| Part of the second phase of its India construction programme during 2005-2006, the investment will be channelled into expanding its development centres in Bangalore, Chennai, Pune and Kolkatta. |
| Bangalore will play a strategic role in this expansion plan, attracting Rs 130 crore of the investment, housing a techno-complex with capacity to accommodate 2,250 developers. |
| Currently, Cognizant employs close to 1,000 professionals in Bangalore. The new campus is expected to be ready by end-2005 by which time the company plans to add another 1,000 developers. |
| Said Lakshmi Narayanan, president & CEO, Cognizant, "As we expand our services and move up the IT value chain to increasingly look at high-value services, Bangalore will play a critical role in our endeavour. |
| For Cognizant, Bangalore is the global centre of excellence for advanced solutions using new technologies, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and IT infrastructure services." |
| Cognizant, in addition to this, has also bought 10 acres of land in the Electronic City for future expansion, plans for which will be drawn by the second half of 2005. |
| In all, the fresh expansion plans envisage an addition of over 8,000 professionals. Part of the investment will go towards construction of a 100,000 sq ft training centre, Cognizant Academy in Chennai, with the capacity to accommodate 1,000 people at any time. |
| On the dynamics of software services, Narayanan said: "The pressure on wages is increasing in India while in the US it is in the low single digits. Our onsite-offsite ratio is 30:70 and hiring of mid-level managers is an area of concern here. This is one of the reasons for us to step up our consulting work which brings in high-value." |
| Cognizant for 2005, has given a revenue guidance of $845 million (Rs 3,800 crore), which will be 44 per cent up on 2004 revenues of $586.7 million (Rs 2,640 crore). The company currently employs 15,300 professionals and plans to end 2005 with a total headcount of 22,500. |
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