Cognizant Technology Solutions (Nasdaq: CTSH) is an information technology services and consulting company with headquarters in Teaneck, New Jersey, United States and with significant operations in Chennai, India.

Cognizant has been named to the 2007 Fortune Hundred 100 Fastest-Growing Companies List for the fifth consecutive year, making it the only company receiving the “Five-year all-stars” distinction in 2007's list.

Cognizant has also been named in the top 10 of Business Week's Hot Growth Technology Companies. Cognizant was ranked 6th overall. It was the #1 ranked IT services Company in the list.

Cognizant has been ranked 7th on "Forbes List of 50 Fastest Growing Tech Companies" for the year 2008.

History

The company was started in 1994, as an in-house IT services unit of the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation (D&B) and its operating units. Initially a joint venture between Dun & Bradstreet (76%) and Satyam Computer Services Ltd. (24%), it soon became a 100% subsidiary of D&B Corp. In 1996, the company became a division of the Cognizant Corporation, after the split-up of Dun & Bradstreet Corporation.

In June 1998, Cognizant Corporation was again split into independent companies, and Cognizant Technology Solutions was formed as a division of IMS Health, a provider of information solutions to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. The same year, the company completed its initial public offering and was listed on the NASDAQ. In November 2002, IMS Health divested its majority interest in Cognizant through a tax-free split-off.

In its early years, Cognizant's clientele primarily comprised the sister companies in the Dun and Bradstreet group of companies and the services were focused on Y2K compliance, Application Support and Maintenance (predominantly in client server and mainframe applications). With the turn of the new millennium, Cognizant successfully expanded it's client base to Fortune 500 customers in Financial Services, Healthcare, Information, Media and Entertainment, Retail and Manufacturing and diversified it's services to new technologies and internet based applications. The company currently serves over 500 customers across 9 industry verticals.

The company has been one of the fastest growing in the IT Services segment being the fastest among global IT Services companies to cross $1Bn as revenues. Along the way, it has recorded significant recognition by analysts becoming a member of the prestigious NASDAQ-100 and S&P500 Index among other accolades.

Operations

Even though it is headquartered in New Jersey, USA, most of Cognizant Technology Solutions' employees are based in India. It has offices in Chennai, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Gurgaon, Kochi and Budapest since 2008, development centres in Shanghai, Buenos Aires and Amsterdam. Cognizant has over 60,000 employees. Cognizant Coimbatore centre became the first company in the world to be certified for CMMI-Level5 per the latest model.1