Cognizant’s Income Down By Rs 2800 Crore But Still 20,000 Freshers Will Be Hired

Despite suffering a loss of $50-$70 million due to a ransomware attack, Cognizant on May 8 said it will continue to invest in the business, while decreasing certain costs in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The US-based IT services major plans on recruiting 20,000 entry-level hires and investing in developing digital skills by correcting its employee pyramid. 

Read to find out more…

Cognizant’s Future Plans!

Cognizant Technology Solutions has a significant workforce in India.

Amidst the COVID-19 crisis, Cognizant believes that the traditional industry bench policies do not adequately address the interests of impacted employees. Meanwhile, any employees impacted by demand-supply imbalances may benefit from extended medical coverage and exit packages through the end of the Q3. 

Following the release of its Q1 2020 results, the company aims to significantly decrease other costs including corporate overhead, travel, marketing, relocations and non-commercial lateral hires. 

It expressed confidence in its strong balance sheet and liquidity which will help float the COVID-19 crisis. However, it will nonetheless invest in Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) to accelerate the capabilities. Cognizant said that clients are looking for ways to modernise their business, accelerate innovation, increase their competitiveness, become more elastic and agile in the face of business uncertainty, and generally reimagine their businesses for the new normal.

The company’s 60% of the business is in financial services and healthcare. Hence it claims that it is less exposed than some of the hardest hit industries, including travel, hospitality, retail and automotive.

Cognizant had last month communicated that given the continued uncertainty around the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact, the company was withdrawing its full-year guidance.

Major IT trends such as core modernisation, data modernisation and cloud adoption will accelerate. The post-COVID world will create new norms and hasten trends to a highly mobile, virtual and personal world.

The company said, “We will not just be talking about teleworking but rather-remote everything — from digital workflow, to design, to e-commerce, banking, education and telemedicine. Against this backdrop, our strategy to win in the digital battlegrounds of AI and analytics, digital engineering, cloud and IoT becomes more relevant than ever.”

Cognizant’s Figures In The First Quarter of 2020!

Cognizant reported a decline of 16.78% in net income at $367 million for the Q1 2020 that ended March 31, 2020, as compared to $441 million in the same period in 2019. However, it had announced earlier, its revenue grew by 2.8% to $4.22 billion during the quarter compared to $4.11 billion a year ago, after a negative 50 basis points impact from the exit of certain content services business.

The highest growth in revenue during the quarter came from communications, media and technology, which grew 5.2% to $626 million. Financial services and healthcare, which contribute around 34.3% and 28.3% of its revenues, grew by 1% and 2.5 %, respectively. Products and resources grew 4.4% to $954 million.

Cognizant CEO Brian Humphries said, “Amid the pandemic’s unprecedented human and economic challenges, we remain focused on the health and safety of our associates whilst maintaining business continuity for our clients and supporting our communities. While we expect a challenging demand environment throughout 2020, we believe the pandemic is accelerating the secular trends of core modernisation and cloud migration as companies shift to digital business models. These and other related IT trends play directly to Cognizant’s strategy. I am confident we will emerge from this crisis in a position of strength.”

Growth in banking was driven by the contribution of the previously announced partnership with three Finnish financial institutions to transform and operate a shared core banking platform and regional banks in North America.

CFO Karen McLoughlin said, “We entered 2020 with a strong balance sheet and further strengthened our financial flexibility in the first quarter. Against an uncertain economic backdrop, we will continue with our 2020 Fit For Growth Plan to streamline the company’s operating model and reduce costs to fund growth investments that align to our long-term growth strategy.”

The company said that the COVID-19 crisis caused a disruption in the revenue in March. This was reflected in the delays in project fulfillment while the employees were forced to shift to work-from-home capabilities. 

On the business outlook, Cognizant said that the international markets, which tend to rebound more slowly, represent just 25% of its business, and the company is primarily exposed to Global 2000 clients.