Pros

Better than other Indian IT services companies.

Cons

Not a good company and will not provide you with growth opportunities. You will definitely not get a promotion if you are not engaged in at least 2 year long project under one manager. Even then you will get a promotion if you suck up to your manager a lot and you manager should be allocated a promotion for your designation (There are fixed number of promotion allocations to each manager based on revenue and growth prospects of the account he/she is handling).

Basically your chances of promotion depend on the

1) length of time you work under 1 single manager
2) Growth of account (nothing to do with your hard work but, how well cognizant sells to the client)
3) Your relationship with your manager (which is important generally)
4) Location of your manager (If you and your manager are located at same client location it will boost your chances of promotion)
5) Number of promotions allocated to your manager at your designation level

If you are not working for the same manager for 2 years and if both of you are not present in same location you will not get a promotion even if you are a genius and get appreciation mails from client daily for hard work and some unique solutions your provide to solve client's problems.

Advice to Senior Management

There is not active management that takes care of employees needs.

The management is active to implement unwritten rules which are strictly communicated orally (never in writing email/policy). This comes from the highest level of the company management to managers.

Work 24/7 have no personal life is the moto of the company. If you question them they question back saying "what did you do to the company?" you are only doing a job for which you are getting paid.

Even if you work 65 hrs/week you will only be paid for 40 hrs.

 The company treats its employees like cheep labor like and the company is treated like a cheap company by all the clients.

To compete with companies like IBM, Accenture, CAP Gemini and Sogeti the thought process of the senior management must be completely transformed.

In cognizant the management training is given from Assistant Project Manager and above. This process is like (to the most part) inbreeding among incompetent managers.

Talent must be identified and groomed from associate level irrespective of their project/account performance.