Simon Williams, CEO, NTT DATA UK, explains why digital transformation is a journey, not a project – and how this approach almost mandates the adoption of Agile thinking and iterative development rather than ‘big bang’ transformation.How would you describe your organization’s enterprise-wide digital transformation strategy?We strongly believe that digital transformation is a journey not a project – that the focus should be on digital evolution not revolution. This applies to our own business and to our work supporting our clients’ digital strategies.
We fully embrace the move to agile and the exploitation of disruptive technologies. In fact, the journey approach to digital transformation almost mandates the adoption of agile thinking and iterative development – rather than ‘big bang’ transformation.
Our strategy has also been formed in close collaboration with our customers. Through interviews with CEOs from around the world we have identified six clear digital focus areas covering customer experience, big data, artificial intelligence, IoT, cloud and cybersecurity. To fully capitalize on these priorities we have adopted a ‘Spotify model’ with tribes and squads aligned to the six global digital focus areas.
What targets does your organization have to guide this strategy? Our strategy is based on our values. As a Japanese company we have a strong focus on quality, innovation and long-term relationships. Our targets work in harmony with these values with long-term growth objectives and stringent quality thresholds. These targets directly support our journey approach to digital transformation.
How does TM Forum help you to achieve your digital transformation objectives?Globally NTT has a strong heritage in the telecoms sector. NTT DATA continues to work closely with many CSPs around the world. In this work TM Forum is not only an invaluable independent standards body, it also creates an environment where teams can come together to share their expertise and insights for the benefit of the whole sector.
We particularly enjoy participating in the Catalyst program where telcos, SIs and vendors are able to come together to show the art of the possible.
What’s the biggest ‘win’ you’ve achieved so far?Over the past year our Japanese parent company has invested over £100 million in NTT DATA UK. This investment demonstrates incredible confidence in our growth plans and is a direct result of long-term Japanese thinking.
This investment is fast-tracking NTT DATA’s plans for the UK with the opening of a new state-of-the-art Innovation Centre in Shoreditch, London, significant capability building to address digital agendas across industries and new facilities in Birmingham and Scotlandto accelerate the delivery of the latest technological innovations to industries in the UK.
What are the biggest challenges you face in achieving your digital transformation aims? The biggest challenge is recruiting people fast enough to meet growth ambitions. The UK is an incredibly competitive market in digital technology and there is a real war for talent.
This challenge is a major driver behind the investment in our new Shoreditch office and our centres of excellence in Birmingham and Scotland. These facilities are crucial to ensuring that we can continue to attract the AI, big data and DevOps skills we need, among others.
Digital transformation is not just about changing processes and technology; it also involves a shift in organizational culture. How is your teamwork changing and what’s your role as a team leader?People and culture are actually the most important pieces of any transformation program.
The technology underpinning digital transformation can be poorly understood by many people in an organization. It is vital that every member of the team is educated about the principles of digital transformation to support the journey.
We see this education as much a part of our role as the technology delivery. Teamwork is one of our core values and as such we work in close partnership with our clients. We provide dedicated agile coaches to help bring everyone along with the changes that result from any transformation.
This teamwork also extends to our dedicated start-up partnership program. This initiative is focused on finding, on-boarding and working closely with innovative start-ups to harness their ideas and accelerate their time to market at scale. This program ensures that the most innovative technology vendors can work more closely with some of the world’s biggest enterprises to the mutual benefit of everyone.
A diverse workforce is defined as one that is made up of individuals with a wide range of characteristics and experiences, such as race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, ability and sexual orientation. What initiatives does your company have to become a more diverse and inclusive workforce?Diversity and inclusion (D&I) is crucial to the success of any business. It is not only the right thing to do, it also makes a business more commercially successful.
We have a very active D&I community and collaborate with external partners like the
30% Club,
The Girls Network and
Stonewall. We were also very proud that this was the second year that we are the key sponsors for
Pride in the City.
Our internal D&I community includes the Women’s Business Network as well as LGBT+ and BAME groups. It’s important that we embrace this as a community and we also actively engage with our clients on D&I – both bringing them into our D&I community and engaging with their own D&I communities.
As a leader, what are you doing on a daily basis to address diversity?It is important that leaders support D&I initiatives visibly and actively. For example, I recently attended a client LGBT+ event where we worked on how we could do more as an ecosystem to support the community.
As a leadership team we have also recently addressed our return to work policy and rolled out unconscious bias training for all of our staff.
In terms of the wider societal impact of digitization, what are you looking forward to over the next decade?Giving back to society is a strong part of Japanese culture – and “making society a better place” is a key part of our global strategy.
In the UK we are supporting this goal in a number of ways. We work in partnership with the
Royal National Institute of Blind People to make the world more accessible. We provide advanced wearable technology to
Team BRIT, a motor racing team consisting of disabled drivers which includes many ex-military personnel. We are also one of the founding partners of the
DRIVE Lab at Great Ormand Street Hospital, helping to revolutionize clinical practice and treatment for children.
In terms of the wider societal impact of digitization, what concerns you?Digitization is not a ‘concern’ – it is a tool and as with any tool it depends how it is used. Just look at the amazing breakthroughs in the medical research that big data is enabling and compare it to some of the high profile incidents recently where data analytics has invaded our privacy.
So it is not that digitization in itself is a threat. It is when digitization is in the wrong hands that is the concern.
To meet more digital leaders and read about their transformation journeys, go to https://www.tmforum.org/face-digital-leadership 
