New Delhi, Aug 17 - IT major Cognizant Monday said it will expand its Phoenix delivery centre by adding business process outsourcing (BPO) services to its existing portfolio.

The company plans to hire 100 full-time professionals in the next 12 months, drawing talent from the local market and academic community, it said in a statement.

With this, the company will have a total headcount of 400 in Phoenix.

Phoenix is one of Cognizant's six delivery centres in the US and offers application development, application maintenance, testing, and related services.

Cognizant's Phoenix BPO centre will initially provide claims processing services for one of the largest healthcare plans in the US.

'With this expansion, we are able to offer clients US-based delivery capability across all our major service offerings,' said Francisco D'Souza, president and chief executive of Cognizant.

In addition to Phoenix, Cognizant delivers BPO services from local, regional and global centres in the US, Eastern Europe, India and China.