Public | |
Traded as |
NASDAQ: CTSH NASDAQ-100 Component S&P 500 Component |
Industry | IT services, IT consulting |
Predecessor | Dun & Bradstreet |
Founded | January 26, 1994 |
Founder | Kumar Mahadeva |
Headquarters | Teaneck, New Jersey, United States |
Area served
|
Worldwide |
Key people
|
Francisco D'Souza (CEO) Lakshmi Narayanan (Vice-Chairman) |
Services | IT, business consulting and outsourcing services |
Revenue | US$13.487 billion (2016) |
US$2.289 billion (2016) | |
Profit | US$1.553 billion (2016) |
Total assets | US$14.262 billion (2016) |
Total equity | US$10.728 billion (2016) |
Number of employees
|
266,200 (2016 Q4) |
Website | www |
Cognizant is an American multinational corporation that provides digital, technology, consulting, and operations services. It is headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey, United States. Cognizant is listed in the NASDAQ-100 and the S&P 500 indices. It was founded as an in-house technology unit of Dun & Bradstreet in 1994, and started serving external clients in 1996.
It made an initial public offering in 1998, after a series of corporate splits and restructures of its parent companies. It was the first software services firm listed on the NASDAQ. During the dot com bust, it grew by accepting the application maintenance work that the bigger players were unwilling to perform. Gradually, it ventured into application development, complex systems integration and consulting work. Cognizant had a period of fast growth during the 2000s, becoming a Fortune 500 company in 2011. In 2015, the Fortune magazine named it as the world's fourth most admired IT services company.
Cognizant began as Dun & Bradstreet Satyam Software (DBSS), established as Dun & Bradstreet's in-house technology unit focused on implementing large-scale IT projects for Dun & Bradstreet businesses. In 1996, the company started pursuing customers beyond Dun & Bradstreet.
In 1996, Dun & Bradstreet spun off several of its subsidiaries including Erisco, IMS International, Nielsen Media Research, Pilot Software, Strategic Technologies and DBSS, to form a new company called Cognizant Corporation. Three months later, in 1997, DBSS renamed itself to Cognizant Technology Solutions. In July 1997, Dun & Bradstreet bought Satyam's 24% stake in DBSS for $3.4 million. Headquarters were moved to the United States, and in March 1998, Kumar Mahadeva was named CEO. Operating as a division of the Cognizant Corporation, the company mainly focused on Y2K-related projects and web development.