DirectFileTopicDownload
Companies & Industries
The Issue: For Cognizant, Two's Company
January 17, 2008
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------The tech-services provider found an approach, called “two in a box,” that eased the headaches of managing—and being managed—from afar.
Cognizant Technology Solutions' corporate infancy was similar to that of many outsourcers. The tech-services provider got its start helping companies resolve potential Y2K flare-ups and other relatively simple application maintenance services. As a result, during the company's early years in the mid-1990s, despite the fact that it's based in Teaneck, N.J., Cognizant had an organizational structure that was India-centric. Teams in other parts of the world reported to managers in India, who also supervised the army of software engineers solving the basic issues on the ground. But in the years that followed, Cognizant, which now has $1.4 billion in annual revenues, began to get more sophisticated and more complex requests from customers. To be sure of meeting their needs, CEO
Francisco D'Souza, then chief operating officer, and his colleagues knew they would need to revamp the organization, putting power
Figure 1 Description of TIB from Cognizant Wesbite in the hands of the managers who were closest to the customers. “We had to find a new way of organizing the company along the customer axis,” says D'Souza.
While the redesigned reporting structure helped improve Cognizant's responsiveness to customers, it wasn't working for Cognizant's employees. The company's managers, who were mostly at customers' locations in the U.S., were strung out by the harried schedule. After putting in a full day's work with clients at home, they'd stay up late at night helping to troubleshoot projects in India and managing the careers of people there. And no matter how diligent the managers were, they were still on the other side of the world, and workers in India felt distanced. “It was a little
The Issue: For Cognizant, Two's Company
January 17, 2008
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------The tech-services provider found an approach, called “two in a box,” that eased the headaches of managing—and being managed—from afar.
Cognizant Technology Solutions' corporate infancy was similar to that of many outsourcers. The tech-services provider got its start helping companies resolve potential Y2K flare-ups and other relatively simple application maintenance services. As a result, during the company's early years in the mid-1990s, despite the fact that it's based in Teaneck, N.J., Cognizant had an organizational structure that was India-centric. Teams in other parts of the world reported to managers in India, who also supervised the army of software engineers solving the basic issues on the ground. But in the years that followed, Cognizant, which now has $1.4 billion in annual revenues, began to get more sophisticated and more complex requests from customers. To be sure of meeting their needs, CEO
Francisco D'Souza, then chief operating officer, and his colleagues knew they would need to revamp the organization, putting power
Figure 1 Description of TIB from Cognizant Wesbite in the hands of the managers who were closest to the customers. “We had to find a new way of organizing the company along the customer axis,” says D'Souza.
While the redesigned reporting structure helped improve Cognizant's responsiveness to customers, it wasn't working for Cognizant's employees. The company's managers, who were mostly at customers' locations in the U.S., were strung out by the harried schedule. After putting in a full day's work with clients at home, they'd stay up late at night helping to troubleshoot projects in India and managing the careers of people there. And no matter how diligent the managers were, they were still on the other side of the world, and workers in India felt distanced. “It was a little