2.1 Software development services

We help our customers develop and maintain software solutions in a cost-effective way by using a global delivery model. We have over a decade of experience of serving customers in Japan, North America, and Europe. Our services are focused around three key areas:

• Outsourced product development and research & development (R&D)
• e-Business application development
• Quality assurance and software testing

2.1.1 Outsourced product development and R&D services

Ensuring speedy time to market and delivering high productivity and innovation through the use of cutting-edge technology are major priorities for software product companies and R&D centers. Over the last decade, we have been serving such customers and have evolved a fine understanding of their requirements. Our customers in this field constitute a mix of large blue-chip software product companies, startup companies, and R&D centers of large organizations. To address their needs, we focus on developing resources with a high-technology skills set and through the use of Agile/iterative methodologies (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Standard Agile/iterative development process.

We have a strong background in the area of mobile technologies, which helps us create more value for our customers. Our mobile expertise encompasses understanding both Japanese and international mobile eco-systems and technologies.

We entered the R&D field with the launch of the Global R&D Lab. At present, the Global R&D Lab is serving as the offshore arm for NTT DATA’s R&D, but the aim is to eventually extend its focus towards high-end R&D requirements of the NTT DATA Group companies across Japan, the USA, and Europe. It focuses on specialty work and cutting-edge technologies such as cloud computing with a dedicated open source software laboratory. Amongst other things, we have been involved in supporting development, maintenance, and global promotion of NTT DATA’s TERASOLUNA platform [4], [5].

2.1.2 E-Business application development services

More and more Japanese companies are extending their business worldwide. Our global delivery frameworks of e-business, ranging from business consultation to technical implementation, expedite and ease the globalization process of Japanese corporations.

We have three major strengths.

• We have domain experts who can work from high-level requirement definitions to identify the key features along with the strategic product roadmap to optimize the development process and to project the return on investment through consultation.
• We understand Japanese culture and methodology as well as the US-European way of doing business. This makes us unique and proficient at supporting the global e-business systems of Japanese companies.
• We have a large development center in India and our experts are spread across the globe.

One of our key customers is a large Japanese apparel retailer with global operations. We support the development and maintenance of its e-commerce system. The system manages multiple countries, stores, currencies, taxes, and languages as well as a wide range of client devices from personal computers to the latest smartphones.

In addition to the retail industry, we have experience in the fields of foreign exchange trading, digital advertising, on-board retailing, and, recently, the educational industry.

2.1.3 Quality assurance and software testing

Our quality assurance and testing (QAT) business unit operates at the enterprise level, continually identifying opportunities to optimize a customer’s IT investment. Our application testing approach gives each customer the advantage of going beyond its own scale and resources to support the required testing volume; this provides more effective solutions to business problems.

We typically achieve a 30–50% overall cost reduction for clients over multi-year contracts. Our testing of software includes test management, automation, performance testing, and software load testing & mobile application testing.

Our QAT procedure supports all phases of the development lifecycle and is renowned for its program/project management approach and track record. We can reduce application development and integration costs by as much as 30% while lowering risk, enhancing product quality, and improving the time to market. We accomplish this by taking advantage of our disciplined project execution approach, multidisciplinary teams, and seamless ability to blend the right mix of onsite, offshore, and near-shore resources to meet and adapt to a customer’s specific needs. Our responsive, vendor-agnostic approach ensures flexibility, utilizes open source software where feasible, and maximizes the customer’s return on investment.

The salient features are as follows:

• We provide excellent solutions in the quality assurance field through the Global One Team of NTT DATA that we provide.
• Our solutions are being effectively implemented across the world’s largest banks in the North America region and at NTT DATA.

2.2 Academy services

A focused team at NTT DATA Global Technology Services is working to build a strong capability in both Japanese and Indian resources to support global project requirements. In India, the Japanese Learning Center (JLC) supports many Japan-related projects by offering several kinds of Japanese language training courses.

2.2.1 Japanese Learning Center

This center was launched ten years ago with the mission of creating a sustainable bilingual resource pool, which is critical for us to serve the Japanese market. We made a significant investment in this initiative in order to support its Japan-related projects. JLC is now an evolved model with its own course curriculum and the appropriate training infrastructure to create the much-needed resources. The training is designed to accelerate learning to make participants productive and mature developers for Japan delivery business in only six months. This training has also been made available to our Japanese customers who have global plans.

2.2.2 Globalization training program in India (Japan 2 Pune Program)

The Japan 2 Pune (J2P) program, which was launched in 2008, is based on business needs in Japan, which faces factors such as declining cost margins, an aging population, and a possible shortfall in resources capable of handling IT projects. Japanese IT organizations now feel the need for global collaboration and they are working in global delivery models for their imminent future growth.

The J2P program addresses the need to orient Japanese resources to work in the global IT environment. The training encompasses conceptual-level inputs about a global delivery framework and IT project management styles coupled with hands-on training to help Japanese executives experience the training inputs and get better exposure of working on outsourced projects.

The program is customized to organizational needs and is a residential program in India lasting from 3 to 8 weeks depending on the customer’s requirements. Participants are executives from NTT Group companies and other Japanese companies who have a technical background and have worked on IT projects in the past. They are selected by their employing companies through a nomination process and on the basis of their English ability as measured by their TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) score.