Cognizant Technology Solutions, a Nasdaq listed e-solutions provider plans to invest $30 million to $40 million to expand its Indian operations over the next four years.
The cash-rich company is sitting on $50 million cash and is mainly looking at expanding its existing Indian operations and plans to go in for acquisition in India and abroad.
"We are looking at good technology and customer base companies for acquisition in India and abroad that will enable us to expand our business," N Lakshmi Narayanan, president and chief executive officer of Cognizant Technology Solutions said.
In Pune alone Cognizant is investing $7 million to set-up a software development centre on a 4.5 acre land. The Pune facility will have a capacity to accommodate 1,000 information technology professionals.
This facility will have state-of-the-art intelligent infrastructure equipped for training and recreation and is expandable to accommodate upto 2,000 IT professionals with additional investment.
"We plan to have our own facilities in all the four locations from where we currently operate, including at Chennai," Narayanan said. Currently, Cognizant has 3,000-plus IT professionals working for its worldwide operations, including around 1,000 in India.
In a move to maintain its high growth profile, the company plans to focus on five areas of businesses: financial services, retail, health care, insurance and telecom.
"We have already executed projects in high-end areas like e-business, e-commerce, knowledge management, data warehousing and e-application management," Milind Padhye, director in-charge and head of Pune operations said.
The company is expected to clock a turnover of $130 million in the current calendar year from $ 88.9 million recorded in the previous year.
Based on sustained growth, Forbes magazine named Cognizant as the best small company in America in November 1999 in its "200 Best Small Companies" listing.
Besides Pune and Chennai, Cognizant has its development centres at Calcutta and Bangalore too.
The Pune centre will focus on building B2B applications, exchanges and portals and providing ASP-enabled solutions and e-business application management services. It will also focus on providing wireless and mobile commerce solutions for its corporate customers.
The mobile commerce is its new area of business focus where Cognizant hopes to garner substantial business in the coming years.
