The Hindu Business Line : Cognizant plans $200 m investment

Chennai, July 3 Cognizant Technology Solutions will invest around $200 million (around Rs 820 crore) in India through the end of 2008 to build new fully owned, techno-complexes in Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

This will help the company add around three million sq ft of space for over 30,000 new employees.

Mr R. Chandrasekaran, President and Managing Director, Cognizant, said the expansion programme will enable the company to meet the growing customer demand in North America, Europe, South America and Asia, and continue to attract the industry’s “most talented and best people.”

Building larger Cognizant-owned facilities in India is a key part of the strategy.

The expansion means the US-based company would double its employee strength in India in the next two years.

At present, out of its 44,000 global workforce around 33,000 are in India development centres spread across eight cities, including Chennai and Bangalore.

In the first phase of expansion the company will invest $46 million (Rs 188 crore) in infrastructure expansion in Kolkata. This will add 500,000 sq. ft of space to accommodate around 4,000 more employees.

A new fully owned techno-complex is coming up on 20 acres of land in Bantala, a special economic zone designated area. In addition to this facility, Cognizant will continue to lease additional facilities in Kolkata to meet its headcount growth requirements, according to a company press release.

Cognizant has around 4,000 professionals in its Kolkata centre focussing on segments such as financial services, pharmaceuticals, retail, enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management.

In its March quarterly results, Cognizant said its global headcount by end of 2007 is expected to be around 55,000, a majority of them in India.