Cognizant is one of the world’s leading professional services companies, engineering modern businesses and delivering strategic outcomes for our clients. We help clients modernize technology, reimagine processes and transform experiences so they can stay ahead in a fast-changing world. We provide industry expertise and close client collaboration, combining critical perspective with a flexible engagement style. We tailor our services and solutions to specific industries with an integrated global delivery model that employs client service and delivery teams based at client locations and dedicated global and regional delivery centers. Our collaborative services include digital services and solutions, consulting, application development, systems integration, quality engineering and assurance, application maintenance, infrastructure and security as well as business process services and automation. Digital services continue to be an important part of our portfolio, aligning with our clients' focus on becoming data-enabled, customer-centric and differentiated businesses.

We go to market across seven industry-based operating segments, which are aggregated into four reportable business segments:

Our clients seek to partner with service providers that have a deep understanding of their businesses, industry initiatives, customers, markets and cultures and the ability to create solutions tailored to meet their individual business needs. Across industries, our clients are confronted with the risk of being disrupted by nimble, digital-native competitors. They are therefore redirecting their focus and investment to digital operating models and embracing DevOps and key technologies that enable quick adjustments to shifts in their markets. We believe that our deep knowledge of the industries we serve and our clients’ businesses has been central to our growth and high client satisfaction, and we continue to invest in those digital capabilities that helpdevelop and deploy our client-centric culture, innovating together to enable our clients to become modern businesses.produce transformative outcomes.

Our FS segment includes banking, capital markets, payments and insurance companies. Demand in this segment is driven by our clients’ need to adopt and integrate digital technologies to serve their customers while being compliantcomplying with significant regulatory requirements and adaptableadapting to regulatory change, adopting and integrating digital technologies in order to do so.change. These digital technologies enable enhanced customer experience, enhancement, robotic process automation, analytics and AI in areas such as digital lending, fraud detection and next generation payments. In addition to having platforms that drive outcomes at speed, demand is also created by our clients’ desire to reduce complexity through packaged solutions and suppliers with embedded product partners.

Our HS segment consists of healthcare providers and payers, as well asand life sciences companies, including pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies. Demand in this segment is driven by emerging industry trends, including the shift towards consumerism, outcome-based contracting, digital health and delivering integrated seamless, omni-channel, patient-centered experiences. These trends result in increased demand for services that drive operational improvements in areas such as clinical development, pharmacovigilance and manufacturing, as well as claims processing, enrollment, membership and billing. Demand is also created by the adoption and integration of digital technologies such as AI to shape personalized care plans and predictive data analytics to improve clinical trial designs, patient engagement and care outcomes.

Our P&R segment includes manufacturers, automakers, retailers and travel and hospitality companies, as well as companies providing logistics, energy and utility services. Demand in this segment is driven by our clients’ focus on improving the efficiency and sustainability of their operations; the enablement and integration of mobile platforms to support sales and other omni-channel commerce initiatives; the generational shift from mechanical to software-defined, experience-driven vehicles; grid modernization to prepare for a decarbonized and consumer-driven energy landscape; and their adoption and integration of digital technologies, such as the application of intelligent systems to manage supply chains and enhance overall customer experiences, and IoT to instrument functions for factories, real estate, fleets and products to increase access to insight-generating data.

Our CMT segment includes global communications, media and entertainment, education, information services and technology companies. Demand in this segment is driven by our clients’ need for services related to digital content, business process improvement, technology modernization, the creation of personalizedunified and compelling user experiences acceleration of digital engineering and access toidentifying new revenue streams to drive growth. In response to this demand, we are focusing on services and solutions in the areas of monetization and evolution of networks, assetsmedia supply chain transformation, product engineering and platforms,verticalization as well as data modernization and customer experience design.

For the year ended December 31, 2022,2023, the distribution of our revenues across our four reportable business segments was as follows:

The services we provide are distributed among a number of clients in each of our reportable business segments. A loss of a significant client or a few significant clients in a particular segment could materially reduce revenues for that segment. The services we provide to our larger clients are often critical to their operations and a termination of our services would typically require an extended transition period with gradually declining revenues. Nevertheless, the volume of work performed for specific clients may vary significantly from year to year.

Our services include digital services and solutions, consulting, application development, systems integration, quality engineering and assurance, application maintenance, infrastructure and security as well as business process services and automation. Additionally, we develop, license, implement and support proprietary and third-party software products and platforms. Central to our strategy to align with our clients’ need to modernize is our continued investment in digital, with a focus on four key areas: IoT,new technologies, including AI, cloud, data modernization, automation, digital engineering data and cloud.IoT. These four capabilities enable clients to put data at the core of their operations, improve the experiences they offer to their customers, tap into new revenue streams, automate operations, defend against technology-enabled competitors and reduce costs. In many cases, our clients' new digital systems are built on the backbone of their existing legacy systems, which can increase complexity and impact business continuity. In the post-pandemic environment, our clients have a sustained need to modernize their businesses, which has led to increased demand for digital capabilities such as mobile workplace solutions, e-commerce, automation, AI and cybersecurity services and solutions. We believe our deep knowledge of our clients' infrastructure and systems provides us with a significant advantage as we work with them to build new digital capabilities to make their operations more modern and intuitive. We deliver all of our services and solutions across our four reportable business segments to best address our clients' individual needs.

Our Core Technologies and Insights integrated practice helps clients build agile and relevant organizations that apply the power of cloud, data software, and IoT to help them perform better and innovate faster. Our clients are able tocan harness data securely in cloud-first architectures, enabling them to become highly resilient enterprises that are capable of quickly adapting to market dynamics. Areas of focus within this practice are:

Our Enterprise Platform Services integrated practice helps our clients digitally transform multiple front- and back-office business processes, implementing enterprise-wide platforms that enable customer experience, customer relationship management, human capital management, supply chain management, enterprise resource planning and finance. Our services decrease time to market, drive efficiencies and deliver impactful experiences. Our clients are able tocan better share information, simplify IT processes, automate workflow and improve flexibility. This practice focuses on application services, which help enterprises engage their partner ecosystems more productively, and run their operations and financial organizations more efficiently while enabling improved employee and customer experiences. We work closely with partners including Adobe, Amazon Web Services, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Pegasystems, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, Workday and many others.

Our Software and Platform Engineering integrated practice helps clients develop modern enterprises through digital products, services and solutions that help them improve employee experiences and deliver new value for their customers. Our clients are able tocan leverage data, technologies and our digital engineering, design and product development capabilities to build world-class experiences, and a responsive, agile and intuitive framework for continuous innovation. Areas of focus are:

The principal competitive factors affecting the markets for our services include the provider’s reputation and experience, strategic advisory capabilities, digital services capabilities, performance and reliability, responsiveness to customer needs, financial stability, corporate governance and competitive pricing of services. Accordingly, we rely on the following to compete effectively:

We provide value to our clients based, in part, on our proprietary innovations, methodologies, software, reusable knowledge capital and other IP assets. We recognize the importance of IP and its ability to differentiate us from our competitors. We seek IP protection for many of our innovations and rely on a combination of patent, copyright and trade secret laws, confidentiality procedures and contractual provisions, to protect our IP. We have registered, and applied for the registration of, U.S. and international trademarks, service marks, and domain names to protect our brands, including our Cognizant brand, which is one of our most valuable assets. We own or are licensed under a number of patents, trademarks and copyrights of varying duration, relating to our products and services. We also have policies requiring our employees to respect the IP rights of others. While our proprietary IP rights are important to our success, we believe our business as a whole is not materially dependent on any particular IP right or any particular group of patents, trademarks, copyrights or licenses, other than our Cognizant brand.

Cognizant® and other trademarks appearing in this report are registered trademarks or trademarks of Cognizant and its affiliates in the United States and other countries, or third parties, as applicable.

This Annual Report on Form 10-K includes trademarks and service marks owned by us. This Annual Report on Form 10-K also contains trademarks, trade names and service marks of other companies, which are the property of their respective owners. Solely for convenience, trademarks, trade names and service marks referred to in this Annual Report on Form 10-K may appear without the ®, ™ or SM symbols, but such references are not intended to indicate, in any way, that we will not assert, to the fullest extent under applicable law, our rights to these trademarks, trade names and service marks. We do not intend our use or display of other parties’ trademarks, trade names or service marks to imply, and such use or display should not be construed to imply, a relationship with, or endorsement or sponsorship of us by, these other parties.

As a global professional services company, Cognizant competes on the basis of the knowledge, experience, insights, skills and talent of its employees and the value they can provide to clients. We aim to be the employer of choice in our industry and for our employees to feel motivated, engaged, and empowered to do their best work through careers they find meaningful.

Global macroeconomic conditions have a significant effect on our business as well as the businesses of our clients. Volatile, negative or uncertain economic conditions have in the past and could in the future cause our clients to reduce, postpone or cancel spending on projects with us, and could makemaking it more difficult for us to accurately forecast client demand and have available the right resources to profitably address such client demand. For example, in 2023 some of our clients reduced their discretionary spending in response to economic uncertainty, which negatively impacted our revenues. Clients may reduce demand for services quickly and with little warning, which may cause us to incur extra costs where we have employed more personnel than client demand supports.

Our business is particularly susceptible to economic and political conditions in the markets where our clients or operations are concentrated. Our revenues are highly dependent on clients located in the United States and Europe, and any adverse economic, political or legal uncertainties or adverse developments, including due to the uncertainty related to the economic environment and inflation, may cause clients in these geographies to reduce their spending and materially adversely impact our business. Many of our clients are in the financial services and healthcare industries, so any decrease in growth or significant consolidation in these industries or regulatory policies that restrict these industries may reduce demand for our services. Economic and political developments in India, where a significant majority of our operations and technical personnel are located, or in other countries where we maintain delivery operations, may also have a significant impact on our business and costs of operations. As a developing country, India has experienced and may continue to experience high inflation and wage growth, fluctuations in gross domestic product growth and volatility in currency exchange rates, any of which could materially adversely affect our cost of operations. Additionally, we benefit from governmental policies in countries that encourage foreign investment and promote the ease of doing business, such as tax incentives, and any change in policy or circumstances that results in the elimination of such benefits or degradation of the rule of law, or imposition of new adverse restrictions or costs on our operations could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Many of our contracts with clients are short-term, and our business, results of operations and financial condition could be adversely affected if our clients terminate their contracts on short notice.

Consistent with industry practice, many of our contracts with clients are short-term or can be terminated by our clients with short notice and without significant early termination cost. Even if not terminated, clients may be able to delay, reduce or eliminate spending on the services and solutions we provide, choose not to retain us for additional stages of a project, try to renegotiate the terms of a contract or cancel or delay additional planned work. Terminations and such other events may result from factors that are beyond our control and unrelated to our work product or the progress of the project, including the business, financial or labor conditions of a client, changes in ownership, management or the strategy of a client or economic or market conditions generally or specific to a client’s industry. When contracts are terminated or spending delayed, we lose the anticipated revenues and might not be able to eliminate our associated costs in a timely manner. In particular, the loss of a significant client or a few significant clients could materially reduce revenues for the Company as a whole or for a particular business segment. In addition, our operating margins in subsequent periods could be lower than expected. If we are unable to replace the lost revenues with other work on terms we find acceptable or effectively eliminate costs, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be adversely affected.

We face challenges related to growing our business organically as well as inorganically through acquisitions, and we may not be able to achieve our targeted growth rates.

Achievement of our targeted growth rates requires continued significant organic growth of our business as well as inorganic growth through acquisitions. To achieve such growth, we must, among other things, continue to significantly expand our global operations, in particular with respect to digital, and scale our infrastructure to support such business growth and ensure that our service offerings remain responsive to market demand. Continued business growth increases the complexity of our business and places significant strain on our management, employees, operations, systems, delivery, financial resources, and internal financial control and reporting functions, which we will have to continue to develop and improve to sustain such growth. Our ability to successfully manage change associated with the various business transformation initiatives is critical for the overall strategy execution. We must continually recruit and train new employees, retain and reskill, as necessary, existing sales, technical, finance, marketing and management employees with the knowledge, skills and experience that our business model requires and effectively manage our employees worldwide to support our culture, values, strategies and goals.

Additionally, we expect to continue pursuing strategic and targeted acquisitions and investments to enhance our offerings of services and solutions or to enable us to expand our talent, experience and capabilities in key digital areas or in particular geographies or industries. We may not be successful in identifying suitable opportunities, completing targeted transactions or achieving the desired results in the timeframe we expect or at all, such opportunities may divert our management's time and focus away from our core business and realizing the desired results of a particular transaction may depend upon competition, market trends, regulatory developments, additional costs or investments and the actions of suppliers or other third parties. We may face challenges in effectively integrating acquired businesses into our ongoing operations and in assimilating and retaining employees of those businesses into our culture and organizational structure, and these risks may be magnified by the size and number of transactions we execute.

If we are unable to manage our growth effectively, complete acquisitions of the number, magnitude and nature we have targeted, or successfully integrate any acquired businesses into our operations, we may not be able to achieve our targeted growth rates or improve our market share, profitability or competitive position generally or in specific markets or services.

Our goals for profitability and capital return rely upon a number of assumptions, including our ability to improve the efficiency of our operations and make successful investments to grow and further develop our business. Our profitability is impacted by our ability to accurately estimate, attain, and sustain revenues from client engagements, margins and cash flows over contract periods and general economic and political conditions. Our profitability also depends on the efficiency with which we run our operations (including changes in our internal organizational structure) and the cost of our operations, especially the compensation and benefits costs of our employees. We have incurred, and may continue to incur, substantial costs related to implementing our strategy to optimize such costs, and we may not realize the ultimate cost savings that we expect. We may not be able to efficiently utilize our employees if increased regulation, policy changes or administrative burdens of immigration, work visas or client worksite placement prevents us from deploying our employees on a timely basis, or at all, to fulfill the needs of our clients. Our utilization rates are further affected by a number of factors, including our ability to transition employees from completed projects to new assignments, hire and assimilate new employees, forecast demand for our services and thereby maintain an appropriate headcount in each of our geographies and workforce and manage attrition, and our need to devote time and resources to training, professional development and other typically non-chargeable activities. Increases in wages and other costs, including as a result of attrition, may also put pressure on our

With respect to capital return, our ability and decisions to pay dividends and repurchase shares depend on a variety of factors, including the cash flow generated from operations, our cash and investment balances, our net income, our overall liquidity position, potential alternative uses of cash, such as acquisitions, and anticipated future economic conditions and financial results. Failure to carry out our capital return strategy may adversely impact our reputation with shareholders and shareholders’ perception of our business and the trading price of our common stock.

Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates can also have adverse effects on our revenues, income from operations and net income when items denominated in other currencies are translated or remeasured into U.S. dollars for presentation of our consolidated financial statements. We have entered into foreign exchange forward contracts intended to partially offset the impact of the movement of the exchange rates on future operating costs and to mitigate foreign currency risk on foreign currency denominated net monetary assets. However, the hedging strategies that we have implemented, or may in the future implement, to mitigate foreign currency exchange rate risks may not reduce or completely offset our exposure to foreign exchange rate fluctuations and may expose our business to unexpected market, operational and counterparty credit risks. We are

Our relationships with our third partythird-party alliance partners, who supply us with necessary components to the services and solutions we offer our clients, are also critical to our ability to provide many of our services and solutions that address client demands. There can be no assurance that we will be able to maintain such relationships or that such components will be available on the expected timelines or for anticipated prices. Among other things, such alliance partners may in the future decide to compete with us, form exclusive or more favorable arrangements with our competitors or otherwise reduce our access to their products, thereby impairing our ability to provide the services and solutions demanded by clients. Any performance failure on the part of our alliance partners, or the discontinuance by such alliance partners of services that we have relied on them to perform for our clients, could delay our performance or require us to engage alternative third parties to perform the services at our cost or to perform them ourselves, any of which could deprive us of potential revenue or adversely impact our profitability.

Our competitiveness also depends on our ability to continue to develop and implement services and solutions that anticipate and respond to rapid and continuing changes in technology to serve the evolving needs of our clients. Examples of areas of significant change include digital-, cloud- and security-related offerings, which are continually evolving, as well as developments in areas such as AI, augmented reality, automation, blockchain, IoT, quantum computing and as-a-service solutions, among others. If we do not sufficiently invest in new technologies, successfully adapt to industry developments and changing demand, and evolve and expand our business at sufficient speed and scale to keep pace with the demands of the

In order to provide our services and solutions, we depend on global information technology networks and systems, to process, transmit, host and securely store electronic information (including our confidential information and the confidential information of our clients) and to communicate among our locations around the world and with our clients, suppliers and alliance partners (including numerous cloud service providers). Security breaches, employee malfeasance, or human or technological error create risks of shutdowns or disruptions of our operations and potential unauthorized access and/or disclosure of our or our clients’ sensitive data, which in turn could jeopardize projects that are critical to our operations or the operations of our clients’ businesses and have other adverse impacts on our business or the business of our clients.

In addition, the products, services and software that we provide to our clients, or the third-party components we use to provide such products, services and software, may unintentionally contain or introduce cybersecurity threats or vulnerabilities to our clients’ information technology networks. Our clients may maintain their own proprietary, sensitive, or confidential information that could be compromised in a cybersecurity attack, or their systems may be disabled or disrupted as a result of such an attack. Our clients, regulators, or other third parties may attempt to hold us liable through contractual indemnification clauses or directly, for any such losses or damages resulting from such an attack.attack, including through contractual indemnification clauses.

Like other global companies, we and our clients, suppliers, alliance partners (including numerous cloud service providers) and other vendors we interact with face threats to data and systems, including by nation state threat actors, insider threats (including inappropriate access), perpetrators of random or targeted malicious cyberattacks, computer viruses, malware, worms, bot attacks or other destructive or disruptive software and attempts to misappropriate client information and cause system failures and disruptions. For example, in April 2020, we announced a security incident involving a Maze ransomware attack. The attack resulted in unauthorized access to certain data and caused significant disruption to our business. In addition, recent international tensions (including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and associated international tensionsconflicts in the Middle East) have heightened the overall risk of cyber-threats and, while we have taken steps to mitigate such risks, those steps may not be successful.

A security compromise of our information systems, or of those of businesses with which we interact, that results in confidential information being accessed by unauthorized or improper persons, could harm our reputation and expose us to regulatory actions, up to and including criminal prosecution, client attrition due to reputational concerns or otherwise, containment and remediation expenses, and claims brought by our clients or others for breaching contractual confidentiality and security provisions or data protection laws. Monetary damages imposed on us could be significant and may impose costs in excess of insurance policy limits or not be covered by our insurance at all, and our insurers may not continue to provide coverage on reasonable terms or may disclaim coverage as to any future claims. Techniques used by bad actors to obtain unauthorized access, disable or degrade service, or sabotage systems continuously evolve and may not immediately produce signs of intrusion, and we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures. In addition, a security breach could require that we expend substantial additional resources related to the security of our information systems, diverting resources from other projects and disrupting our businesses.

Our clients, suppliers, subcontractors, and other third parties with whom we do business, including in particular cloud service providers and software vendors, generally face similar cybersecurity threats, and we must rely on the safeguards

Any remediation measures that we have taken or that we may undertake in the future in response to the security incident announced in April 2020 or other security threats may be insufficient to prevent future attacks or insufficient for us to quickly recover from any future attack to efficiently continue our business operations.

We are required to comply with increasingly complex and changing data security and privacy regulations in the United States, the EU, India and in other jurisdictions in which we operate. These laws regulate the collection, use and transfer of

There are inherent climate-related risks everywhere that we conduct our business. Developments related to regulatory, social or market dynamics, stakeholder expectations, national and international climate change policies, the actual or perceived frequency or intensity of extreme weather events or the availability and functionality of critical infrastructure and resources, in addition to other factors resulting from such developments or that may not otherwise be known to or anticipated by us, could significantly disrupt our supply chain, our clients' operations and our ability to deliver services. Such events could significantly increase our costs and expenses and harm our revenues, cash flows and financial performance. Further, natural disasters and adverse weather events, such as droughts, wildfires, storms, sea-level rise and flooding, occurring more frequently, with less predictability or with greater intensity, could cause community disruptions and impact our employees’ abilities to commute or to work from home safely and effectively. For example, we have substantial global delivery operations in Chennai, India, a city that has experienced severe rains and related flooding. Our exposure to these economic and other risks from climate change could be exacerbated if government or market action to address climate change and its effects is insufficient or unsuccessful.

Our failure or perceived failure to achieve our stated goalESG commitments, maintain ESG practices, or meet evolving stakeholder expectations could harm our reputation, adversely impact our ability to lowerattract and retain clients and employees, and expose us to increased scrutiny from the investment community and enforcement authorities. Our ability to achieve our ESG commitments is subject to numerous risks, many of which are outside of our control. Examples of such risks include the availability and cost of low- or negatenon-carbon based energy sources and technologies and the availability of suppliers that can meet our greenhouse gas emissionsESG and other standards. Our reputation also may be harmed by the perceptions that our stakeholders have about our action or to mitigate climate riskinaction on certain ESG-related issues, or because they may disagree with our goals and initiatives. Damage to our business, or perception of a failure to act responsibly with respect to the environment, could lead toreputation may reduce demand for our services and thus have an adverse publicity, adverse effectseffect on our business or damagefuture financial performance, as well as require additional resources to rebuild our reputation.

In addition, governmental bodies, investors, clients, businesses, employees and potential employees are increasingly focused on ESG issues, including climate change, diversity and inclusion, human rights and supply-chain issues, which has resulted and may in the future continue to result in the adoption of new laws and regulations, reporting requirements and changing bid and buying practices. Further, we are expectedsubject to, and expect to become increasingly subject to, laws, regulations and international treaties relating to climate change, such as carbon pricing or product energy efficiency requirements. As these new laws, regulations, treaties and similar initiatives and programs arecontinue to be adopted and implemented, we will be required to comply or potentially face market access limitations, enforcement actions, civil suits or sanctions, including fines. If new laws or regulations are more stringent than current legal or regulatory requirements, we may experience increased compliance burdens and costs to meet such obligations. If we fail to comply with new laws, regulations, treaties, or reporting requirements, or keep pace with ESG trends and developments or fail to meet the expectations of our clients and investors, our reputation and business could be adversely impacted.

The practice of outsourcing services to organizations operating in other countries is a topic of political discussion in the United States, which is our largest market, as well as other regions in which we have clients. For example, in the United States, measures aimed at limiting or restricting the performance of services from an offshore location or imposing burdens on U.S. companies that utilize such services have been put forward for consideration at both the federal and state levels to address concerns over the perceived association between offshore outsourcing and the loss of jobs domestically. If any such measure is enacted in the United States or another region in which we have clients, our ability to provide services to our clients could be impaired.

In addition, from time to time there has been publicity about purported negative experiences associated with offshore outsourcing, such as alleged domestic job loss and theft and misappropriation of sensitive client data, particularly involving service providers in India. Current or prospective clients may elect to perform certain services themselves or may be discouraged from utilizing global service delivery providers like us due to negative perceptions that may be associated with using global service delivery models or firms. Any slowdown or reversal of existing industry trends toward global service delivery would seriously harm our ability to compete effectively with competitors that provide the majority of their services from within the country in which our clients operate.

We are also subject to a wide range of potential enforcement actions, audits or investigations regarding our compliance with these laws or regulations in the conduct of our business, and any finding of a violation could subject us to a wide range of civil or criminal penalties, including fines, debarment, or suspension or disqualification from government contracting, prohibitions or restrictions on doing business in one or more jurisdictions, loss of clients and business, legal claims by clients and unfavorable publicity or damage to our reputation. We could also face significant compliance and operational burdens and incur significant costs in our efforts to comply with or rectify non-compliance with these laws or regulations. Such burdens or costs may result in an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

We commit significant financial and managerial resources to comply with our internal control over financial reporting requirements, but we have in the past identified and may in the future identify material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting that cause us to incur incremental remediation costs in order to maintain adequate controls. For example, we had to spend significant resources on conducting an internal investigation and cooperating with investigations by the DOJ and the SEC, both concluded in 2019, focused on whether certain payments relating to Company-owned facilities in India were made in violation of the FCPA and other applicable laws.

Our employees, subcontractors, vendors, agents, alliance partners, the companies we acquire and their employees, vendors and agents, and other third parties with which we associate, could take actions that violate policies or procedures designed to promote legal and regulatory compliance or applicable anticorruption laws or regulations. Violations of these laws or regulations by us, our employees or any of these third parties could subject us to criminal or civil enforcement actions (whether or not we participated or knew about the actions leading to the violations), including fines or penalties, disgorgement of profits and suspension or disqualification from work, including U.S. federal contracting, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, including our results of operations and our reputation.

The interpretation of tax laws and regulations in the many jurisdictions in which we operate and the related tax accounting principles are complex and require considerable judgment to determine our income taxes and other tax liabilities worldwide. Tax laws and regulations affecting us and our clients, including applicable tax rates, and the interpretation and enforcement of such laws and regulations are subject to change as a result of economic, political and other factors, and any such changes or changes in tax accounting principles could increase our effective worldwide income tax rate and have a material adverse effect on our net income, cash flows and financial condition. We routinely review and update our corporate structure and intercompany arrangements, including transfer pricing policies, consistent with applicable laws and regulations, to align with our evolving business operations across the numerous jurisdictions, such as the United States, India and the United Kingdom, in which we operate. Failure to successfully adapt our corporate structure and intercompany arrangements to align with our

We are subject to, and may become a party to, a variety of litigation or other claims and suits that arise from time to time in the conduct of our business. Our business is subject to the risk of litigation involving current and former employees, clients, alliance partners, subcontractors, suppliers, competitors, shareholders, government agencies or others through private actions, class actions, whistleblower claims, administrative proceedings, regulatory actions or other litigation. While we maintain insurance for certain potential liabilities, such insurance does not cover all types and amounts of potential liabilities and is subject to various exclusions as well as deductibles and caps on amounts recoverable.

Our client engagements expose us to significant potential legal liability and litigation expense if we fail to meet our contractual obligations or otherwise breach obligations to third parties or if our subcontractors breach or dispute the terms of our agreements with them and impede our ability to meet our obligations to our clients. For example, third parties could claim that we or our clients, whom we typically contractually agree to indemnify with respect to the services and solutions we provide, infringe upon their IP rights. Any such claims of IP infringement could harm our reputation, cause us to incur substantial costs in defending ourselves, expose us to considerable legal liability or prevent us from offering some services or solutions in the future. We may have to engage in legal action to protect our own IP rights, and enforcing our rights may require considerable time, money and oversight, and existing laws in the various countries in which we provide services or solutions may offer only limited protection.

We have operations in major metro areas across nearly 50 countries around the world, with our worldwide headquarters located in a leased facility in Teaneck, New Jersey in the United States. We utilize a global delivery model with delivery centers worldwide, including in-country, regional and global delivery centers. We have over 2824 million square feet of owned and leased facilities for our delivery centers. Our largest delivery center presence is in India, representing 87%90% of our total delivery centers on a square-foot basis, with the largest presence in Chennai (10(9 million square feet), Hyderabad (4(3 million square feet), Pune (3 million square feet), Kolkata (3 million square feet) and Bangalore (2 million square feet). We also have a significant number of delivery centers in other countries, including the United States, Philippines, Germany, Canada, Mexico and countries throughout Europe. In addition, we have sales and marketing offices, innovation labs, and digital design and consulting centers in major business markets, including New York, London, Paris, Melbourne, and Singapore, among others, whichothers. Our facilities are used to support our clients across all four of our reportable business segments.

We believe our current facilities are adequate to support our operations in the immediate future, and that we will be able to obtain suitable additional facilities on commercially reasonable terms as needed.

We regularly purchase shares in connection with our stock-based compensation plans as shares of our Class A common stock are tendered by employees for payment of applicable statutory tax withholdings. For the three months ended December 31, 2022,2023, we purchased 0.2 million shares at an aggregate cost of $15 million in connection with employee tax withholding obligations.

The following graph compares the cumulative total stockholder return on our Class A common stock with the cumulative total return on the S&P 500 Index and the S&P 500 Information Technology Index for the period beginning December 31, 20172018 and ending on the last day of our last completed fiscal year. The stock performance shown on the graph below is not indicative of future price performance.

Cognizant is one of the world’s leading professional services companies, engineering modern businesses and delivering strategic outcomes for our clients. We help clients modernize technology, reimagine processes and transform experiences so they can stay ahead in a fast-changing world. We provide industry expertise and close client collaboration, combining critical perspective with a flexible engagement style. We tailor our services and solutions to specific industries with an integrated global delivery model that employs client service and delivery teams based at client locations and dedicated global and regional delivery centers. Our collaborative services include digital services and solutions, consulting, application development, systems integration, quality engineering and assurance, application maintenance, infrastructure and security as well as business process services and automation. Digital services continue to be an important part of our portfolio, aligning with our clients' focus on becoming data-enabled, customer-centric and differentiated businesses.

We are focused on expanding our partner ecosystem across a broad range of deliverytechnology companies, including hyperscalers, cloud providers, enterprise software companies, best-in-class digital software enterprises and emerging start-ups. We believe this partner ecosystem will enable us to enhance our innovative, integrated offerings, by combining third-party products with our service solutions, to deliver enterprise-wide digital transformation.