Cognizant launches innovation centre for Max Life Insurance in Chennai

IT services and consulting firm Cognizant on Tuesday launched an innovation and development centre in collaboration with Max Life Insurance in Chennai. The centre aims to bring together teams from both companies to accelerate Max Life’s digital transformation efforts.

The innovation and technology development centre aims to drive product innovations, enhance customer experiences and lead operational excellence for Max Life. Cognizant will utilise its expertise in consulting and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, automation, and cloud transformation to further enhance the digital experience for customers, the company said in a press release.

“The launch of this innovation-led joint offsite development centre is designed to bring to Max Life the ability to drive rapid pace to its core transformation programs, build superior customer experiences and drive delivery efficiency at scale,” said Manu Lavanya, Director and Chief Operations Officer, Max Life.

“We expect it to further accelerate our journey to become a leading digital driven life insurance player in our sector and enhance the overall pace of our digital transformation.”

Cognizant and Max Life’s has a decade and a half long association that has led to the deployment of several digital transformation initiatives in the past, including cloud migration, cutting-edge applications, payment gateway unifications and faster onboarding systems, among others. Cognizant’s solutions have helped Max Life modernise operations at scale and deliver seamless services to customers.

Achal Kataria, Vice President and India Country Head, Cognizant, said, “By harnessing our deep domain expertise and digital transformation capabilities we aim to help Max Life accelerate products to market and meet today’s customer demands for innovative and personalised services.”

Cognizant, which has been named 2023 leader in two application and digital services insurance reports by Everest Group, will announce results for the second quarter of 2023 on Wednesday, August 2.

In June, Cognizant announced a partnership with automation firm ServiceNow to advance the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven automation across industries. The expanded alliance is expected to accelerate the path toward building a $1-billion combined business for both. Cognizant’s ServiceNow Business Group will help joint clients challenged by rising costs, growing tech debt, manual processes and sub-optimal customer experiences deploy AI to drive performance.

The US-based software major announced in March that it would lay off 3,500 employees and reduce office space as part of the cost-cutting measures.

Cognizant's first quarter’s net profit increased 3% to $580 million. For the three months that ended in March 2023, revenue declined 0.3% year on year to $4.81 billion.

The company estimated that its revenues are expected to decline in 2023 as a result of the current distress in the industry and economic downturn as the majority of its revenues come from the US.