Five Questions With Francisco D'Souza, Cognizant Technology Solutions

Cognizant Technology Solutions is on a roll. With sales of $586.7 million, the Teaneck, N.J.-based offshorin' IT outsourcer (No. 75 on the 2005 VARBusiness 500) has been building organically and through acquisitions. Stateside, COO Francisco D'Souza, No. 2 on Cognizant's executive ladder, shares his thoughts about the company's growth.

»What's keeping you up at night? The challenge of scaling this business in a controlled way. We had 15,000 employees at the end of 2004, and we expect to have 23,000 employees at the end of 2005. With the increased demand we're experiencing, we want to continue to provide high-quality services [while] making sure we don't lose sight of execution and focus on the customer. I don't want to compromise.

»Tell us about Fathom, the vertical consultancy that Cognizant recently picked up for $19 million. It's a Chicago-based company started in 1999 with about 120 employees. I can't tell you its annual sales, but I can tell you that Cognizant expects to do about $206 million in our second quarter, and $6 million of that will come from Fathom.

»Who approached whom? We did--about seven months ago. Cognizant has a group looking for specific types of firms. We looked at a number of companies and targeted Fathom in the telecom space. It has deep industry experience and a strong relationship with its customers. We also liked its single-minded focus on the customer.

»What percentage of Cognizant's business is conducted on this continent? North American customers represented 86 percent of our total revenue in 2004. We are also in the process of building delivery capacity in Canada.

»If there are more deals on the horizon for Cognizant, what will they look like? We would like to get stronger in utilities and energy. The company is very interested in open source. We've seen increased interest in it from our clients. And we would like to expand our geographic footprint in continental Europe. Our European clients are adapting to offshoring. We are very well-covered in the United States.