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Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp.
(201)
801-0233
500
Glenpointe Centre West
Teaneck, NJ 07666
www.cognizant.com
Sales
$366
million
Business Description
Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation is a leading provider of custom
information technology ("IT") services related to IT design, development,
integration and maintenance services primarily for Fortune 1000 companies
located in the United States and Europe. Our core competencies include
web-centric applications, data warehousing, component-based development and
legacy and client-server systems. We provide the IT services we offer using
an
integrated on-site/offshore business model. This seamless on-site/offshore
business model combines technical and account management teams located
on-site
at the customer location and offshore at dedicated development centers
located
in India and Ireland.
Services
We provide a broad range of IT services, including:
Service
Summary Description of Service Offerings
Application Design, Development,
Define customer requirements, write
Integration and Re-engineering
specifications and design, develop,
test and integrate software across
multiple platforms including Internet
technologies. Modify and
test
applications to enable systems to
function in new operating environments.
Application Maintenance
Support some or all of a customer's
applications ensuring that systems
remain operational and responsive to
changing user requirements, and to
provide on-going enhancement as
required by the customer.
We use our Q*VIEW software engineering process, our on-site and offshore
business model and well-developed technology and communications
infrastructure
to deliver these services.
APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT, INTEGRATION AND RE-ENGINEERING SERVICES. We
follow either of two alternative approaches to application development and
integration:
o full life-cycle application development, in which we assume
start-to-finish responsibility for analysis, design, implementation,
testing and integration of systems; or
o cooperative development, in which our employees work with a
customer's in-house IT personnel to jointly analyze, design,
implement, test and integrate new systems.
In both cases, our on-site team members work closely with the end-users of
the application to define requirements and develop specifications. Detailed
design, implementation and testing are generally performed offshore at our
twelve IT development centers located in India, as well our development
centers
in Limerick, Ireland and Phoenix, Arizona. In addition, we maintain an
on-site
presence at each customer location in order to address evolving customer
needs
and resulting changes to the project.
A key part of our application development and integration offering is a
suite of services to help organizations build and integrate business
applications with the rest of their operations. In this suite of services,
we
leverage our skills in business application development and enterprise
application integration to build sophisticated business applications and to
integrate these new applications and Web sites with client server and legacy
systems. We build and deploy robust, scalable and extensible architectures
for
use in a wide range of industries. We maintain competency centers
specializing
in Microsoft, IBM and Sun technologies, among others, in order
to be able to provide application development and integration services to a
broad spectrum of customers.
Our re-engineering service offerings assist customers migrating from
systems based on legacy computing environments to newer, open systems-based
platforms and client/server architectures, often in response to the more
stringent demands of business. Our re-engineering tools automate many of the
processes required to implement advanced client/server technologies. We
believe
that this automation substantially reduces the time and cost to perform
re-engineering services, savings that benefit both us and our customers.
These
tools also enable us to perform source code analysis and to re-design target
databases and convert certain programming languages. If necessary, our
programmers also help customers re-design and convert user interfaces.
APPLICATION MAINTENANCE SERVICES. We provide services to help ensure that
a customer's core operational systems are free of defects and responsive to
the
customer's changing needs. As part of this process, we are often able to
introduce product and process enhancements and improve service levels to
customers requesting modifications and on-going support.
Our on-site/offshore business model enables us to provide a range of rapid
response and cost-effective support services to our customers. Our on-site
team
members often provide help-desk services at the customer's facility. These
team
members typically carry pagers in the event of an emergency service request
and
are available to quickly resolve customer problems from remote locations. In
the
case of more complex maintenance services, including modifications,
enhancements
and documentation, which typically have longer turnaround times, we take
full
advantage of our offshore resources to develop solutions more
cost-effectively
than would be possible relying on higher cost local professionals. The
services
provided by our offshore team members are delivered to customers using
satellite
and fiber-optic telecommunications.
As part of our application maintenance services, we assist customers in
renovating their core systems to meet the requirements imposed by new
regulations, new standards or other external events. These services include,
or
have previously included, Year 2000 compliance, Eurocurrency compliance,
decimalization within the securities industry and compliance with the Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act for the healthcare industry.
Application maintenance service contracts are usually long term in nature
and, at times, can include an element of application development.
We seek to anticipate the operational environment of customer's IT systems
as we design and develop such systems. We also offer diagnostic services to
customers to assist them in identifying shortcomings in their IT systems and
optimizing the performance of their systems
Our
Solution
We believe that we have developed an effective integrated on-site/offshore
business model, and that this business model will be a critical element of
our
continued growth. To support this business model, at December 31, 2003, we
employed over 8,500 programmers globally. We have also established
facilities,
technology and communications infrastructure in order to support our
business
model. By basing certain technical operations in India, we have access to a
large pool of skilled, English-speaking IT professionals. These IT
professionals
provide high quality services to our customers at costs significantly lower
than
services sourced exclusively in developed countries. Our strengths, which we
believe differentiate us from other IT service providers, include the
following:
ESTABLISHED AND SCALABLE PROPRIETARY PROCESSES. We have developed
proprietary methodologies for integrating on-site and offshore teams to
facilitate cost-effective, on-time delivery of high-quality projects. These
methodologies comprise our proprietary Q*VIEW software engineering process,
which is available to all on-site and offshore programmers. We use this ISO
9001:2000 certified process to define and implement projects from the
design,
development and deployment stages through to on-going application
maintenance.
For most
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<PAGE>
projects, Q*VIEW is used as part of an initial assessment that allows us to
define the scope and risks of the project and subdivide the project into
smaller
phases with frequent deliverables and feedback from customers. We also use
our
Q*VIEW process to detect, mitigate and correct possible quality defects and
to
establish appropriate contingencies for each project. In order to ensure
implementation of the quality process, we assign a quality facilitator to
each
project who reports to a centralized quality assurance and software
engineering
group. This group performs, on a sample basis, quality audits, deliverables
verifications, metrics collection and analysis, which are used to improve
processes and methodologies. These processes and methodologies have proven
to be
scalable, as we have significantly increased the number of offshore
development
centers, customers and projects. In addition, all of our principal
development
centers have been assessed by KPMG at Level 5 (the highest possible rating)
of
both the Capability Maturity Model and the Capability Maturity Model
Integration
of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, which
are
widely recognized means of measuring the quality and maturity of an
organization's software development and maintenance processes. In addition,
all
of our principal development centers have been certified by the STQC
Directorate
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India
(the
accreditation authority for companies in India) under the internationally
recognized BS 7799 Part 2:2002 Information Security Standards, a
comprehensive
set of controls comprising best practices in information security and
business
continuity planning. Our quality management system has also been certified
by
KPMG to International Standard ISO 9001:2000 of the International
Organization
for Standardization, an internationally recognized standard for quality
management systems directed to the achievement of business results,
including
satisfaction of customers and others.
HIGHLY SKILLED WORKFORCE. Our managers and senior technical personnel
provide in-depth project management expertise to customers. To maintain this
level of expertise, we have placed significant emphasis on recruiting and
training our workforce of highly skilled professionals. We have over 600
project
managers and senior technical personnel around the world, many of whom have
significant work experience in the United States and Europe. We also
maintain
programs and personnel to hire and train the best available technical
professionals in both legacy systems and emerging technologies. We provide
five
months of combined classroom and on-the-job training to newly hired
programmers,
as well as additional annual training programs designed to enhance the
business
practices, tools, technology and consulting skills of our professional
staff. We
were recently assessed by KPMG at Level 5 (the highest possible rating) of
the
People Capability Maturity Model (P-CMM) version 2.0 of the Software
Engineering
Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, a widely recognized means of
implementing best current practices in fields such as human resources,
knowledge
management, and organizational development which improves our processes for
managing and developing our workforce and addressing critical people issues.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AND COMPETENCY CENTERS. We have project
experience and expertise across multiple architectures and technologies, and
have made significant investments in our competency centers and in research
and
development to keep abreast of the latest technology developments. Most of
our
programmers are trained in multiple technologies and architectures. As a
result,
we are able to react to customers' needs quickly and efficiently redeploy
programmers to different technologies. In order to develop and maintain this
flexibility, we have made a substantial investment in our competency centers
where the experience gained
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<PAGE>
from particular projects and research and development efforts is leveraged
across our entire organization. In addition, through our investment in
research
and development activities and the continuing education of our technical
personnel, we enlarge our knowledge base and develop the necessary skills to
keep pace with emerging technologies. We believe that our ability to work in
new
technologies allows us to foster long-term relationships by having the
capacity
to continually address the needs of both existing and new customers.
WELL-DEVELOPED INFRASTRUCTURE. Our extensive facilities, technology and
communications infrastructure facilitate the seamless integration of our
on-site
and offshore workforces. This is accomplished by permitting team members in
different locations to access common project information and to work
directly on
customer projects. This infrastructure allows for:
o rapid completion of projects;
o highest level of quality;
o off-peak use of customers' technological resources; and
o real-time access to project information by the on-site account
manager or the customer.
International time differences enable our offshore teams located in India
to access a customer's computing facilities located in the United States and
Europe during off-peak hours. This ability to perform services during
off-peak
hours enables us to complete projects more rapidly and does not require our
customers to invest in duplicative hardware and software. In addition, for
large
projects with short time frames, our offshore facilities allow for parallel
processing of various development phases to accelerate delivery time. In
addition, we can deliver services more rapidly than some competitors without
an
offshore labor pool because our lower labor costs enable us to
cost-effectively
assign more professionals to a project.
Ticker
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