Operator: Our final question of the night will come from the line of Jamie Friedman with Susquehanna.
James Friedman: I was wondering if you could share some high-level observations, really, about in-sourcing trends. Is that any different than usual? Do you see acceleration or deceleration? And do you see that as friend or foe?
Ravi Kumar: That’s great question. I see that as a friend. In fact, I stated that if you carefully observe my initial comments, even before you asked this question, I had stated that if technology is strategic to our clients. And remember, technology was an enabler for our clients. Now it is strategic to them because is deeply embedded into their products. It is integral to the differentiation in the market. Every industry is a tech industry. We have to help our clients build their own technology muscle. And to help our clients build their own technology muscle, I think Cognizant is probably best suited to do so. Our entrepreneurial spirit, our flexible operating model, our co-creation attitude and our co-creation culture. We think, as companies build their own technology muscle, we will lend our human capital and I stated this in my remarks, that we would even lend this value chain of human capital which is not just the people to support their transformation but potentially lending our training infrastructure, our learning infrastructure, our ability to actually help them build their own captives if they want to, or global capability centers.
And I think that is sticky because once you do so, you can even lend your automation infrastructure, AI infrastructure and actually take them through that maturity curve. So it’s much more sticky than before. So I see this as an unique opportunity for Cognizant and we want to double down on this offering.
James Friedman: And then, you emphasized in your prepared remarks and it did not go unnoticed the sequential increase in the head count. And you’re one of the few companies, at least that I’m aware of, that’s growing their head count. So my question about that is are you anticipating, I would assume increased utilization and realization from that head count? Because the commitment to the head count is what we think of as a leading indicator — so — but where are you planning to deploy those people? And what gives you the confidence to be growing them right now?
Ravi Kumar: After very many quarters, we had sequential positive head count growth. Of course, it is a tiny number but it is reflective of the momentum of — the commercial momentum of large deals and bookings. It is reflective of the needs for the future and it is reflective of the needs of the near future. So I’m very, very — I’m very confident that if we continue on the deal booking momentum, we will have to increase our head count to fulfill and satisfy those programs. So it’s encouraging — it’s a very encouraging indicator about how well our commercial momentum is shaping up.
Operator: We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. And I would like to turn the floor back over to management for closing comments.
Tyler Scott: Great. Thank you all very much for joining. We look forward to catching up next quarter.
Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s Cognizant Technology Solutions third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for your participation.
