This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on June 6, 2016.

KUALA LUMPUR: Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp, a Nasdaq-listed information technology (IT), consulting and business process outsourcing (BPO) services provider, is aiming to tap into the fast-growing Asia-Pacific market by setting up a delivery centre in Malaysia.

Cognizant has set up the delivery centre in April to help serve its clients from various sectors such as finance and oil and gas in Malaysia and the region.

Cognizant vice-president and head for Asia-Pacific, Jayajyoti Sengupta, said the move is expected to boost the group’s revenue in Asia-Pacific, which grew about 30% last year.

The group began its operations in Malaysia six years ago, but the old premise was smaller and was mainly to serve a few anchor customers, Jayajyoti recalled.

He explained that what Cognizant does is help its clients in their digital transformation journey, not just in IT transformation, but business strategy transformation that needs to be enabled by technology.

It also helps companies optimise their existing spending to help fund the transformation.

Jayajyoti believed that Asia has huge potential for growth given that the companies are now more ready to embrace digital transformation as they have no legacy issues.

He explained that companies in the United States have invested millions in their legacy and they would have to consider their legacy before moving on to another new technology. In comparison, companies in Asia are mostly not digitised yet and would have no restriction when it comes to embracing new IT.

“We have a large component of consulting businesses, we have traditional IT services, we have digital component, which is slowly gaining momentum and becoming more mainstream,” Jayajyoti told The Edge Financial Daily in an interview.

He added that recent developments on the legislation on intellectual property and data protection in Malaysia and the region also provide growth opportunities for the group.

Cognizant saw its revenue jump 21% for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2015 (FY15) to US$12.41 billion from US$10.26 billion in FY14. Its operating profit also rose 13.8% to US$2.14 billion in FY15, compared with US$1.88 billion in FY14.

The group’s main contribution is from North America region, which accounted for 79% of its revenue last year. Another 16.2% was derived from the European region, and the remaining 5.2% from the rest of the world, primarily Asia-Pacific.

“We believe the Asian market has the potential to grow faster, including Malaysia,” its executive vice-president for Continental Europe and Asia-Pacific Santosh Thomas said.

Santosh said this is a good time in technology, as it has moved from a support function to become an enabler of strategy.

“There isn’t a single boardroom today that is not worried about what technology can do for them, but what they are not doing, which will enable competition to do what they are doing,” he added.

As technology changes rapidly everyday, Santosh believed it is important for Cognizant to develop talents who have the skills and the right attitude for the group. And one of the reasons why Cognizant set up its delivery centre here is because it is able to access to thousands of talents in Malaysia.

Jayajyoti concurred, saying the group prefers to stay in Kuala Lumpur for now as it can source talents from the Klang Valley and also nearby states such as Melaka.

“As we grow in scale, we will definitely look at other locations such as Johor and Sarawak, where we are looking at some universities to source talents,” he added.