Jesús Ordoñez

What is NTT’s current business focus?

The company has been in Colombia for over 15 years and has 1,400 collaborators, as part of a corporationa which is a top 10 global IT services provider with over 140.000 employees and operating in more than 50 countries. We cover the complete value chain of technology consulting: from the definition of the transformational strategy, new technologies adoption, and technology integration projects to the digitization and efficiency of back-office areas. This implies developing corporate culture projects, new strategies to approach clients, data analytics, implementation of architectures and digital platforms, among others. It is also important to build capabilities around emerging technologies such as AI, blockchain, cybersecurity, cloud or automation that our clients need to adopt. Through principles of digital transformation, NTT Data plays key role in making industries more innovative and productive.

What does NTT’s global experience bring to its operation in Colombia?

NTT Data serves as an expert partner that can help companies navigate transformation and avoid different pitfalls. From the moment we started to operate, in 1996, first as DMR, then Everis, and now as NTT Data; being a global company has always been an objective and that means having the capabilities to lead global transformation programs. Growth makes our model sustainable and now as NTT Data not only operate under the same brand, but also with a unique vision, sharing a corporate culture and sharing corporate values. We want to promote a more fluid collaboration among countries. This allows us to be stronger and to be able to develop global transformation programs for our clients. At the same time, we can offer our teams the opportunity to be part of the most challenging projects.

How has the rebranding spurred NTT’s ambitions going forward?

The main challenge when you are in a company like NTT in which the main asset is the talent of our collaborators, is how to communicate the change of brand to the talent market without creating any confusion. At the same time, as we integrated the company, with its different operations across different the countries, it was important to retain those features that have led us to where we are now. First, our innovative and creative DNA has led us to be what we are now, and second our strong commitment to our clients. Proximity to clients; to understand their strategy, to understand what their strategic objectives are, and always with a long-term vision and building long-term relationships, based on trust. At the same time that we undertake these changes, we have to be careful not to change the company DNA.

What is NTT’s special approach to talent, and how is this key in offering good value and good service to clients?

Talent is an absolutely key factor in the technology consultancy business. As talent is our main challenge, having a clear talent strategy makes the difference. In our case, we have worked hard on having our own culture, a very strong culture that has to be the same across the company—leadership based on values. Not hierarchical leadership. It is important also to have a clear career path and model. That means bringing every consultant that decides to join us the best opportunity, the tools they need to develop their full potential. The point is to find a way to break any kind of glass ceiling in terms of professional development.

What potential do you see in Colombia as a talent hub?

Colombia has highly qualified professionals with a very strong enterprising character. The Colombian market has started to capture the attention of foreign markets. That means a challenge for us because we compete not only with our traditional competitors but also with the start-ups, government offices, our clients, and now foreign markets. We find very challenging opportunities associated to the complex technology transformations that Colombian companies are undertaking and that we want to be part of but also we can collaborate in global project that some times are led from other geographies, involving our own local capabilities.