Nearshore Americas: Cognizant’s Executive Vice-President for Business Process Services Outlines the Company’s Vision for Setting up a Delivery Center in Costa Rica

“The Costa Rica expansion is mainly to serve Solutionstar, which is a U.S. customer,” says Gajen Kandiah. “This is for Business Process Services (BPS), which differs from Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) in that we are moving from the back office to the middle office. This is a fantastic opportunity for us. We will be offering BPS in English and Spanish for everything from appraisal services, to market origination and closure.”

“There is an increasing need for middle office services in financial services,” notes Kandiah. “This can include addressing capital markets, trades, foreign exchange, procurement, transaction support, and even HR.” He adds, “We launched our center in Costa Rica about four weeks ago. We were lucky in that there was already significant talent in place, including people who had a mortgage processing background.”

“With this kind of higher value work,” says Kandiah, “a deeper knowledge of our clients is required. And that then means we have to emphasize training, both in functional areas and specific to a business. Training and development are core elements for us.”

“We met with Costa Rica’s president, with the trade minister, and others—we were impressed with all of them,” says Kandiah. “They have a vision for their country that includes education and infrastructure, which means we can grow with Solutionstar and also look for new opportunities. As more young educated workers come into the labor force, we can see this becoming a larger delivery center.”

“We want to get deeper into healthcare and insurance, all the way to addressing the needs of people as they retire,” says Kandiah. “That way, we can offer support to a larger value chain.”

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