Managing across borders

Abstract

The Indian software industry has seen the emergence of several billiondollar plus companies in the last few years. The latest to join the band is Cognizant Technology Solutions, which has witnessed scorching growth in the last few years. Cognizant was started as the captive arm of the Dun and Bradstreet Corporation (D&B) of USA. Gradually, it morphed and started providing IT services to other customers too. Cognizant is now a member of the ‘Tier One’ IT companies in India. In June 2006, it was ranked Number 16 among BusinessWeek’s 100 Hot Growth companies for 2006. A year ago, The Economic Times, a leading Indian business daily, selected Lakshmi Narayanan, Cognizant's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Francisco D’Souza, its Chief Operating Officer, for its ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ award. To understand the reasons for Cognizant’s impressive performance, J Ramachandran and Pranav Garg spoke to the duo. Lakshmi Narayanan and Francisco D’Souza believe that what distinguishes Cognizant from other companies are its people and the experience that the company provides to its customers. They discuss the company’s history and the valuable principles that Cognizant inherited from D&B, its parent company. They also throw light on what distinguishes Cognizant’s strategy and organisational model from that of other Indian majors. One such innovation at Cognizant has been their proprietary two-in-a-box organisational model. The duo provide insights on the underlying philosophy, implementation and benefits thereof. They also discuss how the culture of meritocracy and robust performance management and incentives systems work cohesively to reinforce the model. Finally, they offer their prognosis on the future of the IT industry and its implications for Cognizant.