-- Cognizant Also Named a Leader in Strategic Consulting in Manufacturing and Supply Chain, and Sales and Marketing 

TEANECK, New Jersey, Feb. 20, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) today announced that it has been positioned as a "Leader" in the IDC Health Insights "IDC MarketScape" worldwide IT and BPO vendor assessments* across the entire life sciences value chain: Research and Development, Manufacturing and Supply Chain, and Sales and Marketing. Cognizant was also named a "Leader" in Strategic Consulting across Manufacturing and Supply Chain, and Sales and Marketing.

The evaluations were based on a comprehensive framework, and assessed service providers across key characteristics, including functionality or offering road map, delivery model, portfolio strategy, customer base, go-to-market capabilities, customer references, pricing model, sales/distribution strategy, marketing strategy, engagement capabilities, growth strategy, financial and funding model, employee strategy, and innovation/R&D pace and productivity.

"Cognizant has extensive experience working with life sciences companies across all three sections of the industry: pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical devices," the reports noted. Based on feedback from multiple customer references, Cognizant scored high marks for technical skills, project/account management capabilities, understanding of clients' business needs, ability to rapidly staff projects to minimize business disruption, and overall value delivered to clients.

"Being the only company to be positioned as a Leader in eight of the nine reports spanning the life sciences value chain validates our extensive industry experience and integrated service capability to help life sciences companies remain competitive for the future," said Shankar Narayanan, Vice President of Cognizant's Life Sciences practice. "To maximize returns and enhance agility, life sciences companies must optimize clinical systems and pharmaceutical discovery, pre-clinical, and product development processes, while building a stronger compliance foundation, streamlining the managed markets lifecycle, and strengthening customer and stakeholder relationships. Maintaining market leadership is no longer just about 'running better' by enhancing clinical operations, drug safety, and sales effectiveness. It is also about 'running different' by developing new strategies, skills, and routes to market, adopting best-in-class industry practices, and leveraging next-generation SMAC (social, mobile, analytics, and cloud) technologies to improve health outcomes. In Cognizant, life sciences companies have a partner who can help them balance between highly regulated and rapidly innovating environments."

"Under increasing market and regulatory pressure, life sciences companies are looking to improve enterprise agility, develop drugs faster, and eliminate waste from all manufacturing and supply chain–related processes," said Eric Newmark, Program Director of IDC Health Insights' Commercial Life Sciences research. "Companies are also looking to automate and optimize reoccurring sales activities, consolidate disparate information sources, optimize multichannel sales and marketing operations, improve sales force effectiveness and efficiency, and broaden their adoption and utilization of mobile platforms. Many companies are expanding BPO into knowledge-based areas such as analytics, business intelligence, and predictive modeling. There continues to be strong demand for external partners that have strong life sciences–specific industry expertise and can help life sciences companies design and optimize enterprise technologies and go-to-market strategies, while improving regulatory compliance capabilities."

"BPO in the life sciences industry is growing rapidly as companies have determined that tasks like clinical data management and drug safety are activities that can be competently outsourced to external service providers, yielding both operational agility and direct cost savings," said Alan Louie, Research Director of IDC Health Insights' clinical development, technology, and strategy research. "Data- and information-centric activities will likely remain under the domain of IT service providers, based on their superior pricing capabilities and the ability to leverage their cross-industry IT expertise with industry-specific knowledge. This bodes well for the life sciences R&D BPO IT vendor ecosystem, which should continue to grow over the foreseeable future."

*Cognizant was positioned as a "Leader" in the following reports:

1. "IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Life Science Manufacturing and Supply Chain ITO 2013 Vendor Assessment" (document number #HI244265, dated November 2013)
2. "IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Life Science Manufacturing and Supply Chain Strategic Consulting 2013 Vendor Assessment" (document number #HI244494, dated November 2013)
3. "IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Life Science Manufacturing and Supply Chain BPO 2013 Vendor Assessment" (document number #HI244446, dated November 2013)  
4. "IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Life Science Sales and Marketing ITO 2013 Vendor Assessment" (document number #HI243591, dated October 2013)
5. "IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Life Science Sales and Marketing Strategic Consulting 2013 Vendor Assessment" (document number #HI244309, dated November 2013)
6. "IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Life Science Sales and Marketing BPO 2013 Vendor Assessment" (document number #HI243884, dated October 2013)
7. "IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Life Science R&D ITO 2013 Vendor Assessment" (document number #HI245309, dated January 2014)
8. "IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Life Science R&D BPO 2013 Vendor Assessment" (document number #244934, dated December 2013)

Cognizant was positioned as a "Major Player" in the following report:

• "IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Life Science R&D Strategic Consulting Services 2014 Vendor Assessment" (document number #HI246518, dated February 2014)  

About IDC MarketScape 
IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT (information and communications technology) suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor's position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of IT and telecommunications vendors can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective vendors.

About Cognizant's Healthcare and Life Sciences Practice 
Cognizant's Healthcare and Life Sciences practice is committed to helping change millions of lives for the better by partnering with clients to build solutions to healthcare challenges, continually improve the way they do business, set the pace in clinical development, strengthen their regulatory infrastructure, and increase competitiveness. Consistently ranked among the top 10 on the Healthcare Informatics Top 100, Cognizant serves 27 of the top 30 global pharmaceutical companies, 15 of the top 20 health plans in the U.S., 5 of the top 6 pharmacy benefit management companies in the U.S., 9 of the top 10 biotech companies, and 12 of the top 20 medical device companies. With a large team of dedicated professionals including doctors, pharmacologists, physicians, biomedical engineers, pharmacists, biostatisticians, medical writers, and GxP consultants, the practice provides domain-aligned consulting, IT, business process and analytics solutions globally.

About Cognizant 
Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, dedicated to helping the world's leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry and business process expertise, and a global, collaborative workforce that embodies the future of work. With over 50 delivery centers worldwide and approximately 171,400 employees as of December 31, 2013, Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked among the top performing and fastest growing companies in the world. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com or follow us on Twitter: Cognizant.  

Forward-Looking Statements 
This press release includes statements which may constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the accuracy of which are necessarily subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as to future events that may not prove to be accurate. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied include general economic conditions and the factors discussed in our most recent Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Cognizant undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

SOURCE Cognizant