Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation is an American domiciled Indian multinational information technology services and outsourcing company, headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey. It was originally founded in Chennai, India, as an in-house technology unit of Dun & Bradstreet in 1994. After a series of corporate restructurings, the company went public in 1998.
Ravi Kumar Singisetti has been the CEO of the company since January 2023, replacing Brian Humphries.
History
Cognizant was established in 1994 in Chennai, India, as Dun & Bradstreet Satyam Software (DBSS), a 76:24 joint venture between Dun & Bradstreet and Satyam Computers, with Kumar Mahadeva, and Srini Raju as the founding CEOs and MDs. It began with 50 employees in Chennai as Dun & Bradstreet's in-house technology unit focused on implementing large-scale IT projects for Dun & Bradstreet businesses. In 1996, the company started pursuing customers beyond Dun & Bradstreet.
In 1996, Dun & Bradstreet spun off several of its subsidiaries, including Erisco, IMS International, Nielsen Media Research, Pilot Software, Strategic Technologies and DBSS, to form a new company called Cognizant Corporation, headquartered in Chennai, India. Three months later, in 1997, DBSS renamed itself Cognizant Technology Solutions. In July 1997, Dun & Bradstreet bought Satyam's 24% stake in DBSS for $3.4 million. Headquarters were moved to the United States, and in March 1998, Kumar Mahadeva was named CEO. Operating as a division of the Cognizant Corporation, the company focused on Y2K-related projects and web development.International Directory of Company Histories, Vol.59. St. James Press, 2004. In 1998, the parent company, Cognizant Corporation, split into two companies: IMS Health and Nielsen Media Research. After this restructuring, Cognizant Technology Solutions became a public subsidiary of IMS Health. In June 1998, IMS Health partially spun off the company, conducting an initial public offering of the Cognizant stock.
In 2003, IMS Health sold its entire 56% stake in Cognizant, which instituted a poison pill provision to prevent hostile takeover attempts.IMS sees some positive impact from Cognizant sale by Eric Auchard. Rediff, 16 November 2002 | 1149 IST. Kumar Mahadeva resigned as the CEO in 2003, and was replaced by Lakshmi Narayanan. Gradually, the company's services portfolio expanded across the IT services landscape and into business process outsourcing (BPO) and business consulting. Lakshmi Narayanan was succeeded by Francisco D'Souza in 2006. In September 2014, Cognizant acquired healthcare IT services provider TriZetto Corp for $2.7 billion. Cognizant shares rose nearly 3 percent in pre-market trading. On 24 June 2015, the company signed a multimillion-dollar agreement with Escorts Group in India to help Escorts' businesses in digital transformation and modernize its operations across all business segments. On 30 June 2015, it partnered with Singapore-based supermarket retailer NTUC FairPrice to perform digital transformation in NTUC's business to improve personalized and consistent customer service across multiple channels.
On 1 April 2019, Francisco D'Souza was replaced by Brian Humphries as the CEO. In January 2022, Cognizant sold its acquisition Oy Samlink to Kyndryl and Mustache to DJE Holdings. In 2023, Ravi Kumar S was named as CEO of Cognizant. On 22 April 2024, Cognizant announced its partnership with Microsoft Corporation to extend its reach of Generative AI and Copilots, also to enhance experiences of employee and speed up their cross-industry innovation.
Acquisitions
Company acquired Country Date Business Reference3cloud USAJanuary 2026Cloud servicesBelcan USAJune 2024Digital EngineeringThirdera USADecember 2023An Elite-level ServiceNow partner Mobica UKJanuary 2023Automotive, Silicon, Internet of Things (IoT)Utegration USADecember 2022SAP capabilities for Energy & UtilitiesAustinCSI USANovember 2022Digital TransformationOnesource Virtual USANovember 2022Professional services and application management practices (Workday)DevBridge USADecember 2021Digital EngineeringHunter Technical Resources USAAugust 2021Digital EngineeringTQS Integration Ltd. USAJuly 2021Data Analytics, Industry 4.0Cognizant Mobility GermanyMarch 2021Connected cars, IoTMagenic Technologies USAJanuary 2021Agile Software and Cloud Development, DevOpsLinium USJanuary 2021ServiceNow Servian AustraliaJanuary 2021Data Analytics, Artificial IntelligenceInawisdom UKDecember 2020AI, Machine LearningBright Wolf USAOctober 2020Internet of Things (IoT)10th Magnitude USASeptember 2020Microsoft AzureTin Roof Software USAAugust 2020DevOps, Software EngineeringNew Signature USAJuly 2020Microsoft Cloud ProviderCollaborative Solutions USAMay 2020HR and Finance Cloud ProviderLev USAMarch 2020Enterprise Digital MarketingEI-Technologies FranceFebruary 2020CRM ConsultingCode Zero USAFebruary 2020CRM ConsultingContino UKOctober 2019Digital Transformation (DevSecOps/Data/Cloud)Zenith Technologies IrelandJune 2019Life Sciences AutomationMeritsoft IrelandMarch 2019FintechOy Samlink FinlandJanuary 2019Technology ProviderMustache USADecember 2018Digital AgencySoftvision USAOctober 2018Digital SolutionsAdvanced Technology Group USSeptember 2018CRM ConsultingSaaSFocus IndiaAugust 2018CRM ConsultingHedera Consulting BelgiumMay 2018ConsultingBolder Healthcare Solutions USMarch 2018Health Care ITZone UKOctober 2017Digital AgencyNetcentric SwitzerlandOctober 2017Digital MarketingT2C | Top Tier Consulting USASeptember 2017Healthcare ConsultingTMG Health USAJune 2017Health Care ITBrilliantService JapanMarch 2017Intelligent Products, Internet of thingsAdaptra AustraliaDecember 2016Insurance Consulting, Project ManagementNova IT AustraliaDecember 2016HR ServicesKIS Information Services (KIS) GermanyDecember 2016IT Services Mirabeau BV Netherlands November 2016 Digital Marketing, Customer Experience Frontica Business Solutions Norway October 2016 IT Services & Solutions Idea Couture Canada July 2016 Digital Services (Innovation and Experience Design) Heliocentric El Salvador May 2016 BPO Services Quick Left Inc. USA May 2016 Mobile & Web Apps ReD Associates Denmark April 2016 Market Research KBACE Technologies USA January 2016Oracle Cloud, ERP Storebrand Baltic Lithuania Nov 2015 Lithuanian IT unit of Norway's StorebrandCNO Financial Group (India) IndiaFeb 2015IT Application Development Odecee Australia November 2014IT, Consulting and BPO services Cadient Group USA October 2014Digital Healthcare TriZetto Corp USA September 2014Healthcare Payer Software, Provider Revenue Cycle Software (Consulting, Software, BPO, Hosting) itaas Interactive TV Solutions USA April 2014Digital Video services ValueSource Technologies India October 2013IT services Equinox Consulting France October 2013Financial Services Consulting FirmSourceNet Solutions USMay 2013BPS for Finance & AccountingQBridge USJan 2013Marketing Automation C1 group (6 companies) Germany December 2012 btconsult GmbH [process and technology consulting, SAP]; C:1 Solutions GmbH [consulting and enterprise solutions: SAP, BPM, ECM, ERM]; psc Management Consulting GmbH [process and technology consulting]; C:1 SetCon GmbH [software engineering and testing]; Enterprise Services AG [a Swiss company focused on process and IT consulting]; C:1 Holding GmbHMedicallPhilippinesNovember 2012Medical TranscriptionExcellence Data Research IndiaAugust 2012Market Research ING US USA June 2012 Technology Zaffera USA September 2011 SAP Consulting CoreLogic India India July 2011 Mortgage processing Galileo Performance France June 2010 Consulting related to the measurement, management and continuous optimization of IT system performance PIPC Group UK May 2010 Program & Project Management Consulting UBS India Service Center India October 2009 Business process outsourcing, industry research Pepperweed Advisors USA September 2009 Business Consulting, Program Management Invensys Rail R&D India & Invensys Operations Managed R&D Center India India July 2009 Product Research & Engineering, Manufacturing Active Intelligence Canada February 2009 Consulting, implementation and support services for Oracle Retail Merchandising, Planning and Optimization suite Strategic Vision Consulting USA June 2008 Business Consulting for media and entertainment companies T-Systems India Germany March 2008 System Integration marketRx USA November 2007 Life Sciences Analytics, healthcare KPO AimNet USA September 2006 IT infrastructure services Fathom Consulting Canada April 2005 Telecom & Automotive IT Services Ygyan Consulting India February 2004 SAP consulting Infopulse Netherlands December 2003 IT services Aces International USA April 2003 Siebel CRM consulting American Express Travel-related Services account from Silverline Technologies USA Sep 2002 Financial services UnitedHealthcare Ireland Limited Ireland June 2002 Healthcare services (a subsidiary of the UnitedHealth Group)
Operations
Regions As of December 2023, the company had over 347,700 employees globally, of which about 254,000 were in India across 13 cities. By 2024, Cognizant's largest employee bases were in Chennai and Hyderabad, each with more than 50,000 employees, followed by Bengaluru with nearly 40,000. The company has local, regional, and global delivery centers in other countries like the UK, Australia, Hungary, Netherlands, Spain, China, Philippines, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Costa Rica.
Business units Cognizant is organized into several verticals and horizontal units. The vertical units focus on specific industries such as Banking & Financial Services, Insurance, Healthcare, Manufacturing and Retail. The horizontal units focus on specific technologies or process areas such as Analytics, mobile computing, BPO and Testing. Both horizontal and vertical units have business consultants, who form the organization-wide Cognizant Consulting team together. Cognizant is among the largest recruiters of MBAs in the industry; they are involved in business development and business analysis for IT services projects.
Corporate affairs
Management Cognizant is led by Ravi Kumar S (CEO) . Jatin Dalal (CFO) a, Surya Gummadi and Rajesh Nambiar (President, Digital Business & Technology) are some of the others in the leadership team. On 1 April 2019, Francisco D'Souza was replaced by Brian Humphries as the CEO. On 12 January 2023, Brian Humphries was replaced by former Infosys President, Ravi Kumar Singisetti as the CEO.
Finance Year Fortune 500 rank20242132023208202219420211852020194201919320181952017205 2016 230 2015 288 2014 308 2013 352 2012 398 2011 484 Cognizant was listed on NASDAQ in 1998, and added to the NASDAQ-100 Index in 2004. After the close of trading on 16 November 2006, Cognizant moved from the mid cap S&P 400 to the S&P 500. Cognizant became a Fortune 500 company in 2011.
Corporate social responsibility Cognizant's philanthropic and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives are conducted through the Cognizant employees for the financial and administrative support of the Cognizant Foundation. Registered in March 2005 as a "Charitable Company" under the Indian Companies Act, the Cognizant Foundation aims to help "unprivileged members of society gain access to quality education and healthcare by providing financial and technical support; designing and implementing educational and healthcare improvement programs; and partnering with Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), educational institutions, healthcare institutions, government agencies and corporations".
Cognizant has a grassroots corporate social responsibility project called Outreach, through which the volunteer employees lend their expertise for devising skill-building and workforce programs to improve the operations of NGOs.
Awards and recognition