Cognizant Merges Three Software Practices Into One Group
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Cognizant is carrying out what Mint calls arguably its largest restructuring in nearly four years. The Nasdaq-listed IT services company is folding its application development, digital engineering and software testing practices into one software engineering group. The change took effect on 26 October.
The reason, according to an internal memo, is client demand for better returns on AI spending. "The gap between AI investment and proportionate returns is the defining challenge enterprises face today," the memo read.
Three building blocks
The new structure rests on Industry Delivery Units, Frontier Capability Units and Application Services Units. Staff were tagged to the new software engineering department, aligned to an industry unit or the application services unit, from 1 October. The earlier practices ran separately and were not organized by industry.
The industry units will serve financial institutions, healthcare and life sciences, product and resources companies, and communications, media and technology firms. The frontier units will build AI-native software products on models from Anthropic, OpenAI and Google's Gemini. Application services staff will specialize in mainframes, application management and software testing tools.
One internal communication described the group as "a full-stack, AI-native organization with a clear mandate to build, modernize and accelerate software delivery in an AI-driven market."
Preparing the workforce
The company says it has spent the last four months laying the groundwork for the change among employees. In June it introduced a "Bridge Program" to help staff move into what it called future-ready roles. It also encourages AI courses on its in-house learning app, SkillSpring.
Nearly three-fourths of Cognizant's workforce is based in India. The company ended 2025 with revenue of $21.1 billion, up 7% from a year earlier. In April it announced Project Leap, a transformation programme with expected costs of $230-320 million, of which $200-270 million is severance and other personnel-related costs. Cognizant expected savings of as much as $300 million this year.
Mint reports that Accenture consolidated several businesses under "Reinvention Services" in September 2025, and Tata Consultancy Services carried out a similar exercise in July 2026. Mint could not confirm who will lead the new units. Questions sent to Cognizant on Sunday went unanswered.
Source: Mint