Cognizant bets on digital business for growth

BENGALURU: US-based Cognizant Technology Solutions said it expects digital business to be a big growth driver over the next few years, given an emerging shift in spending among top customers towards newer areas of technology as they look to stave off disruption from new-age technology rivals such as Amazon and Facebook.
Teaneck, New Jerseybased Cognizant also reiterated the company’s fullyear revenue growth guidance of 19.3% and said its buyout of healthcare technology solutions provider TriZetto was proving to be a big game changer for the company and its customers.

The Nasdaq-listed company had last year bought TriZetto for about $2.7 billion, marking one of the largest acquisitions in software services industry. “There is a clear shift in focus of our customers towards spending on running different,” company president Gordon Coburn said during an investor conference.

Coburn also said the company was starting to build its own software platforms and tools as part of its push towards digital and generating more revenues from newer areas of technology such as cloud computing and analytics.

“The interest for digital has increased among customers. Customers have realised that they could become irrelevant in a matter of months, not years or decades. That’s when people woke up and said they need to have a digital strategy-...it’s a matter of survival,” said Coburn, a Cognizant veteran of nearly two decades.