Cognizant's non-U.S. business, Cognizant Global Growth Markets (GGM), recently held an analyst and advisor day and discussed its regional priorities. New CEO Ravi Kumar has initiated a restructuring plan ('NextGen Program') to reduce Cognizant's cost base to fund investments. While Cognizant had guided on flat topline growth in 2023, Q1 saw a 9% y/y growth in LT[...]

  NelsonHall recently completed an in-depth analysis of cognitive & self-healing IT infrastructure management services, researching the capabilities of leading IT services vendors and the requirements of their clients. This blog looks at the investments vendors need to make to meet client demand, and how the market will evolve over the next 12 to 18 months. While there is an inc[...]

  We recently talked to Cognizant about its Salesforce Marketing Cloud capabilities. Within the Salesforce portfolio, Marketing Cloud, along with Commerce Cloud, is a high-potential product that will eventually outgrow the more mature Sales and Service Clouds. More than any other Salesforce product, Marketing Cloud has grown through M&A, notably ExactTarget (that came with B2B m[...]

Digital front doors and transparency a new normal for healthcare? U.S. healthcare is no stranger to an environment of continuous change and has not been spared the effects of the COVID-19 global pandemic in 2020. The unique circumstances born from the need for social distancing during the pandemic have accelerated healthcare consumers' demands for digital transformation. The ask comes f[...]

  We recently talked to Cognizant about two planned Salesforce-related acquisitions: Code Zero and EI Technologies, which the company announced in Q1 2020. Cognizant Strengthens Specialized Billing Capabilities with Code Zero Code Zero is a U.S. Salesforce CPQ and billing specialist with experience in providing services to manufacturing firms expanding their business from selling[...]

  In a recent blog, we highlighted how Cognizant approaches the testing of connected devices. Testing connected devices brings new challenges to QA at two levels: conducting hardware testing and automation. Cognizant’s TEBOT IP is based on a combination of traditional test automation (mostly based on Selenium test scripts) and hardware powered by a Raspberry Pi, triggering physic[...]

  We recently talked with Cognizant’s Salesforce Consulting & Solutions Group (CSG) unit, recently set up in Europe. The unit reflects ongoing investment by Cognizant in its Salesforce capabilities, with a more vertical focus, accommodating Salesforce’s growing product portfolio.   CSG complements the capabilities of Cognizant Interactive and Cognizant Consultin[...]

  NelsonHall has been commenting recently on the future of testing, looking at how AI algorithms and RPA tools fit in the context of QA. This blog takes a different perspective by looking at how one of the tier-one software testing service vendors is approaching its testing of bots and connected devices. With the fast adoption of connected devices, automating testing of consumer or ind[...]

NelsonHall recently attended HIMSS19 in Orlando, Florida, the largest healthcare IT conference in the world, with over 45K delegates attending and 1.3K vendors in the exhibition. Here are three highlights from the many conversations we had about the state of the healthcare industry. Obstacles to improving CX The conversation about “consumer experience” in healthcare organizat[...]

  Here I look back at how M&A activity has impacted the IT services industry over the past year and make a few broad predictions for the type of activity to be expected in the next twelve months. 2016 had been marked by some large M&A announcements, with: Hardware companies moving out of services:  HPE announcing the sale of Enterprise Services to CSC (completed i[...]

  NelsonHall is conducting an analysis of the needs of IT services clients to understand their IT and business priorities and how the growth of digital is impacting their business. In a survey of ~1,000 IT services clients across 17 industries and every region of the world, NelsonHall has identified distinct patterns of user intentions, both in terms of how clients plan to change their[...]

  Cognizant recently hosted NelsonHall in its mobile center of expertise in Grenoble, France, to discuss how it is expanding its Quality Engineering & Assurance (QE&A) practice. QE&A is a very significant practice within Cognizant - NelsonHall estimates that it represents over 14% of Cognizant’s global headcount. Unsurprisingly, digital, DevOps, and agile are [...]

M&A activity in IT services is set to take a new direction in 2017. Here, I reflect on M&A activity by the largest IT services vendors in 2016, with its emphasis on mega deals, and look ahead to 2017, which is set to be the year of digital & security tuck-in acquisitions. Large M&As in 2016: IT Conglomerates and Defense Firms Divest IT Services Arms Large-scale M&am[...]

  In recent years, the software development life cycle has become increasingly automated as IT service vendors seek to drive greater efficiencies in software development and maintenance, and increase their ability to scale. This is true for testing as well as for wider software development support. Initially, as elsewhere, the increasing automation of testing was based on the develo[...]

This week saw the news that Cognizant will be acquiring Norwegian oil and gas services group Akastor’s IT and BPO captive Frontica Business Solutions for NOK1,025m (~$128m). Frontica’s staffing business Frontica Advantage is not a part of the transaction. In 2015, Frontica generated revenues of NOK 4,919m (~$610m), down 14.5% y/y. 2016 has seen further market softening and Q2 2016 r[...]

I attended Cognizant’s biannual analyst event in New York recently and spoke with their head of blockchain consulting. Cognizant has been investing heavily in services and technologies to enable the digital enterprise, including the blockchain technology stack. Eighteen months ago, Cognizant began developing blockchain assets based on various open source frameworks, and today they have o[...]

Last week, Cognizant released results for Q4 and full year 2015. At first glance, results looked strong. Q4 revenues were $3,232.5m, up 17.9% y/y, up 16% in CC, and adjusted operating margin was 19.6%, up 18 bps y/y and in the middle of the company's target range of 19%-20%. If we look at Q4 2015 revenue performance in Cognizant’s two largest vertical groups: Financial Services,[...]

Cognizant Q2 2015 results: Revenues were $3,085.1m, up 22.6% y/y, and up 25.5% in CC EBIT margin was 17.7%, down 171 bps y/y but up 50 bps sequentially Adjusted EBIT margin was 19.8%, down 122 bps y/y, but the same as in Q1 Non-GAAP operating margin, which excludes stock-based compensation expense and acquisition related expenses, was 20.2%, slightly above the target range of 19% to 20[...]

A strong end to 2014 for Cognizant, with the disruption of Q2 results (due to client specific issues) now a fading memory. Q4 2014 revenues were up 16.4% y/y, up 13% y/y excluding Trizetto. And non-GAAP operating margin of 19.4% was within its targeted range. Q4 2014 revenue breakdown by vertical (and actual revenue growth) was: Financial services: $1,121m (+12.4%), with strong gr[...]

So why has Cognizant’s share price taken such a battering today, after such strong topline growth (16.5%, at the mid-point of prior guidance) and a non-GAAP operating margin of 21%, above the company’s target range of 19% to 20%? (see here). Quite simply because of the revised revenue guidance for 2014 from growth of at least 16.5% to at least 14%. This is a huge[...]