Harnessing enterprise architecture management
Faced with technology sprawl and siloed system information, NTT Group deployed SAP LeanIX solutions. In doing so, it obtained a clear overview of the IT landscape, giving employees in various areas of the company access to consistent information and gaining clarity on end-of-life status of its systems.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Telecommunications | Tokyo, Japan | 340,000+ employees |
Former Vice President, IT Strategy Office, Technology Planning Department, NTT Group
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Telecommunications | Tokyo, Japan | 340,000+ employees |
Former Vice President, IT Strategy Office, Technology Planning Department, NTT Group
Consolidating IT system data
NTT Group is one of the largest telecommunications companies in Japan. Headquartered in Tokyo, NTT employs over 340,000 people and encompasses more than 900 subsidiary companies.
Over many years, NTT’s IT architecture grew significantly. This created technology sprawl, with many different applications and processes being used across different teams and companies under the NTT umbrella in Japan. System data siloed in spreadsheets also meant NTT lacked a single source of truth on its IT landscape.
While these applications and systems were optimized for on-site needs, NTT architects didn’t know which ones were globally optimized across multiple regions. There were also end-of-life (EOL) concerns about many of the components and no central repository of EOL information.
“We thought it was essential to visualize the whole architecture first to identify which areas we needed to work on,” explained Ken Komazawa, former vice president of the IT strategy office of the technology planning department at NTT Group. Komazawa added, “This required enterprise architecture management.”
Choosing the right solutions
NTT realized that for its transformation to succeed, it was critical to help ensure everyone across the organization had access to the same information.
“Managing data with traditional tools like spreadsheets was no longer sufficient,” Komazawa said. “So, the need for digital management through enterprise architecture arose. After researching our options for enterprise architecture solutions, we decided on SAP LeanIX solutions.”
The solutions provide multidimensional visibility and detailed insight into the current IT landscape and software interdependencies. They enable a common language and single source of truth to make transformations happen better, faster, and with greater impact.
Accessing multiple views in one place
NTT entered its application and system information into SAP LeanIX solutions, including EOL information. “Once we understood which systems had EOL concerns and in which business areas they existed, we could start integration discussions regarding those systems,” Komazawa said. “At that point, we could dive deeper into the details of that system, specifically looking at how the processes within it were structured.”
By collecting system data from spreadsheets and creating a single source of truth, NTT achieved visibility of its IT landscape, letting teams across the group access the same information in the same place.
Komazawa explained that, “With SAP LeanIX solutions, everyone sees the same information and data, including our executives. Of course, the views differ, but executives look at the dashboard, while our developers look at individual interfaces. In that sense, we can view different perspectives within the same source, which is incredibly efficient and effective for overall management.”