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Cognizant uses Cortana Intelligence to deliver high-value solutions

Guiding customers through the digital landscape

Today, advances in computer technology allow corporations to achieve new heights in efficiency, customer care, and automation. Yet these advancements can also leave businesses scrambling to decide how to implement the plethora of new tools available to them.

Cognizant—a leading provider of business and technological services to several of the world’s largest corporations—helps organizations understand the power of digital technology for their businesses, and designs business solutions to deliver high-impact outcomes. By investing heavily in its intellectual property and by focusing on industry and domain knowledge, Cognizant differentiates itself from its competitors. With highly sought-after services, Cognizant has over 1,200 clients and operates across the globe.

Its size and breadth, however, have not stopped Cognizant from partnering with Microsoft to provide even better services, creating efficient and innovative solutions.

Navigating the digital core with BigDecisions

By focusing on digital business, digital operations, and digital systems practices, Cognizant helps its clients center themselves in the tech world.

Cognizant’s newest platform, BigDecisions, builds an intelligent information ecosystem that leverages the power of an organization’s internal data, integrating it with the most up-to-date external data. In particular, BigDecisions allows companies to build intelligence and analytics on top of their internal data sources, thereby optimizing business. Cognizant Vice President of Analytics and Information Management, Poornima Ramaswamy, explains that “BigDecisions leverages Microsoft's Cortana Intelligence product stack, SQL Server with R Services, as well as Power Platform.” She’s found that BigDecision’s implementation has boosted clients’ time to market by an average of 30-40 percent, and up to 50 percent when the business applications are included with the platform. Looking forward, BigDecisions will continue to play a role in Cognizant’s future. Ramaswamy says that “increasingly, Cognizant is adding the Microsoft AI product stack into the BigDecisions platform.”

“We've got a solution in the retail space, called ONERetail, that helps in all of the retail planning, the shop floor planning, the inventory optimization and so on. And that's a business application that we built on top of BigDecisions.”

— Poornima Ramaswamy, VP Analytics and Information Management, Cognizant

Customer solutions centered in big data innovation

Cognizant is working with Microsoft to develop analytical tools and cloud services for modern workplace environments. Joshua Soldati, Vice President & Global Head of Strategic Partnership, declares that “together, we can develop a joint answer” to how its clients can best integrate Microsoft technologies.

He bases his positive attitude on evidence. For example, a large pharmaceutical company and a joint customer of Cognizant and Microsoft benefitted from the pair’s service desk solution. In the solution, Cognizant used new Microsoft bot technology to help automate and streamline the entire support process.

Or look how with IoT technology and advanced analytics built on Microsoft Azure, Cognizant helped a large global heavy equipment manufacturer deliver real-time insights to farms, thereby enabling the customer to make more informed decisions regarding land use.

“Our customers see that our partnership with Microsoft allows us to innovate for them in ways that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to do. And that’s helping both boost our sales and deliver great new solutions.”

— Joshua Soldati, Vice President & Global Head of Strategic Partnership, Cognizant

From a sturdy foundation to sky-high achievements

Amidst the constant evolution of the digital world, Cognizant’s partnership with Microsoft remains a sturdy foundation to build on. “We love working with Microsoft. It's a very open, collaborative relationship and it's a trusted relationship as well,” says Ramaswamy.

In the future, Cognizant envisions putting together business outcome-based solutions for buyers to provide the best and most relevant service possible. Microsoft remains an integral part of that vision. “The depth of Cognizant’s partnership is increasing with Microsoft,” Ramaswamy notes, “I see no bounds to where it can go.” Soldati adds, “our customers see that our partnership with Microsoft allows us to innovate for them in ways that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to do on our own. And that’s helping boost both of our sales and deliver great new solutions.”

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