Software Engineering:
Designing a Better
Experience forCommunications,Media and Technology
Customers
Software makes the world go ‘round, from hyperefficient business
operations to users wowed by the newest app interface and digitalproducts. For CMT companies, software development innovationis the key not only to enhancing business agility but to rapidly
designing and offering extraordinary experiences and cuttingedge products that will continually satisfy and delight customers.

September 2020

Executive Summary
With the ubiquitous presence of software in our digital lives, one
might conclude that the world’s operating system is in fact built on
software code. But this is a case where the paths of perception andreality actually diverge.
Yes, software is now an enabler of operational efficiency and innovation, and the basis of a growing
range of products and services used at work, in the car, at home or anywhere people connect. Indeed,
it is safe to say that increasingly, software is the business. As a result, the ability to quickly develop anddeploy software is now central to commercial success. This is especially true in the communications(i.e., cable and telco), media/entertainment and technology (CMT) industries, where companies havepioneered the digital revolution and led the way in putting software at the heart of the business.1
Not surprisingly, 94% of CMT respondents in our recent global study, which included more than 1,000
CMT senior executives, said they believe that software engineering is critical to their company’s future.
And they see better software engineering as a means to achieve a range of business goals, including
delivering a better customer experience, increasing business agility, accelerating time-to-market,
reducing costs and enabling growth. (See Methodology, page 22.)
But here’s where perception and reality begin to part ways. The truth is, many companies struggle tobuild the software-development capabilities they need to truly operate as software-driven enterprises.
In our survey, only 25% of the CMT executives said that their company has rolled out a large-scale
implementation of new software-development practices or is in the process of doing so. Even after
decades of advancements in software helped rebuild established brands and launch app-only billiondollar unicorns, the reality is that most companies remain in the planning or pilot-project stages with
their software-development improvement initiatives. Across the broad range of CMT companies,
some sectors are farther along on their software journey than others. The digital road is being pavedwith software, but it’s still a work in progress.
To move forward, companies should take advantage of sophisticated techniques for building softwarethat draw on modern engineering principles and focus on customer experiences and continuous
experimentation. To do this, enterprises should use human-centered design – which incorporates
customer/user input throughout the development process – and “outcome engineering” – which

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brings design and engineering together to create innovative products and processes, to help keep
development focused on people and the customer experience.
Even more important, CMT companies need to adopt new approaches to their people, teaming
and culture that will enable them to get the most from today’s advanced tools and technology. They
should reshape the software-development organization by establishing a cocreation mindset andempowering teams to thrive and realize their full potential. Companies can start by creating a centerof excellence, enabling inspiration among peers and building a sense of belonging and pride. They
should also embrace a cross-functional team “pod” approach, which fosters speed, quality andinnovation.
However, as the world operates with more remote workers, virtual pods will add a dimensionof complexity. But whether it’s a team under one roof or individuals digitally connected but
geographically distanced, three things are true of successful software-centric organizations:Companies require a culture that values collaboration and partnering in a pod model, has a “fail andlearn fast” mindset, and encourages the organization and its employees to work in a more unified way.
(For more, see “Understanding How to Fail: The Essential Ingredient of Radical Innovation.”)As COVID-19 has made clear, business agility and resilience are of paramount importance and will
determine which companies thrive. Thus, many CMT companies will want to harness innovative
software engineering approaches to create new systems or modernize their legacy systems, making
them more efficient and flexible.
Even though IT organizations are aware of the importance of mastering software development, thatview is not necessarily shared across the business. In our survey, 34% of CMT respondents ranked
poor perception of the business impact of software engineering as a top obstacle to implementation,and 80% said their efforts are hampered by a lack of budget. An enhanced ability to create softwarethat delivers business results can encourage strong senior executive support and, ideally, foster asoftware-centric culture throughout the company.
Redesigning a company’s approach to software engineering is a significant undertaking. But theworld, and the competition, are not standing still. A failure to act quickly will mean falling ever further
behind more proactive competitors and potentially put the organization’s long-term survival at risk.

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Software engineering: Great – yet still unmet –expectations
Across industries, senior executives are catching up to the factthat software is very much at the heart of the business. It is the key
to efficiency and innovation, the primary touchpoint for reachingcustomers and engaging employees, and integral to many products
and services.
CMT companies are among the first to recognize this new reality. They have long been early adopters oftechnology and pioneers in putting software at the center of the business. That’s because they need toprovide customers with a steady flow of new, engaging experiences and adapt quickly to sudden shifts intechnologies, competition and business models – all of which make the ability to manage, create and deploy
software quickly and on an ongoing basis a key capability.
Our survey found that executives from CMT companies not only view software engineering as critical to
future success, they expect it to help them meet a range of key goals, including:

4 / Software Engineering: Designing a Better Experience for Communications, Media and Technology Customers

❙ Deliver hyper-personalized consumer and employee experiences. CMT executives most often ranked“improve customer experience, engagement and retention” (42%) as one of the top three expected
benefits of software engineering – as one might expect in industries where a digitally enabled experience isoften the core of the business.
❙ Increase business agility. For CMT companies, evolving business models and constant technology-driven
disruption have been the norm for years, and 30% of CMT respondents ranked “make our business moreagile and flexible” among the top three expected benefits.
❙ Boost efficiency to reduce costs. ”Enable operational efficiencies” was cited among the top threebenefits by 30% of CMT executives. Software engineering can also yield additional tactical benefits related
to efficiency, such as reduced cycle times for developing, testing and building applications.
❙ Enable growth. For CMT companies, expected benefits such as an improved customer experience,increased agility and shorter time-to-market can create opportunities to reach customers and increase
revenue. Overall, 30% of CMT executives said that they anticipate that software engineering would improve
competitiveness.
❙ Accelerate time-to-market. CMT customers expect a constant stream of innovations, and 25% of CMT
executives cited “scale products more quickly from ideation to revenue realization” as a top benefit,
while 20% cited “keep pace with market needs.” Interestingly, the ability to scale products quickly wasless important to respondents at technology companies (21%), compared to those in communications(33%), media (28%) and entertainment (29%). (See “Making Small Business TV Advertising Easy & CostEffective,” next page.)

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Quick Take
Making Small Business TV
Advertising Easy & Cost-Effective
Challenge:
Comcast, one of the world’s largest cable, media and technology companies, as well as a leading
distributor of advertising across linear and digital platforms, had found that one advertiser
segment proved particularly challenging to engage: small and midsized businesses (SMBs), whoseneeds and budgets differ from larger advertisers. Comcast’s advertising sales division, Effectv,
embarked on a journey to help SMBs evolve the way that they connect with target audiences andpromote their businesses.
Solution:
To uncover and meet the unique demands of SMBs, Effectv partnered with us and ReD Associates,
our partner that specializes in ethnographic research. Conducting deep field research with small
businesses nationwide to learn how they make marketing decisions, ReD Associates uncovered that
TV advertising in particular can help smaller businesses expand their reach and impact. We appliedthat insight to forge an industry-first solution: the Effectv TV Ad Planner, an innovative, advertiserdriven media-buying platform specifically designed for the unique needs of small businesses. This
helped SMBs see TV as a more accessible, affordable and understandable medium in which to spend
their ad dollars, and enabled them to reap the benefits by planning, buying and quickly launching
their own TV ad campaigns.
Outcomes:
Effectv TV Ad Planner has become a solid source of qualified leads and served to increase theaverage campaign spend across the SMB segment. “We were able to research, plan, build and launch
Ad Planner in just four months,” said Travis Parrill, Effectv’s Senior VP of Operations. By helping
identify the needs of SMB owners, this breakthrough application for its industry yielded these results:❙ Four months from concept to market.
❙ 10 minutes on average for SMBs to create a campaign.
❙ 48 hours for SMB owners to run their ads.

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Executives from CMT companies clearly see significant potential in effective software development – but there
is a gap between their expectations and the actions their organizations are taking. Indeed, many reported
only limited progress in their efforts to improve software engineering (see Figure 1). Only 9% of CMT
respondents said their company has rolled out a large-scale implementation of new software-development
practices, while 16% said they were in the process of doing so. Most companies remain in the planning stages
or are working on pilot projects. Further, only 52% of CMT executives said their companies have a software
engineering strategy in place. So, while executives have high hopes for better development capabilities, they
appear to be unsure about how to get there.
To accelerate their software engineering push, CMT companies will have to adopt a variety of new
approaches, including today’s new and sophisticated development tools and processes, such as outcome
engineering and DevOps. Organizations will also need to retain top talent by ensuring skills are in step withthe latest trends and that their employees feel they are contributing to business outcomes. But perhaps mostimportant, they will need to transform the development organization itself to take full advantage of those
tools – by empowering people and teams and building a software-centric culture that values collaboration,
partnering and risk-taking.

CMT software engineering shows much room for progress
9%Completed transition from PoC/pilot to large-scale use

16%

In the process of transitioning from PoC/pilot to large-scale use
Finished pilot

6%
11%

A pilot is underway
Planning a pilot

10%
22%

Testing proofs of concept
Planning underway for our initial proof of concept

19%
7%

Identified use cases
0

5

10

15

20

25

Response base = 798 CMT executives
Source: Cognizant
Figure 1

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Executives from CMT
companies clearly see
significant potential in effective
software development – butthere is a gap between their
expectations and the actions
their companies are taking.
Indeed, many reported only
limited progress in theirefforts to improve software
engineering.
8 / Software Engineering: Designing a Better Experience for Communications, Media and Technology Customers

Making the human connection
Today, companies can draw on a variety of sophisticated softwarebuilding methods that use modern software engineering principles,
focus on experiences and continuous experimentation, and effectively
gather user feedback along the way. These approaches tightly alignbusiness needs with the software under construction – a key benefit,
since it’s generally accepted that 20% of defects stem from problems
capturing business requirements.2
With the increasingly personalized and pervasive nature of their digital products, CMT companies are
typically focused on delivering more human-centric products and services. With that in mind, the principles
of human-centered design should permeate the development process, with user input to understandpeople’s requirements, goals and behaviors.
Companies can also apply a behavioral science framework to explore end-user needs, track productusage to identify customer behaviors, and deploy the predictive capabilities of AI to anticipate whatcustomers want. Additionally, they can employ outcome engineering to keep development focused on
meeting customer needs.

With the increasingly personalized and pervasive nature of
their digital products, CMT companies are typically focusedon delivering more human-centric products and services.
With that in mind, the principles of human-centered design
should permeate the development process, with user input
being deployed to understand people’s requirements, goals
and behaviors.

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CMT companies are making use of some of these approaches. (See “Creating a Human-Centered Portal,”
next page.) About two-thirds of the CMT respondents said their companies’ adoption of human-centric
design, design thinking and experience was significant. But overall, the industry is not taking full advantageof these processes to gather customers’ insights. For example, just 52% of CMT respondents reported asignificant level of design-thinking-led change in customer engagement on all channels. Only 47% said they
are using behavioral science frameworks, 37% are tracking product usage/behavior insight and just 17% areusing predictive AI for customer insight (see Figure 2).
However, there were differences across the CMT industries in the use of these techniques. For example,
communications companies were the most likely to report tracking products/behavior (50%), followed bytechnology (40%), entertainment (33%) and media (30%) companies. And about one in five communications
and technology companies reported using predictive AI to understand customers, compared to about one in
10 among both media and entertainment companies.

Adoption of human-centrism in CMT industries is substantial
but still needs expansion
Customer research is carried out by spending time with actual users

49%

We explore end-user needs using a behavioral science framework

47%

IoT, intelligent devices and sensors are employed togather inputs about needs and experience

42%
37%

We track product usage and gather user behavior insights

17%

We use predictive capabilities of AI to anticipate customer needs
0

10

20

Note: Multiple responses permitted.
Response base = 1,026 CMT executives
Source: Cognizant
Figure 2

10 / Software Engineering: Designing a Better Experience for Communications, Media and Technology Customers

30

40

50

Quick Take
Creating a HumanCentered Portal
Challenge:
At a global software-as-a-service company, people were struggling to use the employee
service portal due to an inconsistent user interface, fragmented information architecture andpoor navigation features. The company asked us to help reimagine the portal and roll it out
globally.
Solution:
We began by auditing the company’s applications and hosting design-thinking workshops.
Using an employee-centric approach, we then designed new service applications, centralized
the platform’s information, implemented better search capabilities and introduced AI-driven
virtual assistants.
Outcomes:
After it was launched, the new portal quickly became a one-stop service destination for thecompany’s more than 7,000 employees. With a better user experience and easy access to
information, this new portal helped:❙ Improve employee productivity.
❙ Increase employee use of self-service functions.
❙ Increase employee portal usage by 81%.

Software Engineering: Designing a Better Experience for Communications, Media and Technology Customers / 11

Software of the people,
by the people and for the people
In effective software engineering, tools and techniques are just part ofthe equation. Companies also need to look at the software-development
organization itself, and change it while sustaining progress – that is, dowhat we call “transforming while performing.”3
To build on the advantages of DevOps, Agile and outcome engineering, modern businesses will have toaddress critical human factors – i.e., the needs of people – to achieve the desired impact on the business.
In order to create a true software-centric culture, companies need a clear vision, and an ability to influence
outcomes by taking a design-thinking approach.
Culture is the root of consistently creating stand-out software products and services on a sustainable,
ongoing basis. Not surprisingly, our respondents underscored its importance, yet noted difficulties in
adopting new approaches that conflict with existing conventions. In fact, 96% of CMT respondents said
software engineering disciplines presented challenges for their company’s culture (see Figure 3). To help
overcome those challenges, we suggest that organizations focus on three vital culture-related areas: how
software development teams collaborate, the approach to talent and enablers that embed the right mindset
in the organization.

A move to modern software engineering poses a major cultural challenge
4%Yes, it was culturally challenging

35%

Somewhat culturally challenging

61%

No, it was not culturally challenging

Response base = 798 CMT executives
Source: Cognizant
Figure 3
12 / Software Engineering: Designing a Better Experience for Communications, Media and Technology Customers

Mix it up: Build boundary-crossing teams
Teams are important, but “team” should be a loosely defined term, with no set number of participants – andtypically, a team only grows stronger with synergistic contributions from cross-functional perspectives. Basedon our experience, software development teams should include communities and pods – two groups thattogether foster speed, quality and innovation. At our company, for example, communities of talent cometogether as pods. With a goal of creating better user experiences, members collaborate to infuse technology,
design and product-led thinking at every step. Using that type of model helps foster cross-functional teams
that are plugged into the company’s innovation vision. (See “Intrado Expects to Free Up $13 Million Annually
Through Cloud Adoption Deployed by Pods,” next page.)
Communities transcend traditional departmental boundaries. Each community focuses on a specific areaof expertise, such as robotics or machine learning. It provides a forum for skilled experts to share, grow andhone their knowledge. Pods are small, cross-functional, agile teams that perform all the tasks needed tosuccessfully complete a given project and deliver a specific product or solution. A pod will draw on various
communities to assemble the ideal combination of knowledge and expertise.
This community-and-pod model unites product design, engineering and quality assurance to foster greatercollaboration and help ensure that the right expertise is available for each project.

Software Engineering: Designing a Better Experience for Communications, Media and Technology Customers/ 13

Quick Take
Intrado Expects to Free Up $13
Million Annually Through Cloud
Adoption Deployed by Pods
Challenge:
Intrado (formerly West Corp.) builds the software that powers services sold bycommunications services providers, such as 911 calling, videoconferencing, call center
operations and messaging. More than 200 legacy applications used different platforms,
languages and middleware. Most applications depended on multiple other applications, so
deploying new code took up to 12 months.
Solution:
We migrated the entire application portfolio to Pivotal Cloud Foundry – a platform-asa-service (PaaS) solution that can be deployed on multiple public clouds. More than 60
Pivotal specialists worked in pods, first identifying application interdependencies and thentransforming applications into reusable microservices.
Outcomes:❙ $13 million of annual savings – money that can be reallocated to innovation.
❙ On-demand deployment of new code, down from eight hours previously.
❙ Faster time-to-market: new releases take one person-day, down from five person-years.
Read more here.

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The physical space used for software development should reflect and support these new models. Companies
can set up studios – facilities that bring together a variety of technology, design and business talent towork side-by-side. This environment encourages multidisciplinary collaboration, openness, creativity andidea-sharing – qualities that enable innovation and the rapid delivery of customer-focused outcomes andexperiences. The studio concept can also be applied to virtual teams, which have become more importantwith the COVID-19 crisis, by using video meetings and collaborative tools to allow remote professionals
representing various perspectives and disciplines to work together closely. To learn more, read “Software
Engineering Takes on New Meaning in the COVID-19 Pandemic.”

Retool the approach to talent
Access to top talent has long been a significant hurdle for software development, and 36% of CMT executives
said that a lack of adequate talent is an obstacle to effective software engineering at their companies. Talentis typically scarcest in the very areas most critical to the software-centric business, such as DevOps, cloudtechnology and Agile methodologies (see Figure 4).

Talent shortfalls in critical areas of sofware engineering
Respondents citing they had the required talent.

45%

Automation

26%

Cloud

25%

DevOps

23%

Agile
0

10

20

30

40

50

Response base = 773 CMT executives
Source: Cognizant
Figure 4

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In a highly competitive talent market – where thedemand for trained software professionals far outstrips
supply – external sources of talent are not likely to be
sufficient or easy to align with a company’s requirements.
Companies need to strengthen their internal talentpipelines through more robust employee training andcontinuing education.
Going forward, CMT companies must make it a priority to find new ways to tap into and deploy softwarerelated talent, such as creating (and promoting to their recruits) communities and learning opportunities.
But in a highly competitive talent market – where the demand for trained software professionals far outstrips
supply – external sources of talent are not likely to be sufficient or easy to align with a company’s requirements.
Companies need to strengthen their internal talent pipelines through more robust employee training andcontinuing education. Overall, we recommend companies do the following:4❙ Search for digital talent where it actually hangs out (e.g., hackathons).
❙ Offer robust continuous-learning opportunities to current employees.
❙ Celebrate agility, design thinking and creativity.
❙ Ensure corporate responsibility to entice young talent who expect this and crave commitment.
❙ Establish and cultivate community on all levels.
In the quest for digital talent, partnerships with professional services firms can offer distinct advantages.
Partners can provide access to scarce skills that are hard to hire or build internally – and partner talent can
support the community/pod structure.
In spite of the importance of software-related talent, many survey respondents said their organizations are notcultivating or empowering internal talent or engaging in strategic partnerships to access talent. In fact, 68% of
CMT respondents said that their companies’ operations rely on external partners and contractors to support
their software engineering talent pipeline.

16 / Software Engineering: Designing a Better Experience for Communications, Media and Technology Customers

Culture: The key to long-term success
Culture can make or break software development. Introducing the community-and-pod approach, as well as
retooling the approach to talent, helps ensure a more productive workplace. But what is the nature of the rightculture? While the details will be unique to each company, culture must value collaboration and partnering, as
well as risk-taking that infuses a “fail fast and learn fast” mindset that encourages experimentation.
To foster the right culture, companies should establish incentives that encourage individuals and teams
to experiment and innovate. Create programs that recognize and celebrate individuals and teams that
contribute to product and process improvements. And provide opportunities for individuals to develop andimprove themselves, fostering a personal-growth mindset.
Moreover, we suggest managing team performance across four dimensions:❙ Business impact: Maturity measurement models can track pod delivery with tangible KPIs.
❙ Rewards and incentives: Drive retention, performance and continuous improvement.
❙ Faster time-to-market: The speed with which the team completes projects.
❙ Autonomy: Track the degree to which the team operates without unnecessary or excessive
management overhead.
This comprehensive view of performance not only shapes work behavior, it also drives deeper culturalchange as well.
Creating a software-centric culture can have the corollary effect of heightening company-wide awarenessof the value of development. Why is that important? In our survey, an almost equal percent (~34%) of
respondents from across CMT sub-verticals ranked poor perception of the business impact of software
engineering as a top obstacle to implementation, and 80% said their efforts are hampered by a lack ofbudget. Embracing a software-centric culture that drives real business value can improve perceptions andhelp ensure that senior management sees software as central to business strategy. Just as important, it can
provide a starting point for extending the software-centric culture beyond IT, and embedding it across thecompany – which can help make software a higher business priority.

Strengthening the technology foundation
As CMT companies rethink their approach to developing customer-facing software, they will benefit by also
assessing their technology foundations and modernizing their inefficient legacy applications. This will vary bycompany and sector. For example, “rationalize application portfolios and free-up resources” was more likely
to be cited as a top benefit by communications (35%), entertainment (39%) and media (41%) companies,
compared to technology companies (26%). But even technology companies – widely regarded as digitalleaders – may have back-office systems, enterprise applications or monolithic systems that have been in place
for two decades or more that need to be evaluated.

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Legacy systems can be obstacles to further improvements in software engineering. Revamping them canenable the end-to-end linkage of customer-facing applications and the middle and back offices, which is key
to the seamless delivery of superior customer experiences. It can also provide increased flexibility and help
accelerate the modification and updating of existing applications, often reducing the time needed to create
new functions and features from weeks to days – or less.
Legacy systems consume a large share of IT money and time. However, modernization can help reduce thetotal cost of ownership for those technologies. Such savings are a priority for CMT companies, and 33% of
CMT respondents ranked “rationalize application portfolios and free-up resources” among the top three
expected benefits of effective software engineering.
In general, CMT companies still have work to do with their technology foundations. For example, migrating
systems to the cloud is a key element in the modernization of systems – and yet, only 31% of CMT
respondents said their companies have migrated legacy apps to the cloud, while 54% are in the process (seeFigure 5). Media companies were least likely to have completed such migration (22%), compared to 33% ofentertainment and technology companies and 36% for communications.

Cloud migration at CMT enterprises is still a work-in-progress
2%
14%
31%

Do not plan to migrate to cloud
Planning but not yet started
In process of migrating to cloud53%

Have migrated to cloudResponse base = 1,029 CMT executives
Source: Cognizant
Figure 5

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Quick Take
Transforming Content
Management
Challenge:
After an acquisition, a global telecommunications company needed to integrate thechannel content management of two TV service providers onto one existing platform.
Solution:
We helped the company re-architect its platform into a microservices-based architecture,
increasing its flexibility and scalability. The two companies used domain-driven design
techniques to “decompose” the existing monolithic system into microservices, virtualized
the services into containers and automated the delivery pipeline using workflow tools.
Outcomes:
The automation of deployment and testing activities saved hundreds of hours ofdevelopment time, and the re-architected platform was completed in just four months.
Now, with the transformed platform, the time needed to package and deploy code has
been reduced by 75%.

Software Engineering: Designing a Better Experience for Communications, Media and Technology Customers / 19

CMT companies can begin by understanding what applications they have and using various techniques todetermine whether to migrate, refactor, re-platform or reengineer systems. Often, modernization can be
executed in an iterative fashion to minimize business disruption. In addition, code and apps can be generated
in small, modular “chunks.” This not only speeds development, but also makes it easier to evolve and change
applications over time, without having to entirely modify a large monolithic application. Essentially, this gives
the company a continuous application modernization capability. (See “Transforming Content Management,”
previous page.)
Modernization can also draw on accelerators such as a microservices development accelerator; andDevOps tools that can generate a 40% savings in effort in some cases, as we’ve experienced with oursolution. Application portfolio mapping tools can automatically interrogate each company application – frommainframe apps to end points – and assess performance, usage and business impact. And an intelligent
acceleration platform for application cloud transformation can be used to perform an automated cloud
readiness assessment, share remediation templates and transformation recipes, etc. With these various
insights, from both top-down and bottom-up perspectives, companies can more easily construct a roadmap
directing which functionalities to switch off and which to leave in place.

The time is now
As CMT companies move forward, they will need to think in terms oftransforming while performing – that is, keeping the business running
while simultaneously reshaping software engineering. To do so, they
can focus on individual projects and initiatives, and then gradually
expand new thinking and approaches across the organization. And theyshould view this transformation not as a one-time event, but rather as an
ongoing effort in an era of constant change.
Across both greenfield development initiatives and application/product modernization, we are seeing CMT
companies focus on the following five key areas, listed in descending order of priority:
1. Application/product re-platforming/refactoring.
2. Data monetization programs.
3. Products and platform development.
4. Human insights and experience-driven systems.
5. End-to-end business transformation.

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The right culture, instilled acrossthe company, will help ensure that
effective software development
is a deeply embedded capability
that enables continuous andsustainable innovation appliedwith agility and speed, in lockstep
with evolving technologies andcustomer expectations.

New tools and technologies will be important, but the key to success will be the creation of a business,customer and software-focused culture. The right culture, instilled across the company, will help ensure that
effective software development is a deeply embedded capability that enables continuous and sustainable
innovation applied with agility and speed, in lockstep with evolving technologies and customer expectations.
Transforming the organization to support the software-centric business is no small challenge. Getting
started now is essential to remaining relevant in the dynamic digital economy. Those companies that resist
implementing the required changes to their mindset, organizational structures and technologies across thesoftware engineering landscape will risk falling ever further behind their more innovative challengers.

SSoftware Engineering: Designing a Better Experience for Communications, Media and Technology Customers / 21

Methodology
We surveyed 1,026 business and technology leaders across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific in
mid-2019 to understand their thinking around software engineering, both building cloud-native applications
and transforming legacy environments, to operate in the modern digital world. We then applied our views ofsoftware engineering in a post-COVID-19 world drawn from our “Becoming a Software-Centric Business”
white paper that was published in May 2020.
Survey respondents included primarily C-suite executives and vice presidents (55%), and directors andsenior managers (45%) across the media, entertainment, communications and technology industries.

Endnotes1

We recognize there are significant differences between communications, media and entertainment, and technology
companies, and even among their sub-industries. However, for simplicity, this report will refer to companies within thiscombined set of industries as CMT.

2

Capers Jones, “The Mess of Software Metrics,” Vol. 9.0, March 8, 2017,https://www.ppi-int.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/The-Mess-of-Software-Metrics_Jones-C_2017.pdf.

3

Andres Angelani, Transforming While Performing: How to Create a Culture of Innovation with Partners,
Roundtree Press, 2019.

4

From “Four Ways to Fill the Digital Talent Void” blog by Allen Shaheen,
https://digitally.cognizant.com/four-ways-to-fill-the-digital-talent-void-codex5268/.

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About the author
Badhrinath Krishnamoorthy
Markets Leader, Cognizant Digital Business
Badhrinath Krishnamoorthy (Badhri) is a Markets Leader in Cognizant
Digital Business and is responsible for communications, media, educationand technology (high-tech, software and online) industries. In this role, his
charter includes driving successful business model changes that clientsneed to create and sustain their digital transformation imperatives. Badhri
partners with strategic business and technology leaders in driving businessvalue by embracing digital technologies and solutions. He manages
Cognizant’s AI & Analytics, Interactive and Digital Engineering business units and brings in a humancentered, AI-first view to the business problems clients face in growing their markets with differentiatedexperiences and solutions. Badhri can be reached at Badhrinath.Krishnamoorthy@cognizant.com |www.linkedin.com/in/badhrinathkrishnamoorthy/.

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Cognizant Digital BusinessWe help clients build digital businesses and innovate products that create new value — by using sensing, insights, software and experience to deliver on whatcustomers demand in the digital age. Through IoT we connect the digital and physical worlds to make smart, efficient and safe products, operations andenterprises. Leveraging data, analytics and AI we drive intelligent decisions and anticipate where markets and customers are going next. Then we use thoseinsights, combining design and software to deliver the experiences that consumers expect of their brands. Learn more about how we’re engineering themodern enterprise at cognizant.com/digitalbusiness.

About Cognizant
Cognizant (Nasdaq-100: CTSH) is one of the world’s leading professional services companies, transforming clients’ business, operating and technology
models for the digital era. Our unique industry-based, consultative approach helps clients envision, build and run more innovative and efficient businesses.
Headquartered in the U.S., Cognizant is ranked 194 on the Fortune 500 and is consistently listed among the most admired companies in the world. Learn
how Cognizant helps clients lead with digital at www.cognizant.com or follow us @Cognizant.

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