Business Standard: Cognizant Chief Executive Officer for IT Services Says the Company is Very Optimistic About the Demand Environment in 2014

“We are quite optimistic for the whole year [2014],” says Rajeev Mehta. “Growth of 16.5 percent is industry-leading. We are very confident in terms of getting to that number. We see a strong pick-up in demand in the second quarter of 2014. That gives us the confidence we are going to have a strong year.” Excerpts from the interview:

“Overall, we saw a very healthy demand environment in our business. As we look at the rest of the year, we are seeing some headwinds in North America stabilize. It is because of the types of deals we have won and their ramp-ups. In terms of clients, deal closures, ramp-ups and hiring, we are fairly confident the headwinds we had seen in the beginning of the year will stabilize. Overall, we are very optimistic. While we see a lot of opportunities in the traditional outsourcing space, we are also seeing very strong growth in new areas such as digitization.

We have been investing in Europe for many years, both in the UK and Continental Europe. As Europe has come out of the economic slowdown, lots of companies are doing very well. We have invested significantly, in terms of building consulting capabilities and local presence there. We are seeing greater acceptance of the global delivery model in the UK and also in Continental Europe.

Largely, we are focusing on acquisitions for building capability, not for capacity. It is because in a services company, the culture is extremely critical. That’s probably one of the reasons why you have seen the focus on tuck-in acquisitions. We will continue to build vertical and horizontal capabilities so that we establish ourselves as leaders.”

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