In the ninth episode, we spoke with Shinsuke Mizumori, Vice President of JMNC-LATAM at NTT Limited.
The London-based company was established in 2019 through the merger of 31 companies, including NTT Communications, Dimension Data, and NTT Security. NTT has been active in Brazil for nearly half a century since opening its overseas office in Brasilia in 1974.
Taking advantage of the services that NTT Communications has provided and the strengths of other companies, the company also provides global IT solution services in Brazil. The company covers the whole of Latin America, and this time we interviewed the company in Brazil.
98% of employees are from a country other than Japan
NTT Limited was established in 2019 by integrating 31 companies that had previously operated as brother and sister companies in order to unify the brand and expand globally. The Americas are divided into North America and Mexico South (LATAM), and Brazil is included in LATAM. NTT in Brazil is as important as in other parts of the world, and has averaged 30% annual growth over the past eight years.
There are approximately 40,000 employees in offices in over 70 countries, including over 1,000 in Brazil, with 98% of the total being non-Japanese. When the companies were integrated, not only were their operations combined, but the corporate cultures of each company were also integrated, but just like in Brazil, where immigrants have developed society, the company is growing by combining the strengths derived from each company's roots.
Providing services adapted to Brazil
With one of the world's top three data centers, the company's IT solutions can provide full-stack services from infrastructure to applications, and it offers a wide range of services on a global level, including not only networks but also security, cloud, and managed services.
In Brazil, we provide ongoing managed services starting with consulting to meet customer needs so that they can maintain a high level of customer satisfaction, and our system of being able to expand this is the basis for our future growth. The expansion of the company's scale through the integration is accelerating business growth in Brazil.
The NTT brand is known to everyone in Japan, and in Brazil it has around 500 clients, including major companies in every business field. There is no distinction between Japanese and non-Japanese companies in business, but Mizumori, who is also responsible for overseeing Japanese companies in Latin America, says, "The fact that the Japanese community is firmly rooted here, including the presence of Japanese employees, is extremely helpful."
While the technology and successful services that have been developed in Japan can be transferred to many countries as is, in the case of Brazil, it is difficult to expand globally in the same way as in other countries due to the need to respond to Brazilian specific needs and differences in tax systems. Therefore, we provide global standard services with some slight improvements for the Brazilian market.
Certified as a good place to work in Brazil
In recent years, the company has been annually recognized as a Great Place to Work in Brazil by a Brazilian research company, ranking 20th among companies in Sao Paulo and 58th among IT companies in Brazil last year.
To make the post-pandemic hybrid working style more comfortable, the new office, located in the Morumbi neighborhood of São Paulo, offers employees a comfortable space that is more than home, along with beautiful views from the upper floors, and is a co-working model befitting a company that provides cloud services.
There are few companies in the world that provide IT solution services globally by leveraging the strengths of multiple companies, and in Brazil the company is attracting attention and gaining more customers every year. The company is also seeing an increase in proposals for partnerships and alliances, and last year it was recognized as one of the best partnerships in Brazil by global companies such as Cisco, acknowledging the company's social value.
Promoting employment through "NTT Academy"
The company came up with ideas during the pandemic when the demand for IT professionals increased, such as the "NTT Academy" and the "IT for Girls" program, which train IT professionals more broadly. According to the Brazilian Association of Information and Communications Technology and Digital Technology Companies, there were only 53,000 trained technical professionals out of 159,000 job openings in the industry by last year, and a national household sample survey company announced that women IT professionals accounted for 20% of the total.
The company works with vendors and NGOs to focus on comprehensive IT education and employment, providing training and free certification to those who are financially disadvantaged, and has already provided over 8,000 participants with employment and various social participation opportunities in Brazil. Recently, NTT launched the second edition of its "IT for Girls" program, which is expected to involve over 3,000 women.
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Overview of NTT Limited (Brazil) |
*This article is reprinted from Brasil Nippou (August 5, 2023).
© 2023 Tomoko Oura
