‘Cognizant no longer at bottom of stack’

MUMBAI: It’s now two years since Ravi Kumar took cost as CEO of Cognizant, and a few metrics recommend he is pulling the corporate out of the trough it had fallen into.
Kumar mentioned Cognizant has moved to the ‘center of the stack’ amongst its friends, after remaining at the bottom – an obvious reference to the corporate doing higher than Capgemini, Wipro and Tech Mahindra within the newest quarter. “I’m not saying I’m going to be in the top three this year, but I’ve directionally moved up. From the middle of the stack to the top of the stack is harder because now you must compete with performing companies. I have all the machinery aligned to be a market leader, and that’s why I feel confident about it,” Kumar mentioned at the Nasscom Technology & Leadership Forum 2025 in Mumbai. Peers like Accenture, TCS and Infosys are persevering with to do higher than Cognizant, which registered a 2% natural development in Dec quarter.
In the final two calendar years, the Nasdaq-listed agency skilled a decline in natural income.
Kumar mentioned he has improved considerably on the quantity of massive offers signed. In the Dec quarter, Cognizant signed ten massive offers with a complete contract worth of greater than $100 million.
He mentioned Cognizant’s two core verticals – healthcare and BFSI – are doing higher than earlier. He additionally mentioned he has diversified the enterprise, each in phrases of trade verticals, and horizontal companies, thereby bringing larger resilience to the agency. He mentioned the duty of geographic diversification will take longer.
“We’re starting to enter a growth phase. We are guided for organic growth this quarter too. There are places where we are not doing well and areas where it’s work in progress. We have a margin expansion plan. We are no longer a company sitting on the side,” Kumar mentioned.
He mentioned Cognizant improved worker utilisation, straight impacting the bottom line. It additionally applied AI-driven productiveness measures. He mentioned with machines writing 20% of the code, groups can accomplish extra duties with fewer personnel.