It was a reflection of the strong strategic partnership between Cognizant and Indian School of Business (ISB) when the Cognizant leadership spared ample time for the ISB student delegation. In some sense this reflects the seriousness of both the entities to appreciate talent and diverse skills. On one side is a premium business school, an epitome of excellence in imparting business leadership, while on the other is an organization which over the years has nurtured talent from the school, and allowed them to grow at an accelerated pace within a 230,000 strong global workforce.
The student delegation from ISB visited the Chennai Campus of Cognizant India on August 24, 2016. It was amazing to see how well-kept and well-managed the campus that can house up to 30,000 people was. The facilities and discipline of its occupants spoke of their great culture and values. After initial introductions we got an opportunity to listen to inspiring growth stories of Cognizant and its leadership team. Usually, getting time from a Cognizant leader is a challenge and here we were lucky to have met nine business leaders from across different units of Cognizant. We met leaders from CBC, BDMs, and, of course, the ISB alumni who are excelling in the organization since 2003, when Cognizant first hired from ISB.
The leadership team and the student delegation discussed the key focus area of the industry – “Digital Transformation”. It was clearly visible that the watertight boundaries that existed between a consulting company and the company implementing the solution had almost disappeared. Companies like Cognizant have broken all boundaries to showcase their deep domain knowledge and technical expertise, thereby creating value for the customers. The student delegation gave a presentation of their assessment of digital transformation, and how it will shape the IT industry in the next few years. The leadership team received the presentation with great interest and the discussion that followed was truly enriching. A fact that is not known to many came to light – Cognizant has its own eight labs across India where its scientists experiment on nascent technologies to come up with innovative products for its next-gen customers.
Following the enlightening sessions with the leadership team we interacted with ISB alumni over lunch. I must give special credit to the chef for the awesome food and the great hospitality. It was apparent that ISB graduates at Cognizant were a satisfied and happy lot. They bore a look of self-accomplishment and joy, arising from the freedom to experiment and grow within the organization. I can go on and on to describe the visit, but I will take a pause here and would allow the partnership between two great entities to speak for itself what with great number of roles coming to campus this year across the board.
Special thanks to the Cognizant campus-hire HR team, CAS and BTC clubs at ISB for organising this engagement.
– Anupam Singh, ISB Co17, anupam_singh2017@isb.edu