Social Media @ Cognizant Technology – Cognizant 2.0 platform for employees

Cognizant Technology Solutions is a global provider of custom information technology, consulting and business process outsourcing services and it has 137,700 employees and generates revenues of around US$ 6 billion. Cognizant has significant practices in key industry verticals including BFSI, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Retail & Logistics, Communications, Media & Entertainment, etc. Company has seen significant growth in the past few years and it has dethroned the Indian vendor Wipro from the third positions and is chasing Infosys for second position. Employees need to communicate with one another for project related activities and also for understanding each other personally and culturally. These interactions are essential for the global organizations to run smoothly, knowledge management, innovation and operational efficiencies. Cognizant believes that social media tools and content are valuable assets for the company and it has created a social media platform that integrates its knowledge management, work management, and partner engagement strategies. Employees collaborate and share knowledge and build client relationships using the Cognizant 2.0.

Cognizant had launched internal social networking through its Cognizant 2.0 platform that allows employees to interact among themselves in 2007. Cognizant spent nearly $10 million on its C2 platform according to IDC. Cognizant 2.0 maps the entire workflow, across varied skills, geographies and business units and it reduces time to identify the best team for the project. The network connects associates, clients, and stakeholders and also helps to share knowledge using blogs, wikis, read tweets, post queries and manage projects using consistent tools and process. C2 provides a virtual “town square” for more than 137,000 Cognizant associates and over 100,000 users have collaborated on hundreds of projects worldwide. Information is exchanged at a faster pace, with over 15,000 blog posts and more than 100,000 Techforum queries. C2 is integrated with the KM Appliance launched in 2006, which featured many tools that enable participation, such as blogs, wikis, bookmarking/tagging systems, and discussion forums that allowed user-generated and externally generated content to be available for use to the Cognizant employees.

According to internal analysis done by Cognizant in 2010, projects using Cognizant 2.0 technologies perform better than those that do not: a 15% improvement in productivity, an 8% improvement in delivery time, a 7% improvement in delivery on budget, and a 70% reduction in defects. Cognizanti is an exclusive online community launched in 2007 that was developed to allow external members to build and maintain professional networks, share experiences and best practices, as well as insights into industry trends and it has 2,500 community members include clients at executive levels and industry experts, including academics and industry analysts, in addition to key Cognizant personnel such as industry/business practice leaders. Cognizanti is a learning platform for both Cognizant and its partners. The factors for social media success in Cognizant are the senior management participation and its perception of social media being an extension of corporate culture, encouraging employees to participate and use the social networking platform for their work and projects, rewarding the employees for such usage, measuring the ROI and tracking and rating every knowledge asset in the organization. Cognizant has been one of the more successful companies in adopting and achieving value from social media tools.