAM) and digital rights management (DRM), and operational systems, including ad sales, studio management, outsourcing billing and payments, along with content management and delivery. Its high technology segment is an independent software vendor (ISVs) and online service provider.
(According to NASDAC)

Conclusion:

Cognizant develops every application, cognizant embrace every challenge, investment in every new resource, recommendation cognizant make – is dedicated to a goal: Making their customers’ businesses stronger by empowering them to be more responsive to their customers and to the competitive environment. Cognizant achieve this by focusing on the intersection of their clients’ emerging needs and the acceleration of business and technological change. Cognizant commitment to innovation keeps them focused on the future and being ready at every level to service change.

Cognizant Technology solutions present financial growth is strong. If we observe their annual report we will find that they operate a profitable business. 50% per share have grown up for earnings and revenues, where we can find a major growth.

References:

http://www.cognizant.com/html/home.asp

http://www.cognizant.com/html/content/aboutus/Cognizant_Q2_2009_Corporate_Fact_Sheet.pdf

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-17675300_ITM

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/companyProfile?symbol=CTSH.O.