The Hindu Business Line : Cognizant ramping up China ops

It has employed 100 software professionals at its Shanghai development centre and plans to reach about 250 in the next one year, according to Mr R. Chandrasekaran, Managing Director, Cognizant.

About 90 professionals are Chinese and the rest are Indians to ensure consistency in service delivery and a multi-cultural environment. The service that Cognizant provides from China is in English language.

The company has recruited graduates with good English communication skills from top Chinese universities. They are multi-cultural in orientation, with about 30 per cent of the experienced ones having western (North America, UK and Australia) study or work experience, he said.

Mostly new business

Cognizant is servicing three of its global customers across industry segments such as financial services, manufacturing and retail, and media and market research from China. Business done in China is largely new, and it has not moved work from India to China, said Mr Chandrasekaran.

Cognizant has taken a 25,000 sq ft office in Shanghai, and plans to grow the centre in a guarded fashion. There is a local management team headed by Mr Henry Yang, which makes it easier to nurture a strong corporate culture and also to ramp up operations, he said.

Campus hiring

Early this year the company initiated its first campus hiring in Chinese universities. The entry-level training for these professionals is currently on in Shanghai through an in-house learning centre, Cognizant Academy. Chinese associates also travel to India for specialised training, when necessary, he said.

Cognizant's China centre offers core offerings in application development, application maintenance and testing for industries such as financial services, manufacturing and media and entertainment.

With several of the company's American or European customers having regional business, Cognizant services them from China. This is in addition to providing solutions to the clients' US or European businesses from China, he said.

Low-cost base

According to Mr Chandrasekaran, China provides a long-term opportunity to establish significant low-cost development capacity outside of India.

Although clients are not actively seeking such diversification today, however, as relationships continue to expand ,Cognizant believes that supplemental development capability in China will provide significant advantages.

This would take time due to challenges in language, maturity of the IT services industry and client perception that China is less expensive than India, which is not the case, he said.