We offer testing on a standalone basis

What is iZone all about?



Cognizants innovative ecosystem for testing, iZone, was launched in July 2009.
This platform was built with an objective to catalyze the ideation process,

streamline innovations and enable effective knowledge sharing. Within six months

of the launch, this platform was already being used by more than 75% of testing

professionals in Cognizant from across the globe. Currently, this platform has

more than fifty innovations and seventy-five solution accelerators available for

the testing community to deploy in their projects, and thereby make testing more

efficient and effective. The platform is helping us identify new service

offerings and new ways to deliver offerings to our clients.

Currently there is a shortfall of 15,000 testing

professionals in India? How would Cognizant address this market situation?



To meet this resource challenge, Cognizant has put in place an elaborate

recruitment and training program for its testers. At Cognizant, we recruit a mix

of engineering, science and commerce graduates from various colleges; business

analysts from premier B-schools; and also hire testing professionals from the

industry as laterals. Cognizant Academy, our in-house learning center, helps our

testing professionals to continuously upgrade their skills by offering a variety

of training and certification programs. We have invested significantly in

external certification programs aimed to help our professionals obtain

international testing certifications such as ISTQB, CSTE, PMP, and so on; and

domain certifications such as LOMA, AICPCU, NCFM, AHM, and others. We have

defined three definite career paths for our testing professionals, includingthe

project management track (where a tester progresses to become a test manager

handling delivery), the domain track (where a tester specializes in a specific

industry), and the test architect track.

What are the opportunities in the testing market for

end consumers?



Traditionally, companies offered testing services in an integrated fashion,

bundling them with application development and application maintenance services.

Today, companies such as Cognizant offer testing services on a standalone basis,

focusing on supporting the testing needs of enterprises and product companies

through IVV of their software. Hence, the testing teams are physically and

logically separated and are given full independence to report the test results

to the customers. More importantly, the testing team directly reports to the

business teams and not to the project managers or development heads, thereby

giving them the independence and objectivity to deliver value.

PC Suraj



surajp@cybermedia.co.in