Innovation Journal - Cognizant

REINVENT - THE REAL DEAL
3. Some applications were slow, especially when accessed from
locations far away from our data centers.
“Sometime in 2010, June to be precise, I became CIO of Cognizant
(Nasdaq:CTSH). Soon after starting on the new job, I checked with our
top management (CEO, President, Group Chief Executive) on the
primary goal of IT at Cognizant. They unanimously said, IT should
strive to produce “associate delight” (we call our employees
associates). On behalf of the team, I accepted this goal as a key
element of the IT charter – blame it on my newbie naïveté :)
When I checked with other CIOs on this, they were highly skeptical.
They said it is impossible for a corporate IT department within a
Fortune 500 firm to produce associate delight through software
applications. It seemed impossible indeed, but we were not deterred.
My team and I began our odds-against journey by discussing with
associates across the globe about the state of Cognizant’s IT systems
and identified five major problems:
1. Confusing navigation. There were just too many steps to reach the
target screen. Developed by different groups, each application had
its own multi-level menu structure. Lack of a common taxonomy
further complicated usability.
4. Each application had its own URL and required a separate login.
Sometimes, one application had many URLs. Bookmarking could
never keep up with this. Most importantly, new associates could
never easily figure out which application was available at which URL.
5. All applications were generating huge volumes of email alerts to
keep the workflow going. This resulted in tremendous e-mail overload.
Our timesheet application is a good example that illustrates the set of
problems we identified. Every fortnight, associates have to fill out their
timesheets.
In order to do that, they had to:
1. First log in to a URL that housed timesheet functionality.
2. Select a timesheet option from 25 alternatives listed on the landing
page.
3. Then, on the next page, click on the “Create Timesheet” button,
which is the only field on that screen.
2. Each screen had too many fields, which frustrated users. Users had
to go through several hours of training to use the key applications.
4. In the next page, use a calendar control to select the period end
date for the timesheet and then click “Add.”
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