Cognizant responds to enterprise demand for an advisory-forward delivery model

There has been an inexorable move by all BPO (business process outsourcing) and ITO (IT outsourcing) service providers to ramp up their consulting and advisory arms. It is dawning on providers that enterprises require end-to-end services, and having a suite that runs from advisory through to execution and delivery is a powerful value proposition. Indeed, enterprises are giving permission to legacy service providers to be more advisory forward. An interesting HFS survey of 150 enterprise decision makers conducted in 2021 highlighted the groups with the most sources of influence. It is not surprising the Big 4 lead the pack in most categories (see Exhibit 1).

What is surprising is the influence BPO and ITO firms have in applications modernization and digital transformation. Being a source of influence requires advisory and consulting capability across all parameters, including strategy, architecture, and change management. The question becomes which companies will step up to this challenge and take advantage of the opportunity to provide complete sets of services.

Exhibit 1: ITO and BPO firms lead the way for influence on apps modernization, digital transformation, and BPO

Sample: HFS survey conducted in 2021; 150 enterprise decision makers
Source: HFS Research, 2023

New resources, a new organization, and new efforts to reach the C-suite

Cognizant is now a couple of years into this journey. Starting from a limited, fragmented scope in its consulting and advisory business, Cognizant has brought on significant resources (approximately 4,000 advisory and consulting staff), centralized the management of advisory across the firm, and made it a priority to grow this as a standalone business and as a conduit for large-scale outsourcing and transformation services delivery.

Key organization and go-to-market changes with this new emphasis include

• More structured go-to-market approach linking advisory to operating services delivery, for which Cognizant has developed specific playbooks;
• Much more emphasis on engaging with a CXO audience at major enterprises;
• Concerted emphasis on linking IT and business leaders (as well as Cognizant practitioners) in all discussions;
• Focus on engagements emphasizing a multifunctional operating model instead of siloed outsourcing;
• Realization that internal change management is critical to support different and more complex types of projects when emphasizing advisory.

The Bottom Line: To transition to advisory-forward services requires changes to the workforce and new metrics for employees and clients—all in a race against the clock.

The scope and nature of projects will change as Cognizant prioritizes delivering advisory services and linking them to legacy BPO and ITO. Indeed, the nature of the ITO and BPO work may change to take on a more managed-services focus. Also, there will be new metrics for success with clients and new ways to evaluate employee success and contribution.

The challenge for Cognizant will be achieving advisory scale and changing the composition of its workforce at all levels. Combine these requirements with the fact that Cognizant is not alone in trying to transform its services—and the clock is ticking. The reward will be an organization that is sustainable and positioned for growth, capitalizing on the demand from enterprises for a new generation of services for the next decade and beyond.