Cognizant to increase trainees in India

Nasdaq-listed IT-solutions provider, Cognizant Technologies has decided to increase the number of management and engineering graduates it brings to India for training from US B-schools like Stanford, MIT, Carnegie Mellon and Columbia.

"We got a very good response from the B-school graduates who were trained in India. We will be bringing in 20-40 people from America this year for training and will be doubling the number over the next five years," said Lakshmi Narayanan CEO and managing director, Cognizant.

The training in India covers different aspects of Cognizant's onsite-offshore model, process and quality management, programme management, strategy and consulting,domain specific solution management and financial modelling, he said.

The $586 million company, which outsources work from India for its American and other global clients, said it would not be impacted by the anti-sourcing stance adopted by some political outfits in the US.

"The US economy has been growing and so the sourcing issue has very much been put into the backburner. Outsourcing has received sufficient support from the corporate world and therefore we do not see a major impact", said Narayanan.

The company is looking to increase its presence in India by expanding existing centres and increasing workforce at a total cost of Rs 250 crore ($60 million).

"We will be extending our development centres in India in 2005 and 2006 by constructing fully-owned complexes across Chennai, Pune, Kolkata and Bangalore," Narayanan said.

In addition, Cognizant will be constructing a training center in Chennai where it will train about 1,500 professionals. The company has invested about Rs 6 crore at its Mumbai facility, which is a leased facility. It plans to develop the facility over the next 12-18 months.

Cognizant, which closed calendar year 2004 with a headcount of 15,300 professionals, plans to add 7,700 more this year to take its global headcount to at least 23,000 by December 2005.