Cognizant to deliver commercial operations solutions to Lilly

Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH), a leading provider of consulting, technology, and business process outsourcing (BPO) services, announced that it has been selected by Eli Lilly and Company, one the world's leading innovation-driven pharmaceutical companies, to deliver an end-to-end set of services to help Lilly's U.S. sales and marketing operations be more effective, efficient, and innovative.

Under the multiyear contract, Cognizant will deliver a tightly bundled range of solutions spanning commercial analytics, sales force planning, sales incentive compensation, customer relationship management, business reporting, data warehousing, and state compliance reporting using a consumption-based service delivery model called Business Process as a Service (BPaaS).

As part of the BPaaS model, Cognizant will combine cloud-based IT infrastructure, Cognizant's proprietary software applications and other intellectual property for commercial operations in life sciences, and business process outsourcing expertise to enable Lilly to move from a high-fixed-cost, capital-intensive model to a variable, consumption-based cost structure, resulting in greater flexibility and predictability to meet evolving sales and marketing needs. Cognizant's solution will enable a key component of Lilly's transformation strategy of increased collaboration in a globally networked model that aligns people, process and technology to drive sales and marketing innovation.

"This expansion of our relationship with Cognizant is another step in our mission to become the most customer-focused pharmaceutical company in the U.S. market," said David Ricks, President, Lilly USA. "By collaborating with the industry leader in commercial operations service delivery, we will sharpen our own focus on understanding and exceeding our customers' needs—the path forward to delivering business results in our increasingly challenging environment."

"We are committed to helping Lilly USA transform its commercial operations, providing a broad portfolio of integrated services to ensure business agility, continuous improvement, and the most innovative approaches. At a time of enormous regulatory and economic pressures in the life sciences industry, our BPaaS approach will help Lilly reduce  risk, have the flexibility to rapidly scale up or down, and be highly responsive to market demands," said Nagaraja Srivatsan, Senior Vice President and Head of Life Sciences, North America, for Cognizant.