Clients have been coming to Cognizant for more than two decades seeking simple solutions to complex digital problems, but the humility to focus its IT consulting expertise inward when required has often been at the center of that success.
Not long ago, Cognizant was still struggling to unify its growing footprint of global web properties. The revitalized digital experience that was driving strong results in the U.S. market hadn’t made the leap abroad, and Cognizant’s European employees were finding it increasingly difficult to engage local audiences using improvised solutions.
“It became clear that we weren’t giving our colleagues in the field all the support they needed to build trust and win mindshare in new markets,” said Keith Hensel, Global Digital Experience Lead at Cognizant. “We needed to reel in our inconsistent branding, revisit the fundamentals, and set up systems that would help keep everyone on the same page.”
This quest for consistency quickly led Cognizant to Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). The team was initially attracted to the powerful branding toolset and simple user interface — two attributes which would prove critical when centralizing content under a single corporate marketing umbrella. Marketing leaders were also intrigued by the potential to establish a single source-of-truth when managing updates.
Now that Cognizant had a solid, centralized platform to build upon, the next challenge concerned the content itself.
The Challenge: Searching for Fluency
Cognizant’s previous attempts at multilingual content hadn’t inspired much confidence across the organization. It had taken two years to fully implement two translated sites — thanks in large part to highly-manual translation workflows and complex coding requirements.
As a result, the content initially flagged for translation was already out-of-date by the time it found its way to a foreign audience. With Cognizant’s explosive growth, and executives already eyeing expansion opportunities on three continents, the team knew a fundamentally different approach to translation would be required. And in this instance, just as it had with AEM, the ideal solution distinguished itself with an elegant balance of simplicity and sophistication.
The Solution: Smartling
Europe soon became the proving ground for Cognizant’s new content power couple, with regional leaders adopting a measured approach to implementation. A shared homepage template helped established a baseline of brand consistency while plans for extended website experiences were prioritized according to market potential.
Smartling was able to quickly fill the global foundation built by AEM, automating the exchange of text between Cognizant and its translators to dramatically improve turnaround times. Additionally, the platform proved flexible enough to support the individual preferences and requirements of a wide array of users.
Digital transformation is never easy for large corporations — a reality Cognizant appreciates better than most. But the support of Adobe and Smartling has given employees renewed confidence in catering to their current audiences and welcoming entirely new ones into the conversation.
