The Economic Times, India: Cognizant’s Chief Strategy Officer Says the Company Wants to be Central to the Digital Economy

“I am more optimistic than ever that the opportunity for technology services is actually larger,” says Malcolm Frank. “As the world becomes more technical and our clients are digitizing, then there should be more services.” Excerpts:

“We want to be central to the digital economy. We could play an important role in helping to provide digital at scale in the industries that we focus on. We hope to have a ‘Cognizant Inside’ paradigm where we are the go-to partners to build and operate digital businesses.

Now we are making a scale pivot to digital, which is a whole set of technologies that sit on top of the interface. But legacy will not go away.

To go digital you need strategy skills, that is, helping the client envision change. Second is design thinking; whether it is creating a virtual customer experience or smart products, you have to reconceptualize the design. Next is scale around specific technology and solutions. For example IoT is exploding. Then there are areas around cybersecurity, data, AI, cloud architecture and how those operate. Those are specific areas where people need to start reskilling.

On whether the entire IT workforce be reskilled, there are two answers — one is ‘can’t’ and the other is ‘shouldn’t’. Because the legacy systems are going to be there. There are still more COBOL transactions per day then there are Google searches! Legacy is there and all those sensors and digital solutions need to tie back to the legacy environment. It puts more strain on the legacy.

If you look at the next 10 years, the whole industry won’t be 100% digital. You will have lot of people who understand these heritage technologies of today and you will need them as well. Employees can self-select — whether they want to go all digital or want to do traditional technology.”

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