Cognizant chief executive officer (CEO) Ravi Kumar S believes that the scientific approach to businesses is a ‘huge blessing’. Speaking to news website Semafor, the CEO of the leading tech giant said that the ability to build, validate, iterate a thesis, and build a new hypothesis is a ‘fascinating grounding’ when asked what he learnt from being a nuclear scientist.
“The ability to build a thesis, validate a thesis, iterate the thesis, and build a new hypothesis, I think, is a fascinating grounding. I also have this unique draw from the job where you build your decision support on a combination of gut, data and gut,” said Kumar in an interview with Semafor.
Cognizant CEO’s decision-making process in business
Explaining the combination of ‘gut, data, gut’ in decision making, Kumar said that “for the first 20 per cent to 30 per cent, you run on gut because you have a curious mind and you’re asking questions; and the next 40 per cent you layer it with data; and then you double down on gut again because you don’t want to miss the bus.”
According to the chief of one of the world’s largest IT services providers, science is a very curious discipline, so it helps one to ‘stay curious and hungry’. Meanwhile, Kumar said he also expects artificial intelligence (AI) to open up a bigger market than Cognizant has ever accessed before, as clients seek help integrating the technology into their operations.
At the same time, he expects AI to have profound implications for the 350,000 people he employs, and for whom he decides to hire in the future. “The technologies of the past wanted to replace humans. With AI, you equip the human with the tooling so that their productivity is high,” said Kumar S.
Cognizant Q1 Results
Cognizant Technology Solutions raised its annual revenue forecast and beat first-quarter results last month, driven by increased demand for AI-powered IT services. In March, the company’s board approved a $2 billion increase to its ongoing share repurchase plan, raising the total remaining authorization to $3.1 billion.
Cognizant expects annual revenue in the range of $20.5 billion to $21.0 billion, compared to the previous outlook of the midpoint of $20.30 billion and $20.80 billion. According to news agency Reuters, analysts had, on average, expected $20.68 billion for 2025.
“We believe our differentiated AI and platform capabilities are helping clients navigate the near-term uncertainty while embarking on longer-term AI-led transformation” said CEO Ravi Kumar S. The New Jersey-based company’s first-quarter revenue was $5.12 billion, above analysts’ average estimate of $5.11 billion.