Latest news with #Gummadi
Newsweek
3 days ago
- Business
- Newsweek
How Cognizant Is Powering Health Care's Data Revolution
Health care is undergoing a fundamental transformation from a labor-intensive industry to a data-intensive sector, as artificial intelligence revolutionizes how health care organizations handle everything from insurance claims to drug discovery, representing the biggest operational shift since the introduction of electronic medical records. Take one of health care's most onerous administrative tasks: provider credentialing, the laborious process of enrolling doctors in insurance networks with varying coding across multiple insurance plans and geographic regions, which can consume weeks or months of work from dozens of staff members. "Now, with AI, we can get the task done within hours, if not minutes," explains Surya Gummadi, president of Cognizant Americas. AI is creating these kinds of efficiencies in back-office functions, faster clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies bringing treatments to market and real-time insurance authorization that helps health care providers streamline patient care decisions. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Canva Cognizant, whose platforms are used by two-thirds of the U.S. insured population, approaches health care AI through what Gummadi calls three distinct vectors. Companies first enhance productivity through AI tools and models. They then focus on helping clients "infuse AI across their technology stack"—preparing data layers and applications for AI integration. And the final step, he says, is "agentification," which can coordinate multiple AI processes to handle complex tasks. "We have agentified our intranet," Gummadi explains. For example, if a Cognizant employee has a major life event, such as a new baby, they do not need to update their information in multiple systems for health insurance and paid time off. "Just one single update," he says, "and the agents across the intranet will coordinate and make it seamless for the associate." Anchoring Cognizant's role in the administrative backbone that keeps the American health insurance sector functioning is its $2.7 billion acquisition of TriZetto in 2014, which created one of the largest health care technology infrastructures in the United States. TriZetto's platforms serve approximately 350 health insurers, covering about 180 million lives, processing everything from claims adjudication to benefits enrollment. "We are not approaching AI as a technology solution," Gummadi says. "We are approaching AI as an enterprise solution to help our clients in their business outcomes." This focus on outcomes rather than technology has allowed Cognizant to address what he describes as "value pools that we never had access to," including core business functions that were previously kept in-house. This shift toward data-driven operations represents more than a technological upgrade—it's health care evolving into an industry where intelligent information processing, rather than human labor alone, drives core functions and patient outcomes. "Twelve months ago, most of the enterprises were a bit skeptical, and they were approaching AI more from an experimentation angle," Gummadi notes. "Now, many companies in different sectors are moving from experimentation to scale." While regulatory concerns initially slowed AI adoption in health care's highly regulated environment, there are now ways for organizations to "leverage AI by staying within the regulatory guardrails." And as health care organizations race to implement AI solutions, they increasingly opt for outside services rather than build proprietary systems. "There is a common agreement across clients and the service providers that there is no point in reinventing the wheel. So, there is more appetite for partnerships," Gummadi says. "All of us are racing against time when it comes to AI."
Mint
09-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
Cognizant and Infosys are tapping a new trend in IT deals to combat tough times
Top companies globally are cutting down on the number of information technology (IT) outsourcers they are working with and consolidating work across silos to a few vendors in an effort to cut costs amid uncertainty over the US administration's flip-flops on trade tariffs. Infosys Ltd and Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp, two of India's biggest IT services companies, said during calls with analysts that the move towards so-called 'vendor consolidation deals' is poised to benefit them. Jayesh Sanghrajka, CFO of Bengaluru-based Infosys, and Sandeep Mahindroo, the company's financial controller, told analysts at Kotak Institutional Equities that such deals have become important for the company. 'The IT industry currently does not have a healthy flow of net new deals. Infosys has plenty of vendor consolidation deals in the pipeline, a key area of focus," said Kotak analysts Kawaljeet Saluja, Sathishkumar S, and Vamshi Krishna, in a note dated 6 June. A day earlier, larger peer Cognizant had echoed a similar perspective in a conversation between Surya Gummadi, president of Cognizant Americas, and Bank of America analyst Jason Kupferberg during the bank's annual global technology conference. 'The clients are not necessarily solving for vendor consolidation, but they are solving for cost optimisation," Gummadi said. 'To accomplish the cost optimisation, they are trying to break the silos across multiple vendors and they are trying to consolidate players to a few who can deliver maximum value and provide end-to-end solutions." Gummadi added that Cognizant is getting 'benefitted in that segment". Also read | Cognizant wins $1 billion deal from US-based healthcare company However, both Infosys and Cognizant said they have not seen any ramp-down in client spends or project cancellations. New Jersey-based Cognizant is considered an Indian heritage IT firm as about three-fourths of its employees are based in the country. To be sure, other Indian IT services companies such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), LTIMindtree Ltd, and Persistent Systems Ltd have also signalled that clients across segments are looking to reduce the number of IT outsourcers they work with. 'Companies do these vendor consolidation exercises to reduce expenses and incentivise their existing IT vendors to do the extra work at a lower cost," said Pramod Gubbi, founder of Marcellus Investment Managers. Tough times In terms of financial performance, Cognizant ended 2024–its financial year is from January to December–with $19.74 billion in revenue, up 1.98% compared to a revenue decline of 0.4% in 2023. To be sure, much of its growth has been powered by acquisitions. Infosys, India's second-biggest IT company, clocked 3.85% growth in revenue to $19.28 billion in the fiscal year ended March 2025, compared to 1.9% growth in the previous fiscal. Also read | Cognizant to hire 20,000 freshers in 2025 to support AI-led software services As for other IT companies, market leader TCS reported revenue growth of 3.78% to $30.18 billion in FY25, while third-placed HCLTech led growth in the market with revenues climbing 4.3% to $13.84 billion. However, two other large companies–Wipro Ltd and Tech Mahindra Ltd–reported revenue decline of 2.72% and 0.21%, respectively, to $10.51 billion and $6.26 billion. Large deals A bright spark for Cognizant was when Gummadi announced that the company won two deals upwards of $500 million since the start of 2025, one of which exceeded $1 billion. For Infosys, though, large deals were hard to come by, raising questions on revenue growth in the year ahead. The company reported a 34% year-on-year fall in value of large deals to $11.6 billion in FY25. To be sure, Infosys calls out only the large deals, those exceeding $50 million in annual revenue. Also read | Infosys CEO Salil Parekh gets 22% salary hike, payout now stands at ₹80.62 cr As for the current fiscal year, Cognizant expects to end 2025 with $21 billion, translating to a full-year revenue growth of 6.4%, even as Infosys projected flat-to-3% revenue growth in constant currency terms for FY26, its slowest projection at the start of the year since April 2009, when it had projected a revenue decline of 6.7-3.1% for FY10. However, the Kotak analysts are optimistic on Infosys's FY26 prospects. 'The strong positioning in cost take-outs, vendor consolidation exercises and AI will help Infosys weather the storm," said the Kotak analysts, adding that Infosys is vulnerable to pull-back in non-essential tech spending as it had higher exposure to such deals compared with peers.
Time of India
06-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Tariffs have led to caution in the life sciences segment: Cognizant's Gummadi
Bengaluru: As clients look for cost optimisation, they aim to break silos and move towards consolidating their IT services partners. "They want a partner who can give end-to-end solutions," Surya Gummadi, President of the Americas business at Cognizant , said during the recent Bank of America Securities 2025 Global Technology Conference. With GenAI disrupting businesses, Gummadi felt pricing will evolve significantly in the next six months as clients move towards outcome-based said AI brought a great deal of uncertainty, adding to the macroeconomic pressures. That, he points out, is the difference between the previous cycles of the economic crisis. He, however, believes GenAI will create newer opportunities for Cognizant. Meanwhile, the tariff war triggered by US President Donald Trump impacted business sentiment in life sciences, product and manufacturing, as well as retail, he told Bank of America analysts. "There is some caution in the healthcare space. Tariffs have led to caution in the life sciences segment. Product and manufacturing clients are dealing with tariff uncertainty, and retail clients have also shown it in their guidance. All this is having a cascading effect on IT projects," Gummadi said. Despite the tough environment, Cognizant signed three mega deals by the end of the second quarter. Cognizant started to see an uptick in deal momentum, in general. Compared to 2023, when the firm signed 17 large deals, the New Jersey-headquartered IT services firm signed 29 large deals in 2024. In a choppy environment, CTS managed to get an extension of its contract with the healthcare client, which is a $1 billion deal. The full-year trailing 12-month booking for 2024 was $27.1 billion. Get the latest lifestyle updates on Times of India, along with Eid wishes , messages , and quotes !
Mint
06-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
Cognizant wins $1 billion deal from US-based healthcare company
Bengaluru: Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. recently bagged a big-ticket deal from a US-based healthcare company, at a time when clients are renegotiating their engagements with information technology (IT) service providers due to artificial intelligence (AI) tools and macroeconomic uncertainty. In the early hours of Tuesday, Surya Gummadi, Cognizant's president for the Americas region, said the company had won a mega deal worth 'approximately a billion dollars" during a fireside chat with Jason Kupferberg, a senior analyst with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. To be sure, Gummadi did not announce the client's name. Mint has learnt from people with knowledge of the matter, including at least two analysts, that Cognizant might have renewed its partnership with UnitedHealth Group (UHG). 'This (deal) has an element of renewal, an element of expansion and a new (component) as well. It has all three components," said Gummadi, adding that the deal was a transformation deal with an average span of five years. The Cognizant veteran said the deal also has an AI component, where the IT services company is passing productivity gains to the client. Also read | Cognizant eyes a place amongst world's four largest IT services firms Should the client be UnitedHealth, a $1 billion contract translates to roughly $200 million in annual revenue for Cognizant, which counts UnitedHealth amongst its largest clients in the health sciences space. Cognizant has had a two-decade partnership with UnitedHealth. The health sciences vertical made up almost a third of its full-year revenue of $19.74 billion at the end of 2024 and is its biggest vertical. Cognizant, based in Teaneck, New Jersey, is an Indian-heritage IT firm, as more than three-fourths of its employees are based in India. UHG is among the largest healthcare companies in the US, providing healthcare plans to people. The company ended 2024 with $400 billion in revenue, almost 20 times the size of Cognizant. Close ties Notably, one of UnitedHealth's subsidiaries was hit by a ransomware attack last year that impacted more than 100,000 people. The company had to pay out $22 million to hackers to protect valuable patient data, said chief executive officer (CEO) Andrew Witty. Incidentally, Cognizant CEO S. Ravi Kumar and UnitedHealth chief digital and technology officer Sandeep Dadlani were former colleagues at Infosys Ltd. Kumar took over as Cognizant CEO in January 2023, whereas Dadlani joined as UnitedHealth's chief digital and technology officer in September 2022. Both worked together at Infosys between 2002 and 2017. Kumar and Dadlani both served as the Bengaluru-based company's presidents. At least one analyst said the win was a step in the right direction. 'It's a sign of strong forward momentum for the firm," said Phil Fersht, CEO of HFS Research. Also read | Captive concerns: Why Cognizant has called out the risk from GCCs This renewal deal comes as a shot in the arm for Cognizant, which has struggled to grow, discounting its recent acquisitions of Belcan and Thirdera, in the last two years. Acquisitions made up almost half of its full-year revenue growth of 8.2% in constant currency terms. For Cognizant, this is the second mega deal that the company signed in the last two months. Gummadi, in his chat with Bank of America, said the company had announced another deal fetching upwards of $500 million two weeks back. This is an unnamed client in the company's communication, media and telecommunications division, which makes up about 16.6% of the company's revenue. Gummadi said Cognizant is saving money for clients by using AI tools, and this is being shared with those clients, who are in turn putting these savings and some of their own investments into new IT-related work, which is helping create more volume of business for Cognizant. Cognizant declined to comment while an email sent to UHG went unanswered. Scarce deals 'And by the way, both the mega deals that I spoke about, they were originated by us. They did not come from an RFP (request for proposal). They (the mega deals) originated from a solution with this construct," he said. Cognizant's recent deal win comes amid a drought for the country's largest IT outsourcers, which have struggled to bag such large deals. Coforge Ltd was the only listed Indian IT outsourcer to win a deal greater than $1 billion in total contract value over the last year. Also read | Cognizant fared better than peers, but concerns linger In March, the country's seventh-largest IT services company signed a 13-year deal worth $1.56 billion with Sabre Corp., a Southlake, Texas-based travel technology company. As part of the deal, Coforge will handle Sabre's software product delivery and execute artificial intelligence-led tasks for it. Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy Services Ltd was the last of the country's top five software service providers to land a mega deal. Last year, it signed a 15-year deal worth $2.5 billion with Aviva, a British insurance company.
