‘Variable pricing models are gaining traction’

For Francisco D'Souza, 'seeking the new' has been a characteristic trait since childhood. The son of an Indian diplomat, D'Souza, the 44-year old CEO and co-founder of Cognizant Technology Solutions, has lived in nine different countries. Now, it's his company that's going places. The software services firm grew its revenue from $1.4 billion to over $7 billion in the five years that he has been at the helm. He became the company's CEO at the age of 38. Last year, Cognizant pipped rival Wipro in quarterly revenue earnings and now it has edged past Infosys to become India's second-largest IT company by revenues. This year, the New Jersey head-quartered software services major is confident of meeting its revenue growth target of 20% despite the challenging macro-economic environment. In an interview with Darlington Jose Hector and Debojyoti Ghosh, the Kenya-born CEO talks about the company's differentiated financial and operational models as also its deep vertical knowledge.

Cognizant has been the talk of the IT town for the last one year, ever since the company went past Wipro in quarterly revenues last year. This year, it has toppled Infosys. In an environment where most IT companies are struggling to meet expectations, how is it that Cognizant is able to achieve stellar earnings?

Our success is largely driven by our differentiated financial and operational models and the meticulous delivery and execution against them. We owe our industry-leading growth to three key aspects of our strategy: our client-centricity and obsessive focus on helping our clients build stronger businesses; our disciplined focus on core industries, services, and geographies; and our reinvestment of excess non-GAAP operating margins above the 19-20% target range back into our business.

Our unique reinvestment approach has allowed us to build unparalleled domain knowledge, intimate relationships, deeper differentiation, industry leadership and a comprehensive services portfolio. Irrespective of the market cycles, we have consistently adhered to our reinvestment philosophy in order to offer our clients the best solutions available to help them transform their businesses efficiently and effectively. This has enabled us to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace in terms of winning and growing new clients, expanding our service offerings, and strengthening our geographic presence. To us, what is most significant is that we continue to take market share and grow faster than our peers.

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