Cognizant generates $200M sales pipeline by listening to employee conversations
What's the story
Cognizant, a leading IT services company, has generated an additional $200 million in sales pipeline by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze internal communications. The company's CEO Ravi Kumar revealed the figure during an AI Forum event last week. The innovative system, dubbed context engineering, sifts through signals produced by employees interacting with customers across various functions such as sales and support.
Innovative strategy
Context engineering: A new frontier for business automation
Kumar described context engineering as a novel approach for businesses. He explained that while software engineers used to write code to automate deterministic processes, AI systems now require companies to assemble and structure organizational context for better decision-making. The initiative is part of Cognizant's larger push into what Kumar calls context engineering, which aims at building organizational knowledge and business context for these systems.
Strategic partnership
Partnership with Workfabric
The context engineering initiative is being developed in partnership with Workfabric, a start-up co-founded by Rohan Murty, son of Infosys founder Narayana Murthy. The platform creates digital twins of customer accounts by integrating signals from various functions like sales, delivery, support, and finance. This AI system analyzes these interactions to spot business opportunities. For instance, it once suggested Cognizant's sales teams pitch a Quality Assurance optimization offering, when it detected a customer was under pressure to cut engineering costs.
Advanced capabilities
Proactive client issue detection and internal workforce deployment
The AI system can also proactively flag client issues before they escalate. By combining signals from employees working on an account globally, it can spot potential project risks and recommend actions, experts, and customer communications. Beyond sales, Cognizant has started using the technology internally for workforce deployment. The company can now identify employees with relevant experience for projects based on actual work done rather than just resumes and skills databases.