Cognizant Says “You Earned It”: 100% Bonus Payout Announced for 2025
In a year when bonuses have become a corporate myth, Cognizant just made them very real. The IT services major has announced a 100 % bonus payout for 2025, after storming into what it proudly calls the “Winner’s Circle”– its internal badge of top-tier industry performance- two years ahead of schedule.
“This didn’t happen by chance,” CEO Ravi Kumar S told employees in an internal mail accessed by Moneycontrol. “It happened because of hustle, discipline, and relentless execution.” And then came the line every corporate inbox dreams of: the discretionary bonus pool will be funded at 100 % .
With over 350,000 employees, most of them in India, the announcement lands like a morale booster at a time when tech workers globally are bracing for caution, not celebration. The finer details of individual payouts are still under wraps- but for now, Cognizant employees have something rare in corporate life: a reason to smile on a workday.
Winner’s Circle unlocked. Bonus secured. Celebration earned.
What Exactly Is Cognizant’s “Winner’s Circle”?
Cognizant uses the “Winner’s Circle” to signal its status as a VIP player in the global IT services market. This internal benchmark identifies companies operating at the highest performance level, evaluated through concrete business metrics such as revenue growth, profit margins, and operational execution compared with international peers.
Cognizant reached this milestone earlier than expected. The company achieved the target in 2025, two years ahead of its original 2027 timeline.
According to the CEO, this early achievement reflects consistent execution and tangible improvements in financial performance. The organisation met objectives that were initially planned over a much longer time frame.
“Reaching the Winner’s Circle ahead of plan reflects the consistency in our execution and the progress we have made on growth and margins,” the CEO said during the post-earnings analyst call.
Cognizant’s Strong Q4 Performance and AI-Led Growth Push
Cognizant delivered a strong fourth quarter by surpassing its revenue forecast and showing early returns from AI investments exceeding one billion dollars. Despite clients maintaining spending restraint and near-term business visibility remaining uncertain, the company’s growth trajectory is becoming clearer. Cognizant is steadily transforming its operations through artificial intelligence to drive future objectives.
For the company, AI has evolved from a trendy term into a core component of its organizational strategy.
Cognizant Tops Global IT Peers With 6.4% Growth, Enters ‘Winner’s Circle
Growth Comparison With Global and Indian Peers
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Cognizant entered the Winner’s Circle after reporting 6.4% constant currency (CC) growth in CY2025, the highest among large IT services firms.
Fiscal Year Differences Limit Direct Comparisons
- Growth comparisons are indicative due to differing fiscal years:
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- Indian IT firms follow an April–March cycle
- Cognizant follows the calendar year
- Accenture operates on a different fiscal schedule
Like-for-Like Growth Comparison (Moneycontrol)
- Accenture: 6.25%
- HCLTech: 4.8%
- Infosys: 3.15%
- TCS: 0.78%
- Wipro: –1.83%
Peer Group Used for Winner’s Circle Benchmarking
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Accenture, Capgemini, CGI Group, DXC, EPAM, Genpact, HCLTech, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro
From The Bottom Ranks To The Top Four: Cognizant’s Measured March into the Winner’s Circle
Cognizant entered the “Winner’s Circle” through methodical, multi-year execution that steadily translated into measurable gains. In its earnings supplement, the company explained that entry into this elite group was based on constant-currency revenue growth compared with a defined global peer set in 2025. The journey reads like a corporate turnaround story. Cognizant ranked 10th among peers in 2022, improved to eighth in 2023, climbed to sixth in 2024, and finally broke into the top tier in 2025. The most telling progress came from the narrowing gap versus the peer average, which shrank from eight percentage points below to parity and then moved 0.5 percentage points above the peer average last year.
Under its framework, “Top Tier” status is reserved for the four highest-growth performers. This sustained improvement earned Cognizant its place at the top.
Aishwarya is a journalism graduate with over three years of experience thriving in the buzzing corporate media world. She’s got a knack for decoding business news, tracking the twists and turns of the stock market, covering the masala of the entertainment world, and sometimes her stories come with just the right sprinkle of political commentary. She has worked with several organizations, interned at ZEE and gained professional skills at TV9 and News24, And now is learning and writing at NewsX, she’s no stranger to the newsroom hustle. Her storytelling style is fast-paced, creative, and perfectly tailored to connect with both the platform and its audience. Moto: Approaching every story from the reader’s point of view, backing up her insights with solid facts.
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