Cognizant is one of the IT Services companies that is really growing fast, it is Indian to the extent that close to the 85% of their staff is located in India.

Infact I have heard and read very good things about it, in a recent summarization of the Merrill Lynch Internet, Software, and Services analyst conference at the Services Safari, the post highlighted some of the details of the company and said some very good things about them, excerpts:

I've always liked this firm as it seems to be what you'd get if you cross-bred Accenture with a great Indian services company. While their client focus is "a passion for building stronger businesses" may be easy to say but they do seem to have the offshore execution, on-site sales account management and other business processes under control to realize it.

This New Jersey firm has been a darling in the services space for several years. If you listen to an earnings call of theirs, be sure to stay on for the Wall Street Q&A. Many of these analysts positively gush when they get to speak to these folks. Cognizant today has revenues of $1.4 billion and will likely grow this to $2billion by end of year.

What's fascinating about them is this:
- all of their revenue originates from only 400 or so clients. That's it.
- they are plowing back a fair bit of their profit margin into developing the future of the business. They're investing in methods, vertical knowledge, people and infrastructure.
-of their 400 clients, 87 are 'strategic' (i.e., they generate $5-40 million/year in fees) and another 5 are deemed to be 'mature'

This firm does almost all of its delivery via India but it uses a lot of Big 4 executives to develop and grow the accounts they establish footholds within

Today i was reading through an interview of the Lakshmi Narayan and Francisco D'Souza at the IIMB Management Review - Sep 2006 Issue, than i came across this passage

JR/PG: How is your business model any different from that of other Indian software services majors, say a TCS or an Infosys?
LN: We have been an offshore company right from the beginning, whereas companies such as Infosys or TCS started off in an onsite mode, as in those years, much of the business was largely staffing-driven. That's the genre from which they came from, and then they arrived at their current situation.
So the mindsets are very different. In our initial days, and even today, we tell our customers that if they believe that things can be done elsewhere - not in
their department, not in their country - then they should partner with us. But if you want to micro-manage and are a lot more comfortable if it happens closer to you, then we may not be best suited for that approach. That culture is deeply ingrained and we haven't compromised on it. To that extent, the model we have adopted is distinct from other companies that may still agree to do it onsite if that's what the customer wants.

When i read this idea/concept/belief from the passage a chart in an AMR report came to mind, which shows that close to 15% of the business of Cognizant comes from staff augmentation in the ERP line of business, there seems to be disconnect:

Also here is another chart from the same AMR report which highlights the offshore component vs onsite between the different vendors, in this chart also Cognizant seems to be only fourth, but is probably explained by the fact that Cognizant seems to get 30% from Implementations and roll out which typically requires more onsite presence.

Sources: 1, 2

Prashanth Rai