EPLM-06

November 14, 2013

Kamales Mandal

Company Case Study

Cognizant Technology Solutions: Built To Excel

Run Better, Run Different

Abstract

Cognizant is the only company to earn a place in the list of Forbes fastest growing technology companies

every year since the list’s inception. Its intriguing growth leaves us inquisitive – is there a framework to

excel? Has Cognizant found the same? It is known that the book Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry

Porras influenced Francisco D’Souza (CEO of Cognizant) the most. He is committed to establish a “cult

like” culture focused on core values. But, beyond this, does their dual mandate of run better and run

different have any role in their monumental growth? Cognizant is not only preaching about helping their

clients to transform in order to run better and run different but also walking the talk by practicing the

dual mandate within organization from its early days. This paper digs into Cognizant’s history and

current trends to understand what they have done to run better and run different.

Introduction

India's $108-billion information technology industry has been swaying by current and future business

trends and sentiments. It has been receiving mixed signals from its top companies. Amidst ups and

downs of the last decade of IT industry, Cognizant has grown faster than its Indian IT peers in these

years (Exhibit 4). With a sequential first quarter (2013) revenue growth of 3.7%, Cognizant remained the

fastest-growing offshore outsourcer where revenue exceeded $2 billion.

But everyday market is becoming more competitive, complex and uncertain. While TCS is snowballing,

Infosys, Wipro are breathing down Cognizant’s shoulder. The newer software delivery models (cloud),

resourcing mechanism structure (crowd sourcing) and emergence of Latin and South-east Asian IT

companies have added new dimensions to the competition. For a company like Cognizant whose 79.4%

revenue comes from North America, the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration

Modernization Act” can cause a survival threat. Then again Cognizant has dealt with similar survival

threats earlier.

In 2007, Francisco D’Souza (Frank) took over as CEO of Cognizant. In two years, market was hit by global

meltdown. In 2008, Cognizant was drawing 79.1% of its revenues from North America 45.6% from

financial services. A large cloud of uncertainty was looming large over Cognizant due to the crisis at

Lehman Brothers. But Frank was able to spot the silver lining. Cognizant recognized that it was an

opportunity to establish them as partners rather than mere service provider by extending their hands at

the time of crisis. So Cognizant invested in new business when its peers were cutting down.

One year ago on August 6th, 2012, Frank mentioned “We are back in the mountains…” drawing analogy

with the Tour de France. Following the 2012 Q1 results, Cognizant had to adjust their revenue guidance

downwards due to dampened demand by tenuous global recovery. GDP forecasts were lowered across

developed and emerging economies. When optimism for a recovery was deteriorating, companies were

continuing to pursue austerity measures, harnessing investments and feeling reluctant to venture new

areas, Frank addressed his employees-

“Now is the time to go beyond working harder and to begin working differently. We all need to

look for creative ways to do more with less so that we can plow those savings into building

what’s next for our clients. While our competitors scale back in the face of these challenging

times, we need to charge ahead.” Source: Frank Talks, Cognizant’s Internal Blog, Published by

Francisco D’Souza on 6 August, 2012

Global IT Trends

Global IT spending is expected to grow to $3.7 trillion by 2013 (Exhibit 6). Recently the expectation was

lowered by 2%, due to fluctuations in U.S. dollar exchange rates. The projection is that it would cross $4

trillion by 2015. However economic pressure will continue to loom. While US raises debt ceiling and

debates over “fiscal cliff”, Western Europe struggles with low-single-digit growth and government

austerity continues to darken the atmosphere. Japan is battling with waning post-earthquake

reconstruction momentum. China is worried about weakening export to Europe and elsewhere. In this

age of macro economy, turbulence originated at one place will be felt at other places of the world.

Growth around Emerging Markets: Emerging markets, that include the Central and Eastern Europe,

Middle East and Africa, Latin America and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) regions, have so far remained

relatively resilient. In 2013 Emerging Markets IT spending is expected to grow at twice the rate of

developed economies. The forecast is that 51% of the all new growth in the IT marketplace will occur in

the emerging markets. Due to this large share of IT industry growth, these markets will drive new design

points, pricing and market leadership.

Rise of SMAC, the 3rd Platform: Most of the business changes are now clustered around Social, Mobile,

Analytics and Cloud (SMAC / 3rd) platforms (Exhibit 8). SMAC will play leading role in business growth for

next few years. As per IDC by 2020, 40% of the industry’s revenue and 98% of its growth will be driven

by 3rd platform technologies that today represent just 22% of the ICT spending.

Social media and software are on the rise. In this space, larger organizations are buying out smaller

niche players to enhance their core offering in this growing business. With rising social data, social

channels are becoming more critical for the consumers as well as businesses. Businesses are embracing

rapidly the social software for marketing program, cross-selling and performance measurement. These

are also being used internally to enhance collaboration and operation efficiency.

According to IDC, spending on Big Data technologies and services will reach over $20 billion in 2016.

M&A are expected in the areas related to the visual discovery, predictive analytics, text and media

analytics. Business Intelligence and analytics assist organizational decision making and strategy

formulations. Big Data technologies have taken business intelligence to another level by analyzing real

data (unstructured data originated from consumer) in more of real time mode.

Major vendors like Amazon, IBM, Microsoft and Google are focusing on new delivery model creating

application platforms and ecosystems. Indian Outsourcing vendors are also developing the cloud based

offerings and platforms and are aggressively marketing these to the clients. As per IDC, the industry-

focused public cloud services platforms were less than 100 in 2012 – will increase tenfold by 2016. As

cloud services become the center of competition in many IT market segments, it is critically important for

“traditional” IT suppliers to get more “cloud DNA” into their organizations.

Dominance of Mobile Devices: In the device market, PC sales are declining continuously. Tablet sales

have increased exponentially since the advent of iPad in 2010. Smart mobile devices (smartphones,

tablets, and e-readers) sales are expected to grow by 20% in 2013. This will account 57% of the

industry’s overall growth. Though new devices are hitting the market, their sales have failed to

compensate the waning sales of traditional PC market. Gartner had earlier forecasted 7.9% growth in

device revenue, but has now dropped that estimate to 2.8% accounting the continued weakening of PC

sales.

Protectionism: NASSCOM’s Perspective 2020 study estimated that $50 billion of Indian IT and BPO

export growth by 2020 would be at-risk due to protectionism. The mercury of protectionist sentiment is

rising with growing unemployment in major economies around the world. In July 2009, WTO Chief

Pascal Lamy commented against rising protectionist pressure saying that “protecting trade is the worst

way of offering protection”. However people are asking more for protection with increasing social and

economic hardship. Several countries, most notably the United States and China, were criticized for

their protectionist provisioning of economic stimulus. Offshoring has been hot political issue in the

United States and Western Europe. According to December 2006 survey by Chicago Council on Foreign

Relations, 76% of respondents agreed with the statement, “Outsourcing is mostly a bad thing because

American workers lose their jobs to people in other countries.”

In recent time, US immigration reform was sidetracked due to recent fiscal crisis. But the immigration

bill would disrupt the Indian IT business model. There are four key proposals in the bill that are most

damaging for Indian IT companies. These are outplacement debarment of H1-B workers at client sites,

increase in local proportions to 50% by 2016, increase in visa fees and increase in H1B mandated salary

levels.

Convergence: Convergence is one of the most complex and disruptive phenomena working at many

levels. We have already entered into an age of unified-communication where most overarching is the

convergence of voice, video and data. It is the time when consumer and producer, telephone network

and the Internet, communications and IT technologies, storage, processing and solutions are converging

gradually.

Changing Geographic Footprints: Before 2004, the major Western companies were leveraging Indian IT

companies as their Offshore Delivery Center (ODC). Gradually Western IT Services and BPO firms started

large delivery capacity in India and other Asian delivery centers. Even large non-IT organizations were

setting up their own IT office in these areas. Number of such organizations is still increasing. On the

other side, leading Indian IT vendors also built up their own global delivery networks by adding “near-

shore” capacity. While looking at the growth pivoted on emerging markets, IT vendors are extending

their global delivery network in these areas, they are also looking for cost effective options for offshore

delivery centers targeting these markets. Country like Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Poland, and Czech

Republic are newer offshore locations. Bulgaria, South Africa, Morocco and Egypt are gradually

attracting organizations for setting up their offshore centers (see Exhibit 7).

Cognizant: Born Global

In 1994 DBSS, a joint venture between Dun & Bradstreet Corporation (D&B) and Satyam Computer

Services (SS) was set up. The objective was to serve as back-end IT operations center for D&B and its

affiliates in Chennai, India. Gradually D&B spun it off to serve non-D&B clients. But competition was stiff

as there were 1000 such offshoring companies. DBSS needed to differentiate itself from others. It

studies “Big 5” consulting firms and realized the differentiator could be providing quality service that

was at par or better than its competitors but at offshore price. Meanwhile D&B had undergone into

major restructuring splitting into multiple divisions. It bought out Satyam’s 24% stake and in 1996 one of

the divisions became an independent company called Cognizant Technology Solutions. Thus Cognizant

was born having different cultural origins and in 1998 it was the first software and services company

with major operations in India to be listed in NASDAQ (See Exhibit 10 listing company milestones).

Though Cognizant was free to decide its own goals, it imbibed some of the lesson learnt from the parent

company, like significance of size, cultural integration within the organization and limited measures of

performance.

After that cognizant grew rapidly. In 2006, within a span of 12 years since its inception, its revenue grew

over $1 billion. In 2007, Frank took over as CEO. Cognizant’s revenue crossed $2.11 billion. In this year,

Cognizant experienced fastest growth in Europe. Revenue from European operations grew by 89%

which represented 16.1% of the total revenue. In the previous year it was 12.9%. In 2008, market

around globe was going through severe economic challenge and uncertainly. Earlier Frank was part of

the process when Cognizant was trying to differentiate itself from competitors studying “Big 5”. From

that time he spent time thinking what it would take to build consulting business at Cognizant. Recession

gave Frank the window to do just that as customers were desperate to run better by cutting cost and

increasing revenue. He started building his consulting wings through acquisition and appointment of

Mark Livingston from AT Kearney as the consulting head.

Increasing Global Footprint: Focusing Growth

In 2007 and 2008, a significant driver of Cognizant’s growth had been the diversification of geographic

markets. European-based business grew to 19.2% of total revenue, up from 12.6% in 2006. In 2008,

Cognizant released Cognizant 2.0 platform to integrate global delivery centers into this platform. This

was instrumental in broadening global delivery footprint. The platform ensured end-to-end solutions are

no longer dependent on geography by decomposing solutions into smaller processes distributed across

location based on talent, knowledge, experience and requirements. The platform is the unified virtual

delivery center enabling real-time knowledge management and the seamless sharing of work functions

across entire delivery centers. It enhanced collaboration and increased the velocity of project delivery.

The platform was aimed to connect Cognizant’s global, regional and local development centers serving

any client anywhere. In the year 2008 itself, over 3000 project used or was using Cognizant 2.0 platform.

They were bold enough to invest in new areas such as business process management and remote

infrastructure management which can help their client through the crisis.

In 2009, as other organizations in the industry tightened their belt, Cognizant continued to invest in the

areas that increase their value as a partner to their clients. In this year, Cognizant hired some 140 new

client partners and account managers. Cognizant continued to enhance global delivery infrastructure,

expanding presence in Hungary and adding delivery centers in Mexico and the Philippines. Cognizant

2.0 platform grew faster managing more than 6000 client projects. This year was eventful in the M&A

front. Three major acquisitions happened to strengthen consulting service (Exhibit 11). The biggest

challenges for Cognizant in acquisition were preserving its culture and retaining skilled resources and so

far Cognizant has well executed their acquisitions. Consulting, in particular, became a fully integrated

element of Cognizant’s offering to clients complementing both the horizontal and vertical practices. In

the time of recession, Cognizant not only found the opportunity to establish them as trusted partner but

also learnt that a “reset economy” poses twin challenges: preparing for an eventual cyclical upturn while

transforming the way the approach their workplace, their marketplace and their place in the

competitive landscape. At the end, the risk that Cognizant took in new business paid off. In the annual

report Frank mentioned:

“We were born global and have grown up virtualized. Our people fully embrace the

collaborative and open work processes that will characterize the future of work.”[5]

2010 turned out to be the best year for Cognizant. Revenue increased 40% over 2009. Cognizant had

first one billion quarter. Cognizant was roaring to dethrone Infosys as second largest Indian IT exporter

though Infosys came into existence several years before Cognizant. However Frank was disappointed

that he could have been even more aggressive, invested more or made even more acquisitions. He was

hungry; he was focused.

Balancing Present and Future

It is tough for technology companies to get their act right in the long run. Many organizations get buried

under the “technology mudslide”. Many lose their energy and focus fighting recession. Organizations get

lost in the dilemma of present and future. As Clayton Christensen argues in his book “The Innovator’s

Dilemma” that established firms fail because they don’t keep up with hungry upstarts. Sometimes

organizations are so bogged down by future or new technologies that they drop the ball on the cash cow

and get burnt. For example many of the problems of Infosys over the last few years can be traced to its

‘Infosys 3.0’ strategy, which focuses on tomorrow’s enterprise. They were so serious about products

and platforms and their new delivery model that they ignored their main source of revenue and profit -

application development and maintenance.

Though bit late compared to its Indian peers, Cognizant fully understood the importance of building

future organization today. Frank needed a framework to balance present and future priorities. He

studied the performances of different companies in the backdrop of different technology waves – PC,

internet, ERP. As he was investigating, he zeroed in on IBM that had managed to survive and thrive over

last 100 years. He went deeper to understand what IBM was doing right.

He figured out that they were operating on something first proposed by consulting firm McKinsey called

the Three Horizon Framework based on research around how companies sustain a growth strategy over

long periods of time. In the same line, Frank divided his portfolio into three buckets.

Objective Focus Services In Charge

Horizon I Build world-class practices; Drive efficiency

Mature Business

Application development and maintenance, testing, North America business

Gordon Coburn, Rajeev Mehta, Chandra Sekaran

Horizon II Scale-up Emerging Business

Consulting, remote infrastructure management, BPO, European business

-do-

Horizon III Future growth Nascent Business

New technologies (social, mobile, analytics, cloud) new delivery model (non-linear) & new market verticals (Latin America, Government)

Francisco D’Souza

The Three Horizons of Cognizant’s Growth [1]

Horizon I: Covers the core mature businesses that provide most of the revenues and profits. These are

the businesses like application development and maintenance with which customers and investors

identify Cognizant.

Horizon II: Encompasses emerging businesses like consulting, remote infrastructure management, BPO

etc. These businesses might not be profitable but these are growing fast, capturing market share and

getting investors’ attention.

Horizon III: Holds potential to drive long-term growth, but it can go anywhere. It focuses creating non-

linear delivery model on 3rd platform (social, mobile, analytics and cloud).

Frank is leading horizon III businesses. It has business model similar to that of venture capital business.

Cognizant is trying to pull in entrepreneurial leaders from outside as well as inside the organization.

These are the professionals who can scale business from 0 to thousand. Frank and team have already

identified 18 lines of businesses which are incubating. Some of them have attained some level of

maturity. These are all startups within Cognizant and have individual CEOs who report to four and five

leads from the core business. Each one of them holds portfolio like a venture capitalist does. They

invest, define go to market strategy and go under the skin of the business. Thus the business model has

more of a cohesive structure – each startup is tied back to the core business.

Run Better, Run Different

In recent years, we have focused our investment across three growth horizons. We

implemented this three-horizon approach in response to fundamental long term shift, which we

have identified in our clients’ business imperatives. We think of those imperatives in terms of a

“dual mandate” to run better by driving greater performance and run different by improving

the positioning of their business for future success – R Chandrasekaran, Group Chief Executive

for Technology and Operations, Cognizant [8]

In the current climate, operational efficiency can mean the difference between survival and failure.

Equally, it can be what makes the difference between scraping by and making good profits. Cognizant is

constantly improving and enhancing their “One Cognizant” (Cognizant 2.0) platform to communicate

creatively, crisply & consistently amongst themselves, as a team. Cognizant is constantly realigning their

practices, global delivery model and client engagement model to improve productivity, customer service

and its quality, process management, cost effectiveness, job satisfaction, morale & financial

performance.

Cognizant has continually re-invested their profits in the resources and technologies the customers will

need going forward. In the 15 years of listing on the NASDAQ stock exchange one thing that has

remained absolutely consistent is Cognizant’s strategy of re-investment in the business to drive topline

growth. Cognizant’s faster growth came at a price; in this case, lower operating margins. So, when its

peers were stuck at cost cutting, Cognizant awarded its people an average bonus of 150 percent.

Gordon Coburn, President of Cognizant, mentioned:

“We are a revenue focused company, our margins are lower than our peers, and when you have

that model people get too focused on growth”[1]

On top of everything, Cognizant learnt quickly from others mistake and was ready to put everything at

stake. TCS, Infosys were ahead in many cases like setting up offshore delivery centers, building global

delivery network but Cognizant got advantage of operating on tested ground. Infosys got into product or

platform early. But ‘Infosys 3.0’ strategy is more of chronological without any supporting organizational

change. Hence execution of ‘Infosys 3.0’ strategy has failed so far. On the other hand, the three horizon

strategy of Cognizant is more of structural and Frank took the biggest risk by getting out of the comfort

zone. He took the sole responsibility of setting up the new horizon.

Conclusion

Cognizant has always had the advantage of learning from others due to their late entry to the industry.

In the past it took time to assess the market, study the existing models and find a way to differentiate

itself. Then it put their entire strength behind those pursuits. The crux is that it knows how to play the

catch up strategy perfectly. But this time around Frank doesn’t have that luxury. We have to wait for the

future to find out how three horizon strategy pans out. Currently Cognizant is nowhere in the packaged

product market. So it is bound to have tough time establishing the non-linear delivery model which is

part of horizon III. It would be interesting to watch how Cognizant preserves its unique culture with

growing size and global presence. Given the global macro-economic condition, growing protectionism,

whether Cognizant would be able to sustain the momentum remains a question. Gordon cautioned

saying “If you look at the landscape of IT industry, it is littered with companies that did so well that they

went out of business.” To keep up the momentum in this fast changing landscape, Cognizant needs to

run faster, run harder and keep challenging.

Exhibit 1: Performance Summary of Cognizant, 2008-2012

Source: Company Annual Report 2012

Exhibit 2: Consolidated Statement of Operations, Cognizant, 2008-2012

Year Ended December 31,

2012 2011 2010 2009 2008

(in thousands, except per share data)

Revenue $7,346,472 $6,121,156 $4,592,389 $3,278,663 $2,816,304

Operating Expenses

Cost of revenues 4,278,241 3,538,622 2,654,569 1,849,443 1,572,816

Selling, general and administrative expenses

1,557,646 1,328,665 972,093 721,359 652,021

Depreciation and amortization expense

149,089 117,401 103,875 89,371 74,797

Income from operations 1,361,496 1,136,468 861,852 618,490 516,670

Other income (expense), net

Interest income 44,514 39,249 25,793 15,895 22,188

Other, net (18,414) (6,568) (9,065) 2,566 (23,648)

Total other income (expense), net

26,100 32,681 16,728 18,461 (1,460)

Income before provision of income taxes

1,387,596 1,169,149 878,580 636,951 515,210

Provision from income taxes 336,333 285,531 145,040 101,988 84,365

Net income $1,051,263 $883,618 $733,540 $534,963 $430,845

Basic earnings per share $ 3.49 $ 2.91 $ 2.44 $ 1.82 $ 1.49

Diluted earnings per share $ 3.44 $ 2.85 $ 2.37 $ 1.78 $ 1.44

Weighted average number of common shares outstanding - Basic

301,291 303,277 300,781 293,304 290,121

Dilutive effect of shares issuable under stock-based compensation plans

4,570 7,074 8,356 7,811 8,819

Weighted average number of common shares outstanding - Diluted

305,861 310,351 309,137 301,115 298,940

Source: Company Annual Report 2008-12

Exhibit 3: Revenue and Long-Lived Assets of Cognizant, by Geographic Area

Source: Company Annual Report 2008-12

North America2 Europe3 Other5,6 Total

2012

Revenue1 $5,836,258 $1,195,490 $ 314,724 $7,346,472

Long-lived Assets4 52,149 8,696 910,641 971,486

2011

Revenue1 $4,802,958 $1,097,475 $ 220,723 $6,121,156

Long-lived Assets4 27,387 5,232 725,415 758,034

2010

Revenue1 $3,582,719 $ 855,575 $ 154,095 $4,592,386

Long-lived Assets4 12,198 3,687 554,563 570,448

2009

Revenue1 $2,594,210 $ 606,804 $ 77,649 $3,278,663

Long-lived Assets4 9,042 3,145 469,329 481,516

2008

Revenue1 $2,228,355 $ 541,142 $ 46,807 $2,816,304

Long-lived Assets4 7,494 2,470 445,290 455,254

(1) Revenues are attributed to regions based upon customer location. (2) Substantially all relates to operations in the United States. (3) Includes revenue from operations in the United Kingdom of $764,936, $698,853, $559,297, $353,471 and $327,995 in 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008 respectively. (4) Long-lived assets include property and equipment net of accumulated depreciation and amortization.

(5) Includes our operations in Asia Pacific, Middle East and Latin America. (6) Substantially all of these long-lived assets relate to operations in India.

Exhibit 4: Cognizant grew faster than TCS in 6 out of the last 8 quarters and

faster than Infosys and Wipro

Source: Francisco D'Souza: Balancing Cognizant's Present and Future, Forbes India magazine of 23 Oct,

2013

Exhibit 5: Top 5 India-Based IT Services Providers' Worldwide Revenue, 2012

(Millions of Dollars)

Exhibit 6: IT Spending Forecast

Source: “Gartner Market Databook, 1Q13 Update”

Exhibit 7: IT Offshoring Activity During 2011

Source: Everest Group Analysis

Exhibit 8: IT Industry’s the 3rd Platform for Growth and Innovation

Exhibit 9: Worldwide Packaged Software Revenue by Primary Market and

Region, 2011 – 2016 ($M)

Source: IDC, 2012

Exhibit 10: Milestones of Cognizant

Year Milestones

1994 Incubated as the technology arm of Dun & Bradstreet Corporation

1996 Started looking at third party clients and began servicing the best across the industry segments

1998 Became the first IT company leveraging India to get listed on NASDAQ

2002 Became the first company assessed enterprise-wide against mature industry process certification such as P-CMM5, BS7799, SEI-CMMi Level 5

2004 Acknowledged as a leading provider of IT services by industry analysts such as Gartner, Forrester, AMR and IDC

2004 Added to the prestigious NASDAQ 100 Index among companies that defined newer business paradigms

2006 Became the fastest IT service company globally to cross $1 billion revenue in nearly 12 years

2007 Added to the prestigious S&P 500 membership

2008 Over 50 facilities worldwide

2008 Joined the Fortune 1000 at #864

2009 Three major acquisitions to strengthen consulting service

2010 Cognizant first billion dollar quarter

2011 Incubation of three horizon strategy

2012 Cognizant displaces Infosys to become 2nd largest Indian IT firm

Exhibit 11: Mergers and Acquisitions

Target company Year of

acquisition Focus area

Six companies of CI Group in

Germany 2013 Enterprise application (SAP), high-end testing

MediCall, US 2012 Medical management

Zaffera, US 2011 SAP Consulting for retail

CoreLogic captive in India 2011 Mortgage processing KPO

Galileo Performance, France 2010 Test consulting

PIPC, UK 2010 Program management

UBS captive in India 2009 BPO/KPO and IT IS

Pepperweed Advisors, US 2009 Consulting; IT infrastructure services

Active Intelligence, US 2009 Oracle retail solutions

Strategic Vision Consulting 2008 Media and Entertainment

Source: Annual Report & Reference [18]

Exhibit 12: Global Delivery Centers of Cognizant

Source: http://www.cognizant.com/careers (last accessed on 7-Nov-13)

References

[1] Mitu Jayashankar, N.S. Ramnath (2012), Cognizant Technology Solutions: Far Horizons, by

Forbes India magazine of 11 May, 2012

[2] Cognizant Annual Report, 2012

[3] Cognizant Annual Report, 2011

[4] Cognizant Annual Report, 2010

[5] Cognizant Annual Report, 2009

[6] Cognizant Annual Report, 2008

[7] Cognizant Annual Report, 2007

[8] Interview | R Chandrasekaran , CEO, Technology and Operations, Cognizant in Mydigitalfc

[9] http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/info-tech/cognizant-eyes-500m-

business-from-social-cloud-tech-this-year/article5000057.ece, last accessed on Oct 16, 2013

[10] Gartner (2013), IT Spending Forecast 4Q12 Update: 2013 – The Year Ahead

[11] IDC (2013), IDC Predictions 2013: Competing on the 3rd Platform

[12] IDC (2012), Worldwide Software 2012-2016 Forecast Summary

[13] Pankaj Ghemawat and Steven A. Altman (2009), The Indian IT Services Industry in 2009

[14] Pankaj Ghemawat and Steven A. Altman (2011), Tata Consultancy Services: Selling Certainty

[15] Nasscom, “Perspective 2020”, April, 2009

[16] http://itbizcharts.blogspot.in/2011/12/global-it-spending-2012-key-trends.html, last accessed

on Oct 19, 2013

[17] Cognizant: Preparing for a Global Footprint, IIMA

[18] http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/cognizant-buys-france-s-equinox-

113100200295_1.html last accessed on Nov 1, 2013

[19] http://www.cognizant.com/, last accessed on Nov 7, 2013

[20] N.S. Ramnath (2012), Francisco D'Souza: Balancing Cognizant's Present and Future, Forbes India

magazine of 23 Oct, 2013

[21] http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/08/06/for-it-giant-cognizant-business-better-

than-expected/ last accessed Nov 8, 2013

[22] http://profit.ndtv.com/news/cheat-sheet/article-how-cognizants-earnings-compare-with-tcs-

infosys-317606 last accessed Nov 8, 2013

[23] Cognizant Internal Blogs and Newsletters