KEY TAKEAWAYS
  • For organizations to innovate successfully, the old ways of doing things (including decision-making processes) must be cast aside. R&D bridges the gap between the existing and the possible, guides innovation efforts, and creates competitive advantage. 
  • NTT invests billions every year into R&D, developing new technologies that will help us achieve a smart – i.e. technologically advanced and socially progressive – world for all. 
  • Unlike most consulting organizations that theorize about the future of technology, NTT DATA is there at the coalface of real R&D with practical applications. 
  • R&D means that providers can continually develop, enhance and improve technologies and services. An example of R&D in action is NTT’s Piper tool, a botnet visualization platform that’s already being used in the cybersecurity services delivered by NTT DATA. The platform analyzes and visualizes billions of data points in real-time, by applying machine learning to network data. 
  • Commitment to R&D proves to your own organization and to your clients that quality and partnership are top priorities.

Originally published by NTT DATA UK, January 2020.

 

For NTT DATA the route to the extraordinary has always been the ordinary. Innovation is part of our routine, our culture, our ‘business as usual’, and the reason for this is ingrained in our approach to Research and Development (R&D).

“With 2,500 people dedicated to R&D, and many more in our innovation labs around the world, we’re able to create truly pioneering technologies and experiences that unleash the power of imagination and inventive thinking.”

Commitment to R&D

Altogether, NTT Group invests $3.6 billion in R&D every year. Globally, amongst other consulting and system integrators, that figure puts us at the very top. With 2,500 people dedicated to NTT R&D, and many more in our NTT DATA innovation labs around the world, we’re able to create truly pioneering technologies and experiences that unleash the power of imagination and inventive thinking.

We invest in ideas that we know can shape the future of business and humanity itself – ideas that society doesn’t just want, but needs. Our R&D is the driving force behind a broader, long term, global movement towards a truly smart world – a world that is at once efficient, intelligent, but also sustainable.

For NTT DATA, these efforts are spread across our six Digital Focus Areas:

  1. Data & Intelligence
  2. Intelligent Automation
  3. Customer Experience
  4. Internet of Things
  5. IT Optimisation
  6. Cybersecurity.

“We’re not just speaking about the future. We’re shaping the future.”

Large-scale R&D activity in these spaces puts us in an enviable position. Certainly, it strengthens the core of the business, allowing NTT DATA to build, sustain and enhance its position over competitors, maintaining our status as leaders in the market. But R&D is also a key point of differentiation. Our R&D success means that, unlike most consulting organizations which simply talk and theorize about the future of technology, NTT DATA can do so much more. The company is there at the coalface of real R&D with practical applications. We’re not just speaking about the future. We’re shaping the future.

Impact on clients

For clients in particular, that provides very real benefits. By enhancing, improving and continually developing our technologies and services, we’re able to dramatically enhance what we’re able to provide. Dozens of examples could be found at the R&D Forum in Tokyo.

One illustration of NTT R&D in action is Piper, a botnet visualization tool that’s already being used in the cybersecurity services we deliver. The platform can analyze and visualize billions of data points in real-time, by applying machine learning to our own network data. By entering an IP address of interest, the tool generates and displays a graph that shows related IP addresses, and the relationship between them.

Another example, already implemented on the ground in Las Vegas, is NTT DATA Services’ Smart City Solution. This tool uses Internet of Things (IoT) devices, high-definition video cameras, and sound sensors to monitor a public space, and is designed to reduce reaction times for first responders. By alerting responders to cues such as shattering glass, gunshots or other loud noises, the platform is already supporting emergency services in tackling crime and serious weather incidents.

Building the future

They say that the best way to predict the future is to create it. And that’s most definitely what we as a company envisage through our R&D efforts.

 “It’s a promise to continuously improve, to deliver quality, and to forge long-term partnerships.”

Our developments are a testament to an unwavering commitment to shaping the future of business and society itself. It’s a promise, to clients and to ourselves, to continuously improve, to deliver quality, and to forge long-term partnerships. That, in essence, is what NTT DATA’s R&D is all about: taking clients to the next level.

Our clients across every industry and sector want to be lighter, faster, stronger, brighter, more effective or more efficient – and our R&D provides the edge that allows them to achieve exactly that.