Leaping Forward as a DX Enabler™ in 2019

Happy New Year! I am delighted to extend my sincere greetings to NTT Com's many loyal clients and partners as well as all other stakeholders.

This coming July 1, NTT Com will celebrate its 20^th anniversary. Over the past 20 years, innovation in information and communication technology (ICT) has disrupted existing ways of business and led to dramatic changes in the business world. We have seen hyperscalers sweep across national borders to take dominant positions in local markets and aggressive startups shake industries to their very foundations.

Companies have not only adapted to such changes, they have been compelled to proactively pursue digital transformation (DX) and thereby fundamentally change their own companies as well.

When NTT Com was founded in 1999, our tagline was "Change Communications." Today, as we near the end of the Heisei era in the Japanese calendar, NTT Com is being re-born as a DX Enabler™, which expresses our resolve to help change the world through digital technology.

Under this new approach, we will leverage comprehensive "One NTT" strengths to help clients achieve their DX goals. For example, this year we will begin offering a new "data distribution platform" as a strong and reliable foundation for DX initiatives. Through our multi-orchestrator system, this platform will be used for a comprehensive range of data collection, including IoT, AI-based data analysis and more, to help clients meet diverse needs.

Our multi-orchestrator system will take advantage of software-defined flexible architecture based on "Enterprise Cloud" and "SDx+M" for the delivery of many of our existing services, and also to automatically orchestrate virtualized functions on an optimized basis in each client's ICT environment.

Our flexible and highly reliable new platform, which only NTT Com can provide, is based on the NTT Group's Cognitive Foundation®^* concept of deploying of agile and lean ICT solutions through multivendor and multi-domain integration and process automation.

At the same time, using data securely and safely is becoming increasingly important in view of the many natural disasters that occurred in Japan last year, as well as continuing security threats and accidents involving personal information. Notably, our data distribution platform will not use client data for NTT Com's own purposes. It will be a highly transparent and securely managed environment, where clients will be able to access their data as required for business needs. This is one of the ways we will propose new ethical and privacy practices that are truly suited to the digital era.

Meanwhile, we are also pursuing DX for our own internal purposes under our "Re-born" initiative. By thoroughly integrating our global businesses and accordingly transforming our Japanese businesses, we plan to significantly strengthen our competitiveness both inside and outside Japan in 2019. Furthermore, we will leverage our One NTT group strengths to increasingly expand our digital capabilities.

As a symbol of our Re-born initiative, we will move headquarters in Tokyo from our Hibiya building to our new Otemachi Place building on January 4. Our new office is a state-of-the-art work environment designed to maximize collaborative creativity and fully utilize new technologies, including SDx and IoT. It will be our base for new ideas and innovations upon which NTT Com will be re-born.

During this auspicious year, Japan will host the 2019 Rugby World Cup and continue preparing for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. NTT Com is deeply committed to supporting the success of both global events.

I'm very pleased to extend my New Year's greetings to all of you, and very best wishes for a happy and prosperous year in 2019!

*NTT Group's innovative Cognitive Foundation architecture enables remote creation, management and operation of information and communications technology (ICT) resources, from devices and networks to the cloud.

Tetsuya Shoji
President & CEO