CHENNAI - Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH), a leading provider of consulting, technology, and business process outsourcing services, announced the results of a research report, “Next-Generation CIOs: Change Agents for the Global Virtual Workplace.” The Economist Intelligence Unit conducted the research across Europe and North America and wrote the report, in cooperation with the Cognizant Business Consulting practice.

The report reveals the CIO’s role in restructuring how work is done throughout the organization. Among the more than 400 survey respondents, mostly CIO, CEO, vice president, and director-level, those who are moving toward more virtual, collaborative teams are benefitting from increased innovation, more effective talent recruitment and retention, and higher productivity. One in six said their companies are already seeing these results, and another one-fifth expect to garner benefits within a year.

“Business leaders today are exploring new ways of working in response to disruptive industry changes – globalization, new collaborative methods and technologies, and a rising tech-savvy generation of employees and consumers. The virtualization of people, processes, and technologies is resulting in faster time to market while unleashing innovation,” said Malcolm Frank, Senior Vice President, Strategy, Cognizant.

“Working with global knowledge-based companies, we witness first-hand how virtual teams are more likely to take hold when the CIO is engaged in the process. CIOs have the clout and the top-to-bottom perspective to enable business process change, weaving together collaborative business processes and platforms often based on cloud, social and mobile technologies to make work more productive and cost-effective,” said Mark Livingston, Senior Vice President, Cognizant Business Consulting.

The CIO should spearhead the transformation to a more virtualized workplace, according to 45 percent of respondents. Only CEOs ranked higher, with 47 percent, indicating the CIO is a strategic enabler who, alongside the CEO, can align IT capabilities with business needs.

Key findings include:

- Virtual team structures are fostering more productive relationships with internal and external partners.<BR>- Organizations that have embraced virtual teams benefit from increased innovation and competitiveness, but often lack methods to measure the quantitative impact on the bottom line.<BR>- CIOs have a unique enterprise-wide perspective and are familiar with the people, tools, technologies, and techniques needed to create a corporate culture of virtual teams.

The full report on the survey, “Next-Generation CIOs: Change Agents for the Global Virtual Workplace,” is available at www.cognizant.com/nextgencio.