TEANECK, N.J., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) today announced it has enabled ACCO Brands Corporation (NYSE: ACCO), one of the world's largest suppliers of branded school, office and consumer products and print finishing solutions, to cloud-enable their IT infrastructure for improved business agility, performance and reduced costs.

Illinois-based ACCO Brands markets products under well-known brands such as Mead®, Swingline® and Day-Timer® and many others in over 100 countries worldwide, and is a key vendor to retailers of all sizes, including many global retail giants. By migrating mission-critical workloads in enterprise SAP systems from an on-premise data center to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform and implementing a pay-per-use Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) model, ACCO Brands has improved the flexibility, availability and scalability of its IT environment, reducing risk and enabling it to quickly respond to changing business requirements.

Cognizant, a strategic partner to Microsoft and SAP has worked with ACCO Brands for more than 10 years in a number of areas. Leveraging its experience with the ACCO IT infrastructure and its Cognizant Cloud Steps Transformation Framework, Cognizant designed and successfully executed an accelerated cloud migration and implementation for ACCO Brands with no business disruption. Hosting SAP applications on Azure and simultaneously upgrading underlying technologies lowers capital and operating expenses and provides a foundation for the digital enablement of the enterprise, including using advanced analytics for greater business insight.

"ACCO Brands competes in a very fluid, highly competitive global market and we need to be as flexible as possible to meet changing business and customer needs," said Joseph Pekala, Chief Information Officer, ACCO Brands. "We have a long successful partnership with Cognizant and they have a rich understanding of our business and technology environment. Their domain expertise, proven transformation process and strong alliances with Microsoft and SAP, enabled us to modernize our IT infrastructure allowing our business to succeed in the digital era."

"We're helping large, global enterprises like ACCO become intuitively digital by using the cloud as part of a foundation to build new models, derive new insights and unlock new opportunities," said Rajesh Balaji, Senior Vice President and Global Head, Enterprise Application Services at Cognizant. "Using our proven cloud transformation process with prebuilt solution blueprints, made-for-the-cloud tools and a variety of public, private or hybrid options enables us to work with clients to efficiently assess and plan, set up, migrate and manage their most complex environments and mission-critical workloads."  

"Cognizant brings capabilities and resources to help companies like ACCO Brands more effectively respond to market changes by implementing Azure's reliable, scalable cloud services across the globe," said Jason Zander, corporate vice president, Microsoft Azure at Microsoft Corp. "As the cloud for enterprises, Azure is ideal for companies looking to transform into modern digital businesses, and we're confident that Cognizant can leverage Azure to help clients make this transformation easier."

Learn more about the Cognizant and its work with Microsoft and SAP: https://www.cognizant.com/partners/microsoft 
https://www.cognizant.com/partners/sap

About ACCO Brands Corporation
ACCO Brands Corporation is one of the world's largest designers, marketers and manufacturers of branded business, academic and consumer products. Our widely recognized brands include Artline®, AT-A-GLANCE®, Derwent®, Five Star®, GBC®, Hilroy®, Kensington®, Mead®, Quartet®, Rexel®, Swingline®, Tilibra®, Wilson Jones® and many others. More information about ACCO Brands can be found at www.accobrands.com.

About Cognizant
Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process services, dedicated to helping the world's leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry and business process expertise, and a global, collaborative workforce that embodies the future of work. With over 100 development and delivery centers worldwide and approximately 255,800 employees as of September 30, 2016, Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked among the top performing and fastest growing companies in the world. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com or follow us on Twitter: Cognizant.

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SOURCE Cognizant