Financial Express, India: Cognizant's CEO Says There are Significant Growth Opportunities Despite Volatile Global Macro-Economic Environment

“Our first focus will be on high quality sustainable growth,” says Francisco D’Souza. “We are focusing on businesses that are inherently of high value. Today, if you look at the digital business, it is high-margin compared to the rest. Secondly, there are opportunities internally to simplify the business in terms of structures, etc. Some savings will come from them as well as from other operational efficiencies, like utilization.” Excerpts:

“When we talk about digital, I think it is a convenient word to describe the change that is happening. Digital is a collection of technologies. The accepted set of technologies, which constitute digital, has expanded substantially. It has the potential to change the competitive dynamics of many industries. For clients to adapt to this new environment, they need to change their business, operating and technology models simultaneously. The big initiative we have had at Cognizant over the last 2-3 years has been to build out a set of capabilities that we need to engage with clients in the digital segment. Today, we bring a broad set of capabilities to clients. I believe digital is already mainstream. In the second quarter of this year, our digital business was more than 25% of our revenue, growing 30% year-on-year.

I do not think traditional lines of service will go away. They will become more important in the digital world as most of our clients, who are digital immigrants, will build digital capabilities on top of their traditional technology environment.

The healthcare industry in the U.S. alone is $3.5 trillion. Our healthcare business is around $3.5 billion. Regardless of the regulatory environment, healthcare is a fundamental human need. Technology has the ability reduce cost of healthcare and improve the outcomes. We will continue to invest.

In our view, anywhere in the world we operate, we need to work with the respective governments to balance things. We have to make sure that we protect local workers. In America, we are aggressively hiring U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Working with governments to protect the local workers’ interest is a critical part of the equation. In many developed markets where there is a big digital build-out, there is a shortage of talent. So the policy needs to find a balance on how you protect the local workers and at the same time, make the local businesses competitive.”

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