Cognizant to lay off 800 employees; Kingsoft to expand India presence

After reports of top-level hires, Cognizant is now laying off 800 employees. Hong Kong-based Kingsoft Office is planning to make India its second-largest market after China.

Cognizant to lay off 800 employees in life sciences & healthcare unit

New Jersey-based information technology services and consulting company Cognizant Technology Solutions is planning to lay off 800 employees in its life sciences and healthcare divisions, The Times of India reported. 

Many of those being laid off are working for the Pune delivery centre of Cognizant's healthcare administration subsidiary TriZetto, the report said. 

Some of the employees have already been assigned their last working day for the company, the report added

Cognizant's healthcare and life sciences division currently has over 30,000 employees. The division ranks second largest in terms of revenue for Cognizant after the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) division. 

It was reported earlier that Cognizant is hiring outside talent to spruce up its digital services. 

Kingsoft Office to expand India presence 

Hong Kong-based software solutions provider Kingsoft Office launched WPS Office 2020 in India and plans to make it their core market after China, the company said in an official statement. 

The India foray was also marked by the global launch of WPS Office 2020, the latest iteration of its office software suite. 

The existing versions of WPS Office have more than 23 million monthly active users (MAUs) in India, the statement added.

The WPS Office 2020 is now available online for a variety of operating systems such as Mac, Windows, Linux, Android and iOS. 

BPM firms report growth on analytics push

Growth in demand for digital services has increased for business process management (BPM) companies Genpact and EXL Services as clients have stepped up investment in data analytics, The Economic Times reported.

New York-based information technology services company Genpact grew more than 20% in the quarter ended June after striking a deal with retail giant Walmart, the report said. 

EXL Services has re-oriented its offerings as it stepped up analytics solutions, which now account for nearly one-third of its revenue, the report added.

Actico launches new machine learning platform

Chicago-based software solutions provider Actico has launched the latest version of its machine learning (ML)-driven automation platform, the company said in an official statement. 

A key feature of the newly launched software offering is that it facilitates transparency of processes made by the software algorithms. The feature makes decisions made by the solution fully explainable, the statement said.

Actico’s new software offering will find applications across the banking and financial services sectors, facilitating tasks such as credit risk assessment, tracing the origin of loans, fraud detection, dynamic pricing and customer engagement, the statement added.