Culture
Cognizant has a diverse and geographically dispersed workforce, operating in different timezones. In 2011, the company director John Klein described its culture as "result-oriented" and "transparent". External consultants have described Cognizant as focusing more on maintaining customer relationships than on aggressive sales. R Chandrasekaran, the company's President and MD, once described its mantra as "Keep the customer happy".
The heads of the vertical units in the company have CEO-like functions and power, when it comes to their units. The senior executives have described the company as a "flat organization" on more than one occasion. However, the CEO Lakshmi Narayanan has clarified that the phrase has a "different connotation" in Cognizant: it means a place where even a new employee cares about the company's success as much as the CEO does, has "great ideas" and believes that the customer cares about "our success as we do about theirs".
The Company has been criticized as "conservative", when it comes to acquisitions. However, the senior leader R Chandrasekaran has stated that the company avoids larger acquisitions in order to preserve its culture and manage the acquisitions easily.
Differential performance rewards are a part of the company's culture. In 2012, Cognizant gave 200% of the variable salary components to top performers.
Cognizant invests a substantial amount of money into training. All learning programs are conducted through Cognizant Academy, the in-house training center. The learning programs include e-learning, classroom training programs, external certifications and other role-based training (including executive training). In addition, the associates can undergo management-specific training at partner universities and colleges. The Company's intranet portal is known as "Cognizant 2.0" ("2.0" as in Web 2.0) or "C2", and includes blogs, project management tools and knowledge management applications.
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