Cognizant, one of the world’s leading professional services companies, announced its June quarter financial results for 2023.
Ravi Kumar S, CEO said, “We made continued progress during the quarter amid an uncertain economic backdrop.”
“We maintained our commercial momentum, with strong bookings growth of 17% year over year, including roughly a third of in-quarter bookings from large deals,” Ravi Kumar S added.
“We also saw a return to sequential revenue growth, and our initial investment in the Cognizant Neuro AI platform has helped drive more than 100 early engagements as clients embrace generative AI”, Ravi Kumar S said.
Ravi Kumar S further said, “The continued reduction in our voluntary attrition, improved employee engagement, and higher customer satisfaction scores reflect the interdependence of our client and employee experience.”
Employee Metrics
Total headcount at the end of the second quarter was 345,600, a decrease of 5,900 from Q1 2023 and an increase of 4,300 from Q2 2022.
Amid the global layoffs and economic uncertainty, recently, India’s IT companies Infosys, Wipro, and HCL Tech have also reported a drop in head counts.
| Company | Q4FY23 | Q3FY23 | Q2FY23 | Q1FY23 |
| Infosys | 3,43,234 | 3,46,845 | 3,45,218 | 3,35,186 |
| Wipro | 2,56,921 | 258,744 | 258,574 | 2,58,574 |
| HCL | 2,25,944 | 2,22,270 | 219,325 | 2,10,966 |
Voluntary attrition – Tech Services on a trailing-twelve-month basis, declined to 19.9% from 23.1% in Q1 2023 and 31.1% in Q2 2022.
Chief Financial Offer Jan Siegmund to Retire in Early 2024
Cognizant also announced that Jan Siegmund intends to retire in early 2024 to spend more time with family and friends and focus on philanthropy.
The Company will identify a successor until the transition period is completed. Cognizant is conducting a search and evaluating internal and external candidates.
“We also announced that our CFO Jan Siegmund intends to retire in early 2024. As we begin the search for the Company’s next CFO, we appreciate Jan’s many contributions to Cognizant over the past three years”, Ravi Kumar S said.
“I would also like to personally thank Jan for his partnership since I joined the team in January, and his willingness to work collaboratively with his eventual successor to ensure a smooth transition”, Ravi Kumar S added.
Return of Capital to Shareholders
The Company repurchased 3.2 million shares for $200 million during the second quarter under its share repurchase program. As of June 30, 2023, there was $2.4 billion remaining under the share repurchase authorization.
In August 2023, the Company declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.29 per share, a 7% increase year-over-year, for shareholders of record on August 21, 2023. This dividend will be payable on August 29, 2023.
“Cognizant’s second-quarter revenue grew more than 1% sequentially, at the high-end of our guidance range, while profitability was slightly ahead of expectations,” said Jan Siegmund, Chief Financial Officer.
Jan Siegmund said, “Our NextGen program is on track and yielding early savings through our efforts to structurally reduce our cost base to fund investments for growth. Maintaining our balanced capital allocation approach, we have returned over $700 million to shareholders year-to-date.”