Since 2016, Cognizant and Coventry Building Society (CBS) have built a strong alliance.
The partnership began when the Society asked Cognizant to review their test services and the collaboration later developed into advisory and consulting. Throughout the years, the relationship has evolved and Cognizant recently developed Coventry Building Society’s strategy for cloud transformation, helping them align their business values with their technology.
Overseeing the key strategic relationship is Brendan Ryan, who serves as Client Director for Coventry Building Society within Cognizant. Ryan reveals the partnership is very much a long-term and collaborative effort. “Working in partnership and collaboration with Coventry Building Society, we were particularly successful around the end-to-end journey from advisory to delivery,” explains Ryan. “As part of the Society’s cloud transformation journey, we were able to select the cloud provider, assess their migration readiness, ensure their security and compliance controls and improve their resiliency. We also looked at derisking their legacy on on-premise infrastructure estate as part of it to make sure they’re more resilient.”
Cognizant is a professional services and IT consulting business operating with a global workforce of around 350,000 people. The company differentiates itself across banking, financial services and other industry verticals on digital modernisation and cloud transformation. Ryan believes the collaboration works well due to both companies’ open and transparent approach. “Cognizant is very flexible in the way we work, and Coventry Building Society is also very easy-going in their approach to us too.

“Outside of the day-to-day consulting and delivery, we’ve worked with them through their outreach programmes while also taking the suit off and getting dirty with them,” Ryan explained, pointing to several of Coventry Building Society’s community projects that Cognizant has supported, including painting a local youth centre and running careers fairs. “Having that more personal engagement with them is important. At the end of the day, it’s a relationship and a partnership we’re trying to build, and trust plays a vital role. It’s not just a transactional engagement.”
Looking ahead to the future of the partnership with the Society, Ryan is full of optimism for the direction of travel. “It’s exciting times for Cognizant as we embark on new endeavours and as a partner, we’re looking forward to supporting Coventry Building Society as best we can on that journey,” he says. “We’d like to inject a lot more innovation into the way they work, their infrastructure and application estate, particularly around generative AI, but also foster an innovation agenda within their user base.”
Click here to read more about Coventry Building Society’s journey towards operational transformation, ESG leadership, and positioning procurement as a creator of social value and community engagement.