Accelerating client success and positively impacting society through responsible innovation
—NTT DATA has adopted a new organizational structure, right?
In July 2023, NTT DATA strategically transitioned to a three-company structure consisting of an operating company responsible for business in Japan (NTT DATA Japan), operating company responsible for business outside Japan (NTT DATA, Inc.), and the holding company that oversees the two aforementioned companies (NTT DATA Group Corporation). The integration of the businesses of NTT Ltd. into NTT DATA, Inc. in October 2022 marked an important milestone—or a turning point—in our history because we were able to expand our business scale and further strengthen our global competitiveness. Against this backdrop, after the announcement of our financial results for fiscal year 2023 in May 2024, which was our first full-year financial results since the integration, I became president and chief executive officer (CEO) of NTT DATA Group Corporation in June 2024.
We at NTT DATA have been aiming to obtain the global top-five status as an information technology (IT) service provider. Following the business integration that I mentioned, we are now ranked sixth and within reach of the top five. Therefore, we are now in a position to compete in the global market against competitors such as Accenture, Deloitte, PwC, and TCS. This achievement is truly symbolic, and I believe that we will be asked how we will fare against global competitors such as consulting firms with proven records and Indian firms. We are currently formulating a global strategy, creating global synergies, and strengthening governance, while our operating companies are expanding their business in a more agile manner than ever before.
As a result of the business integration, revenues outside Japan have grown to more than 60% of total revenues, and we will further increase our presence in the global market while building on our stable business foundation in Japan. We aim to achieve continuous growth in Japan while facilitating further growth by steadily strengthening our consulting capabilities and digital competitiveness. We also want to focus on innovative solutions and collaborate with our clients to help them achieve business success.
Outside Japan, we have been able to provide a broader and more comprehensive service portfolio. This expansion of our organizational capabilities and global coverage has led to a significant increase in opportunities to receive orders. We will continue to focus on continuous and strategic business expansion in the global market.
—NTT DATA brings together diverse groups with different corporate cultures, national origins, and languages, right?
We built an integrated and dynamic corporate culture by fusing values on the basis of quality business experience both in Japan and abroad. This unique culture is essential to our success, and by nurturing it, we want to achieve sustainable growth.
To achieve this goal, I believe that communicating the direction and vision of NTT DATA is extremely important for me as its leader. NTT DATA currently has approximately 200,000 employees and operates in more than 50 countries and regions worldwide. On a global scale, we have formed teams with diverse backgrounds through mergers and acquisitions, so it is necessary to nurture common values for the entire organization. We have now a more diversified business portfolio as a result of the addition of new business areas, such as datacenters and the resale of network equipment, which were previously covered by NTT Ltd. I therefore believe that to bring all companies of NTT DATA together and get everyone moving in the same direction, we need to reassess our mission, vision, and values. We are currently revising “Our Way,” which includes our mission, vision, and values while discussing with our leaders worldwide and paying particular attention to the use of terminology and prioritizing the English version. We plan to announce the new Our Way, including the Japanese version, in May 2025. For example, in the English version of the mission statement in Our Way, we place great meaning on the statement “Accelerate client success and positively impact society through responsible innovation.” The phrase “through responsible innovation” in this mission statement is vital, because I believe that given the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, we need to promote technological innovation with a sense of social responsibility while being mindful of both the positive and negative aspects of AI.
Understanding the essence of business through the “who, what, and how” framework
—I heard that you are implementing measures to strengthen consulting capabilities across the organization.
To achieve “Quality Growth,” that is, achieving both growth and profitability, we are currently strengthening our consulting capabilities focusing on proposals, implementation, and results. To strengthen our proposal capabilities, we need to identify business themes from societal and client issues, develop a problem-solving template that combines consulting and technology, and acquire the capabilities and implement mechanisms to deliver value to clients. To acquire these capabilities from a medium- to long-term perspective, we are investing in human-resource development and asset development to equip us with the world’s strongest system-development capabilities in terms of both quality and quantity and building our organizational strength.
To deliver value to our clients, it is necessary to strengthen the capabilities to not only make proposals through consulting but also implement them. Thus, it is also necessary to strengthen our engineering capabilities. This is because we can deliver value to a client only when we provide a service by packaging the technologies we proposed in a way that suits the client’s challenges.
I have been saying that we do not just provide technology. A key part of the business strategy of NTT DATA is to provide solutions that meet the challenges faced by our clients. To this end, we use the framework of “who, what, how,” where “who” refers to the target clients or industries, and “what” refers to identifying business pain points, particularly those faced by CEOs and CFOs. Although businesses tend to start with “how,” I believe that businesses should put “what” before “how.”
I want this framework to spread throughout NTT DATA. We start with “what,” which clarifies clients’ pain points, then we move on to “how,” which provides the optimal solutions to the pain points. For example, when faced with a client having an issue, such as strengthening sales capabilities or building a resilient supply chain, rather than choosing which technology to use, we first consider how to approach the issue then propose the optimal solution. If we do not approach the issue in this way, we will not be able to deliver value to clients; consequently, we will not benefit from any profits. When it comes to “how,” we need many ideas, and having an eye for technology, such as which partners to work with and what technology to use, is also essential.
—Could you tell us about your specific technology strategies and the technologies you are focusing on?
Looking back at the journey we have taken in providing value to our clients, I recall that ten years ago, we used IT to streamline clients’ operations. However, IT is currently being used to address business pain points. We are seeing a transformation from digitalization to digital transformation. We are thus now in an era in which, together with our clients, we can take a more aggressive approach and challenge norms. We are living in truly fascinating times. These changes have enabled us to make even more proactive proposals, and in that sense, I feel we need diverse human resources.
To strengthen our global technology strategy, we are preparing for technologies that will be important in the future by establishing a technology portfolio in which technologies are classified into three areas: emerging, growth, mainstream (EGM) (Fig. 1). The emerging area includes technologies that are predicted to be put into practical use over the next 10 years or so such as quantum computers. The growth area includes technologies that are predicted to become more widespread over the next three to five years. Some technologies, such as generative AI, have recently evolved from emerging to growth areas. How we use these technologies in the field and provide them to our clients will be a key factor in determining our future competitiveness. Therefore, we are challenging ourselves to introduce cutting-edge technologies together with our pioneering clients, i.e., early adopters. We have 11 innovation centers worldwide, in which over 200 engineers are working with clients on the research and development of next-generation technologies while conducting proof-of-concept experiments and implementing new technologies. For example, in joint research with Sky Media in Europe, we are testing cutting-edge technologies such as quadrupedal robots.
Fig. 1. Portfolio of technologies classified into EGM areas.
We are focusing on generative AI, which has been having a large impact on society. “Public” AI, such as ChatGPT, is widely used and helps improve individual productivity. In the future, I believe that public AI will be increasingly used within companies and private AI will also be essential. NTT’s lightweight large language model “tsuzumi” enables companies to build private AI using a very small number of graphics processing units and other resources. Therefore, they will be able to increase their competitiveness by using their own private AI while avoiding the risks of using public AI.
You become a leader only if people follow you
—Could you tell us about your role as a leader and your journey thus far?
When I joined the company in 1990, NTT DATA (NTT DATA Communication Systems Corporation) had just been founded (in 1988), and I never imagined that it would become the global company it is today. We began our international business around 2005, just 17 years after the company was founded. Revenues outside Japan now had reached 60% of total revenues and employees outside Japan accounts for 75% of all employees, so we had transformed into a global company.
During that transitional time, I gained experience as a project manager involved in system development and realized that the larger the project, the more important it is to share the overall project status and for all members to move in the same direction. This fact holds true whether the project has 100 or 200,000 members. The key to success is to share the purpose, goals, and value of the project.
A team leader can only become a leader if people follow them. Without such followers, an organization cannot function. It is thus important to be trusted by your team members and have trust in them. I believe that a team functions on the basis of that mutual trust, namely, “trusted by people” and “trust in people.”
It has been almost a year since I became the head of NTT DATA, and to be honest, I feel that it is difficult to turn diversity into overall strength in an organization that embraces such a wide variety of cultures. However, trying to do so can also be enjoyable, and I find it very rewarding. For example, every month I visit our global business sites to directly discuss with leaders to ensure they understand our strategy correctly and have a sense of ownership. I do this because it is very important to enable employees to work in a positive manner. Since people follow other people, I place importance on direct communication with leaders.
—What are your aspirations for fiscal 2025? Also, what is your message to NTT DATA and NTT Group employees?
We are considering various initiatives for fiscal 2025. For example, we want to add value to our datacenters and provide them as infrastructure with high value. NTT DATA is the third-largest datacenter owner in the world, employs many network engineers, and is able to provide unique services. When we compete with global competitors, “Japanese company,” “Japanese quality,” and “Japanese temperament (earnestness)” are still valuable in the market, so I want to emphasize them.
As the scope of IT use continues to expand, the ideas of those of us who are using IT should also expand. In these exciting times, I believe my role is to create an environment in which employees can enjoy working. I myself have enjoyed taking on new challenges since I was young. I want to see our 200,000 employees come together as one to combine innovation and create something significant.
The NTT Group’s research and development is the source of our competitiveness. I believe that our role at NTT DATA is to connect the NTT Group’s ability to create intellectual property to social value. Fulfilling this role is the reason we strive to improve the process of creating value. I have high expectations for the technologies of NTT laboratories, including IOWN (Innovative Optical and Wireless Network). In light of those expectations, I hope researchers at NTT laboratories to conduct research and development with a sense of speed.
We value the success of our clients. I want us to be a business partner that stands by our clients and enhances their value. I look forward to working with our clients toward that goal. As technology changes even more dynamically, collaboration with our business partners will become indispensable. Working together with those partners will enable us to build an ecosystem that supports IT.
This interview took place in December 2024.
