Cognizant opened a Collaboratory Lab in London on Jul 13, 2017, the second lab in Europe after the first one in Amsterdam. Through these Collaboratory Labs, Cognizant aims to develop new digital solutions by bring together a team of multi-disciplinary experts including social scientists, design thinkers, creative technologists, engineers, and strategists. The lab offers dedicated space, technology and processes that are used by Cognizant in collaboration with clients and partners to design, prototype and build digital solutions. Thus far, Cognizant has opened four Collaboratory Labs in London, Amsterdam, New York, and Melbourne, and it aims to continue expanding this initiative in the future.
Cognizant adopts a three step methodology to develop solutions in its Collaboratory Labs:
IdeaLab: This phase includes idea generation in line with business and technology objectives. Cognizant includes its clients partners and participants from within the organisation to develop & refine ideas.
Collaboratory: Ideas are developed into prototypes and their results are validated with clients. The prototypes are used to do multiple experiments and generate feedback from clients. This helps in refining the solution and meeting client expectations.
Foundry: Prototypes are converted into products according to the scale at which they need to be implemented. At this stage they are also tested for large scale implementation and future growth requirements.
A similar initiative launched by Accenture is Liquid Studio. Through Liquid Studio, Accenture aims to collaborate with clients for accelerated software application development. Accenture uses agile & DevOps techniques to develop solutions in days rather than in months. Accenture works with clients to build solutions together, this helps in live demonstration & feedback. Accenture also aims to better capture the business objective in the solutions by, working together with clients.
Accenture has also been using its Liquid Studio to train and upskill its professionals in new and emerging technologies. The company has created a one year development program (Emerging Technologist Development Program), where its professionals are trained & deployed on client projects. Trained professionals form the Liquid Studio are better equipped to take on the digital transformation projects in client organisations and help in accelerated solution development.
Apart from setting up Liquid Studio, Accenture also conducts co-innovation workshops with its clients. It has conducted over 250 workshops in the first half of FY17 and expects to end the year with over 400 workshops. These workshops give clients a better outcome and also help Accenture to boost its revenue.