TEANECK, New Jersey and NEW YORK, January 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Cognizant , a leading provider of consulting, technology, and business process outsourcing services, and ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), the leading U.S. performing rights organization, announced today that Cognizant has been selected for a multiyear engagement to provide ASCAP with a range of remote IT infrastructure management (RIM) services to drive operational efficiencies, enhance the quality of service, and enable virtualization.

As part of the agreement, Cognizant will manage a broad spectrum of ASCAP's data servers, networks, databases, messaging platforms, and BlackBerry devices. Cognizant will assume end-to-end ownership and responsibility for all in-scope services and will implement high levels of automation to streamline operations, with robust metrics to provide ASCAP full visibility on the health of operations.

Cognizant's innovative managed services model is based on guaranteed productivity gains and business outcomes delivered. ASCAP will leverage the resulting cost savings to fund additional projects, including upgrading its cloud computing environment and building an enterprise virtual desktop infrastructure.

Cognizant uses ITIL-based processes, a pre-built catalog of productized services, a sophisticated operations maturity model, and its proprietary RIM 2.0 managed services framework to reduce ASCAP's total cost of ownership and ensure high quality and consistency across its IT infrastructure portfolio.

"ASCAP exists to ensure that music creators are compensated fairly, promptly, and accurately when their works are performed publicly," explained Tina Barber, Senior Vice President and CIO, ASCAP. "Last year, ASCAP launched its new state-of-the art royalty distribution system, allowing members unprecedented entree to their works, performances, and statements through Member Access. Cognizant is now helping us to adopt virtualization and consolidation strategies to enable additional operating efficiencies and add to our competitive advantage with the rapid deployment of new applications. As a result of this, we will be able to provide even better service for our 400,000 members worldwide."

Gajen Kandiah, Senior Vice President and Head of the Communications, Information, Media and Entertainment Practice at Cognizant, said, "In an era of digital transformation in the music industry, ASCAP is leveraging technology extensively to provide enhanced member access to performance and royalty information. Cognizant is pleased to provide ASCAP with optimized infrastructure management solutions using a global delivery model, leveraging the latest technologies to manage its performance royalty platforms."

Robert Boles, Senior Vice President, IT Infrastructure Services practice, Cognizant, added, "ASCAP is committed to making technology enhancements that make it more convenient for its members to conduct their business and pursue their creativity. Our infrastructure transformation programs have paved the way for ASCAP to cater to the needs of its members while also maturing IT operations efficiently and effectively."