Cognizant rejigs senior portfolios; appoints new COO

CHENNAI: Two days after slashing growth guidance for the year, Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS) on Tuesday announced several changes to the portfolio of its senior management team, including the announcement of a new chief operating officer (COO).
CTS which galloped passed several Indian peers including Infosys, Wipro and HCL Tech to become the second largest software services firm is witnessing growth headwinds, like its counterparts.Its pace of growth (8.5% to 9.5%) will lag the industry average (10% to 12%), leaving analysts speculating as to whether it will hold on to its bellwether status.
Senior Cognizant sources maintained that Tuesday’s rejig had nothing to do weekend’s financial performance statements; instead it was an action which was in the pipeline for some time now. “The market is undergoing a major shift in the pace of digital technology adoption by clients, driven by new social, mobile, analytics, cloud, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), adaptive manufacturing, augmented reality and blockchain technologies, to name a few… Our realigned organizational structure brings together all of our talented teams to fully align with the transformative needs of our clients and helps us better support them in navigating the shift to compete in the digital economy,” a Cognizant spokesperson told TOI.
While the top management remains unchanged, there are changes in portfolio of other senior professionals. A new COO, Srinivasan V has been announced, who will take over from Sridhar T, who has been moved to a newly created strategic initiatives portfolio. Srinivasan was executive VP, products and resources at CTS.
All delivery roles will now come under Debashis Chatterjee (or DC), who is executive VP and president, technology solutions. Prasad C will now take care of industry verticals in North America while Santosh Thomas gets Latin American markets in addition to the EU and APAC. The BPO business remains with Sumithra Gomatam and Gajen Kandiah will take care of digital works.
The company communicated its five-year strategy to its leaders in December 2015 and the new internal organization structure is to drive that strategy into action, the CTS spokesperson said. “By aligning our team structures and career growth aspirations with newer digital opportunities, we believe we are better positioned to serve our clients, and meet our goals for continued growth and success,” the spokesperson added.
“This new organizational realignment for the digital era is an ahead-of-the-curve move that positions us well to provide a differentiated experience to our clients, gain market share, and provide our employees with unique growth opportunities.”