NTT DATA, Inc. is a $30bn IT services company serving 85% of the Fortune 500. It was formed in October 2022 with the merger of NTT Ltd. and NTT DATA within the Japanese headquartered NTT Group. NTT DATA, Inc. offers end-to-end IT solutions on a global scale with presence in over 50 countries and is the world’s number one internet backbone provider.
The inflexion point
Before merging with NTT Data, NTT Ltd. had an ambition to grow and become more profitable but faced two main challenges. First was its brand reputation. It was known in the industry as a ‘technology’ business and needed to change perceptions to be seen as a world-class provider of high-value managed services. Second was its customer relationships. It often had deep relationships with stakeholders in IT roles but comparatively weak relationships with those in business functions. NTT Ltd. hoped that by addressing its reputational and relationship challenges, it would achieve its growth objective.
Our engagement
To execute its strategy, the company first had to look at its organisational structure. NTT Ltd. had been formed from 28 different companies coming together, so its marketing approach was historically fragmented and highly decentralised, with different initiatives running locally in each market.
CMO Matt Preschern decided that a centrally coordinated account-based growth strategy for the company’s most important global customers was key to achieving the company’s objectives. He asked Rachael Bell to set up a global Centre of Excellence (CoE) for account-based marketing (ABM), enabling teams around the world to focus on key customers through consistent principles, frameworks, methodologies and expertise.
Rachael set up an ABM ecosystem to support the new CoE, comprising technology partner, Terminus, agency partner, Agent3, and consulting partner, Inflexion Group.
“It was a daunting prospect, creating a new team and a new way of marketing to clients. Our ecosystem partners helped us to make a quick start, working alongside our internal teams every step of the way,” explains Bell, Global VP ABM.
As part of this global ecosystem, Inflexion Group designed and delivered a range of initiatives to enable NTT teams around the world, including:
- an ‘Introduction to ABM’ webinar, recorded for everyone across the company to access
- ‘Essentials of ABM’ training sessions for four regional field marketing teams plus the global datacentre marketing team
- ‘ABM Practitioner Accreditation’ training for the 25 ABM-ers in the CoE
- ‘Marketing Leader Accreditation’ training on enabling account-based growth for the CMO and his leadership team
- hands-on support to pilot cluster ABM for the healthcare industry sector in two regions, spanning a review of the insight available on accounts in the clusters, facilitation of account planning workshops with account teams across EMEA and the US, and the creation of draft cluster ABM plans with activation guides
- the development of frameworks, processes and tools for the ABM CoE
The Inflexion Group team collaborated closely with Bell and her colleague, Hannah Holloway, to accelerate the build-out of the global CoE. Together, we completed an audit of existing materials to see what was fit for purpose and what needed updating, while identifying gaps in the existing assets. We created frameworks and processes to document the company’s evolving ABM approach and tools to support the global team of ABM-ers, including an ABM Playbook, guides to workshop facilitation, campaign briefs and measurement dashboards. Finally, a competency framework was developed, along with detailed role descriptions, to support the professional development and career paths of ABM-ers across the company.
“The combination of the various training interventions we ran for the teams and the processes, tools and templates made available from the CoE accelerated our ability to scale ABM across the regions. We achieved the consistency we were looking for, and the results we needed,” confirms Holloway.
Key outcomes
Following the creation of the Global ABM CoE and ABM ecosystem, the company smashed its original goals. More than 500 new contacts were established in priority accounts, including among the much-coveted C-level audience. The company was invited to submit more proposals within high-value service areas, and the pipeline target was nearly doubled, with over a quarter converting into won business. ABM accounts also saw annual contract values increase compared to non-ABM accounts.
“There has never been a greater demand from our business for strategic, highly-customised ABM programmes to drive accelerated growth across our global growth accounts. Our ABM programme, in close partnership with sales, not only drives client-level transformation but in many cases industry-leading marketing programmes that differentiate us from the competition. Our Marketing team, under Rachael’s leadership, has also won multiple industry awards, including Forrester and Marketing Week. I couldn’t be more proud of our ABM team and what we have been able to achieve with our ecosystem partners,” said Preschern.
