BrazilCognizant celebrates 25 years of operations in Asia and beyond
Global ICT consultancy Cognizant has celebrated its 25th anniversary in business by ringing the bell at Nasdaq.
Founded as Dun & Bradstreet Satyam Software (DBSS) in 1994 as an in-house technology wing of analytics firm Dun & Bradstreet, and rebranded as Cognizant in 1996 as the newly structured firm branched out internationally, Cognizant has since then grown to become one of the world’s largest IT services and tech consultancies, bringing in revenues pushing the $16 billion mark and home to a headcount of some 270,000-plus employees.
To mark the occasion of its 25th anniversary on the 26th January (incidentally, the date which marks independence in India, where the firm was originally established), Cognizant executives have gathered on the floor of Nasdaq in New York’s Times Square to ring the opening bell. The firm has been listed on the prestigious NASDAQ-100 index since 1994, the first IT services company to be included on the list of Nasdaq’s 100 largest non-financial stocks.
Breaking into the Fortune 200 last year, and featured toward the top of Fortune Future 50 list, Cognizant has achieved remarkable recent growth, rocketing from revenues of $8.8 billion in 2013 to $14.8 billion in 2017 to record a five-year compound annual growth rate of 15 percent. Five years prior, in 2008, revenues stood at $2.8 billion. And still the company continues to grow, adding creative agency Mustache to its Interactive branch as recently as last month.
Cognizant has been growing in Asia too. Beyond India – home to approximately 70 percent of the company’s workforce – and its APAC headquarters in Melbourne, Australia, Cognizant has branches in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, Shanghai, Singapore, Manila and Hong Kong, the latter expanding with an additional office in 2017. In August of last year, Cognizant picked up India and Australasia-based Salesforce specialist SaaSfocus, adding around 350 expert consultants to its existing team.
“Cognizant’s remarkable growth story started 25 years ago,” said Cognizant CEO Francisco D’Souza, who has overseen the firm’s impressive rise since 2007 and is expected to step down some time during this year. “Over this period of time, we’ve scaled Cognizant from a 200-person software development and maintenance firm to a Fortune 200 global professional services leader that employs more than 270,000 associates who help clients apply digital technologies to transform and grow their businesses.”
Immediately prior to its anniversary celebrations, during the firm’s participation at Davos, D’Souza was announced as the new Chairman of the IT and Electronics Governors community, a body of industry leaders focused on the long-term sustainability of the technology sector and its role in society. D’Souza joined the anniversary celebrations at Nasdaq via satellite from Chennai, saying, “I’m deeply grateful to all of our associates around the world for building such a great company with such tremendous prospects.”
Present at the ringing of the bell in New York was the firm’s Chief Financial Officer Karen McLoughlin, who added; “We’re a company of people who love to creatively solve problems; we have deep knowledge of the world in which we operate and of our clients’ businesses, technology, and infrastructure. We’re constantly developing our people, improving and renewing our knowledge which makes us a force to be reckoned with in the marketplace.”
