Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Mar 30, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Mar 30, 2004 |
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Info-Tech
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Software Cognizant's China foray delayed Our Bureau
Mr R. Chandrasekaran, Managing Director and Executive Vice-President, Cognizant Technology Solutions (right), and Mr R. Rajagopalan, Director and Vice-President (Finance and Administration), at a press conference in Chennai on Monday. - - Shaju John.
Chennai , March 29 COGNIZANT Technology Solutions' planned entry into China has been delayed due to legal processes there. It normally takes about four months to set up a software development centre in China. However, for Cognizant it is taking a little longer than expected due to legal processes, said a senior company official. The company announced its China foray at the end of last year, and now hopes to set up its development centre outside Shanghai by 2004-end, he said. The company's Managing Director and Executive Vice-President, Mr R. Chandrasekaran, told newspersons here today that the exit option in China was not clear. On the company's name preference, the Chinese want it to be a phonetic name. Research is being carried out for the name, he said. The Chinese Government is keen to attract foreign investment in the software sector. However, the business route was still not clear, he said. The software major plans to begin the China centre with 70-100 employees, of which about 15 per cent will be from India, primarily to set up the centre. The China centre will not be a large volume location for some time, but will help Cognizant's global customers looking at that country as a market. The company will provide customers services related to information technology, he said. Cognizant would also look at China for outsourcing services such as software testing, in which the Chinese have good capabilities and serve the Japanese market, he said. According to Mr Chandrasekaran, Cognizant is looking at acquisition in Europe for geographic expansion. It is also looking for business process outsourcing firms. It would look for companies specialising in financial services or healthcare solutions with consulting capabilities, he said. It may be recalled that Cognizant recently acquired three companies. It acquired Aces, a US-based firm specialising in software products and solutions of global giant, Seibel. It also acquired Infopulse that specialises in financial services in the Netherlands. The other acquisition was of Pune-based Ygyan, which focuses on software solutions and products of SAP, Germany. Meanwhile, Cognizant expects its revenue for 2004 to be around $520 million (over Rs 2,000 crore), a projected growth of 41 per cent over previous year. The company increased its employees globally to over 9,200 in 2003 with a net addition of over 3,000 employees. It expects to end 2004 with a net addition of 4,000 employees. The company is recruiting 350-450 employees a month, with 65 per cent to 70 per cent being fresh graduates.
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