Pari Sanghavi, senior director, life sciences supply chain and manufacturing at Cognizant and Jim Lehane, global leader business development at Zenith discuss how manufacturing must change following COVID-19.

Many leaders in large companies are out of sync and out of touch with their workforce, markets, and competitive landscapes. That is according to research, which found that only 12 per cent of global executives feel their business leaders have the right mindsets to lead them forward in a new world of work and credibly transform the business.

COVID-19 has taken a dramatic toll on many industries, most notably retail. Up until now, the retail industry flourished by ensuring higher footfall to boost sales. Today, however, retailers need to tackle the epic challenge of working — within curbs — to manage footfall, while meeting changing consumer demands. Will we ever again look at increasing footfall as a measure to boost sales?

Social distancing was a virtually unknown expression until recently. Today it is a critical prevention strategy for people around the globe. As it becomes a cultural norm – and as consumers seek ensured hygiene, health, security, and trust – how retailers and brands amend their customer experiences today will have implications on future loyalty-building and growth efforts.

Finding new ways to boost supply chain management efficiency is more critical than it's ever been. Robotic process automation -- or RPA -- is one technology that may help.

Jason Oxman is joined on the Download On Tech podcast by Cognizant’s Global SVP Head of Artificial Intelligence Bret Greenstein and Vice President of Government Affairs & Legal Tobi Young. Bret and Tobi cover how Cognizant is responding to the COVID-19 crisis for their employees and for their customers, as well as the ways that technology is being utilized to combat the effects of COVID-19 and ways that the use of technology by individuals, companies, and governments might be different moving forward.

One of the expectations we have of digital transformation is the hope that it will bring fresh impetus, particularly for the industrial sectors. Internet of Things (IoT) or Industrial internet of things (IIoT) is the pillar on which these hopes are built, says Andreas Golze, senior vice president at Cognizant.

Many Americans are working from home during the coronavirus pandemic, and it’s unclear when people will or should return to the workplace. The shift toward more remote work could have significant repercussions for employees, companies and the marketplace. Economics correspondent Paul Solman explores these transformations -- and their advantages and drawbacks -- in a two-part series.

From the CME surpassing 25 million contracts for 15 continuous trading days, to Euronext share trading transactions being up 92%, March was an unprecedented month for trade volumes.

"Cognizant has designed and developed an online test booking facility for a retail pharma chain, helping millions of patients across the United States save time by quickly locating test centres and scheduling tests," says Sairamkumar Jayaraman.

COVID-19 will change everything -- and the way we work and learn will be no exception. Will the traditional office structure be a thing of the past? Could our education system start to look more like a lifelong journey? Tech futurist Ben Pring and head of TED Chris Anderson tackle these questions and more in this thought-provoking interview.

Humphries and his team of 2.90 lakh employees — a majority of them in India — are gearing up to face the challenges post Covid. In this interaction with BusinessLine, Humphries discusses the impact of the pandemic and the road ahead.

Crisis plants the seeds of ingenuity, and as the world struggles out of the COVID-19 pandemic and into an unknown new normal, it’s clear that entire industries will be transformed by innovations that have emerged to combat the disease.

On this episode of IT Visionaries, Allen Shaheen talks about his evolving relationship with technology, how companies are adapting to and embracing technology more than ever, and why reinvesting in STEM programs is the only way to ensure a prosperous future.

The world of work is changing faster than ever, and machine intelligence is at the centre of this change. Most recently, artificial intelligence (AI) has played a leading role in the fight against Covid-19. Scientists have used AI to help predict future outbreak zones, sift through research, and even run simulations on drugs to determine their efficacy.

It's safe to say most aspects of life will be quite different after the global coronavirus pandemic ends. A new report, "After the Virus" from digital firm Cognizant, looks at just how different things will be, from national politics to socioeconomics, work, business, and well, life in general.

Cognizant head of industries for Australia and New Zealand, Gaurav Sharma said Australians are already spending more time online than usual, and as Click Frenzy drives traffic to websites, retailers must facilitate smooth e-commerce experiences.

After the coronavirus pandemic, the world will be quite different. Whether the lockdowns last weeks or months, very little will remain unchanged. In a bid to contain the spread of Covid-19, governments around the world have instituted health monitoring policies, leveraging GPS and other data from a variety of personal devices.

Having visibility of your own skills, including level of expertise allows you to be aware of your evolution and measure your growth, your professional profile. You set your goals to develop autonomy, and measure… While making constant, incremental improvements.

Premankur Roy Paladhi shared these recommendations: “To cope with the coronavirus pandemic, consumer goods and retail organisations need a robust business continuity plan (BCP), one that is based on a holistic supply chain strategy and built on flexible and strong digital foundations. Any BCP should anticipate disruptions and provide proactive recommendations to keep pace with fluctuating demand and fulfilment cycles.

Countries around APAC are starting to phase slowly back into normalcy with additional safety measures like COVID-19 tracking apps for citizens. However traditional businesses have had to adapt to new realities of a post-virus world and the implications for CIOs will be profound. The days of the IT department being responsible for infrastructure and operations, with a relentless focus on cost reduction, are gone.

In a recent report forecasting life after the virus, Cognizant's Center for the Future of Work envisioned the creation of a massive Health Security Agency that would mandate automated illness scanning for any building, space or country.

“5G will help realise the benefits from the evolving IoT environment, including the development in endpoint devices such as environmental and situational sensors, vehicles, wearables, drones, robots, and virtual reality equipment,” says Rohit Gupta, vice president and head of manufacturing, logistics, energy and utilities, Europe at Cognizant.

“Inclusive leaders recognize the realities of what it means to work virtually and the need to be flexible," says Ben Pring, Director of Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work.

Cognizant CEO Brian Humphries says the restructuring done last year has helped the company lay the path for M&As and a better standing in the cloud technology market, despite a difficult business climate this year due to Covid-19. Edited excerpts of an interview with ET.

In a Q&A, Brian Humphries says his firm has handled the ransomware attack well and doesn't see any impact on client engagement.

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp on Friday posted revenues of $4.2 billion for the first quarter ended March, up 3.5% year-on-year in constant currency. In an interview, Brian Humphries, chief executive officer, spoke about growth drivers, demand environment and its strategy to sail through the covid-19 crisis.

When it comes to the 5G roll-out, AI will definitely be supercharged. Smart, AI-based devices that operate at the edge for buildings, cities, and vehicles, can make complex decisions in real-time based on the data they see.

With healthcare organizations focused on battling COVID-19, the recent federal healthcare regulation requiring data interoperability may have become an afterthought. However, compliance with this rule will create a powerful tool for fighting COVID-19 recurrences and future pandemics.

After the coronavirus global pandemic, the world will be quite different. Whether the current lockdown lasts weeks or months, very little will remain unchanged by COVID-19. A special report from Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work, After the Virus: A Special Report Looking Back on the Next Five Years, explores the most probable shifts across healthcare, education, retail, travel, technology, and government as the world becomes more connected and virtual.

The show must go on: Even as COVID-19 inflicts a new, jolting reality on business operations worldwide, this has become the new charge for COOs and CIOs everywhere. In my conversations over the past few weeks with manufacturing clients, I have learned a lot about how businesses are coping with the sudden onset of change and how – as these new practices are followed, enhanced, and supported – they could end up accelerating enterprise modernisation in the long run.

Forward-looking businesses are offloading data centre maintenance and management to the cloud to keep things running during the covid-19 pandemic. Raja Renganathan, vice president at Cognizant and head of Cloud Services Business takes a closer look at what it takes to keep things ticking over during lockdown.

Just as Y2K served as an inflection point for the IT services industry, businesses are now going through another period of significant change and opportunity, says Cognizant’s Humphries, in an interview with Forbes India.

More than a dozen doctors employed with technology major Cognizant for its healthcare and life sciences practice in Mumbai have volunteered to be a part of a telephonic helpline for addressing questions on COVID-19.

This article was first published in the Spring 2020 issue of Best Execution. www.bestexecution.net.

For the financial organisations swimming through a sea of regulation, the news that the European authorities were delaying the impending stricter clearing and settlement regime was a huge relief.

AI driven solutions are becoming a competitive differentiator for banks and other financial services — delivering a hyper-personalised customer experience, improving decision-making and boosting operational efficiency. Yet, many financial services institutions (FIs) remain in an experimental phase and will need to accelerate actual AI deployment. Otherwise, they risk being left behind by digitally native players.

The ongoing technological revolution continues to change the world in unforeseeable ways, which can make difficult the accurate forecasting of jobs we cannot yet imagine. Nevertheless, to help organisations and individuals prepare for changes we are expecting to see in the coming years, we embarked on the enormous endeavour of applying our knowledge across several industries to predict the new jobs that are likely to emerge over the next decade.

The pharma manufacturing landscape is evolving as never before. Much of this change is driven by greater connectivity and Industry 4.0. The subsequent availability of data is driving operational efficiencies and providing unique insights.

After the coronavirus pandemic, the world will be quite different. Whether the current lockdown lasts weeks or months, very little will remain unchanged by COVID-19. A special report from Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work, After the Virus: A Special Report Looking Back on the Next Five Years, explores the most probable shifts across healthcare, education, retail, travel, technology, and government as the world becomes more connected and virtual. The report was written from a future perspective – as if the events were being chronicled in 2025, tracing the changes that unfolded in the immediate years following this pandemic.

We do not need a crystal ball to determine the future of payments, it can be summed up in a few words: speed, transparency, personalisation, choice, and safety. The evolution of entities in the payments ecosystem in the last decade – whether traditional banks, payment processors, fintechs, or merchants – points to the fact that we are moving to a model where the transfer of money will be instant, frictionless, and omni-channel.

After COVID-19, banking will be much different than it was pre-pandemic. The change in the way people bank, the future of work, the use of modern technology and the value of brands will all depend greatly on the time it takes to settle on a 'new normal'. A look into the future provides a good foundation for what needs to be done today.

Tata Consultancy Serivces, Cognizant Technology Solutions and Persistent Systems have emerged on the frontlines in the battle to contain the coronavirus outbreak. The IT services providers are helping governments as well as drug developers identify new molecules to combat the pandemic, create simulations on how the virus spreads and build digital tools for clinical trials.

The rollout of 5G has been met with an element of scepticism. There are questions around whether the technology will deliver on expectations, concerns around security for both businesses and consumers and, although not proven, worries about potential health risks. Whatever reservations people may have, the fifth generation of cellular technology is upon us, bringing with it an abundance of opportunity for businesses to capitalise on increased data speed and potential new revenue-generating models as well as benefits for society at large.

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp will pay an extra 25% of base pay to some employees in India and the Philippines as a majority of its offshore workforce work from home amid the coronavirus pandemic, taking on extra work, Chief Executive Officer Brian Humphries said.

Many banks and other financial services institutions (FIs) are beginning to recognise the benefits of AI-driven solutions as a way to get ahead in the market and challenge the competition. Amongst many other benefits, the technology enables organisations to offer hyper-personalised customer experience, dramatically improve internal decision making, and drive operational efficiency. However, many businesses are struggling to move beyond the experimental phase and reach actual AI deployment. It is those organisations that are at risk of being left behind.

Having the ability to access additional information via augmented reality AR is becoming more commonplace as businesses realise the advantages this can deliver. Enhancing what people see via smartphones, tablets and – increasingly – head-mounted displays (HMDs), has the potential to transform many business processes.

This month, some of the world’s largest interdealer brokers, who negotiate OTC trades between the big banks, have seen record trading volumes as sudden changes in interest rates, coupled with the plummeting oil price, trigger a whirlwind of global price volatility.

The Internet of Things is now powering industries but we have only scratched the surface of what’s possible. The advent of 5G will enable enterprise companies to have unprecedented insight into the digitization of almost everything. As 5G rolls out nationally and offers more reliable connectivity, the manufacturing companies that forego increased digitization within their plants will be left behind financially. Especially with the rise of smart factories – digitally connected production facilities that improve processes through automation and self-optimization, traditional manufacturing operations will be at a disadvantage.

End-to-end product transparency has fast become a key factor for millennials when deciding whether or not to purchase from a brand. A recent McKinsey study revealed 52% of millennials do research for background information on a product before making a purchase. Because of this, product traceability has become ever more important for retailers wanting to gain and maintain trust with their customers, but this comes with its own challenges.

In line with this year’s International Women’s Day theme of #EachForEqual, Human Resources Online reached out to HR leaders to find out what their organisation’s call-to-action is in the push for a gender-equal workforce.