A focus on people leads NTT DATA to Okta
NTT DATA is a global business and IT services provider, but the company keeps its focus squarely on people — not just data. “Technology relies on three things: People, technology, and processes,” says Barry Shurkey, chief information officer. “If you invest in people, the technology and processes always come through, and NTT DATA does a great job of investing in people.”
For a company of 140,000 pursuing aggressive expansion, maintaining that focus can be challenging. After a massive merger with Dell Services in 2016, Shurkey resolved to simplify M&A processes for NTT DATA employees while modernizing the company’s security strategy.
In 2017, Steve Williams, the company’s new chief information security officer, laid out a Zero Trust security strategy. His team partnered with Okta to provide the all-important identity component and to help keep the focus squarely on the employees and clients of NTT DATA.
Using Okta Workforce Identity, the team established standard, automated processes that set them up for simpler, faster merger integrations. Okta capabilities and connections help NTT DATA make leaps on the Zero Trust maturity scale, securing employee and client data in the rapidly expanding company.
Reclaiming wasted time and adapting to new security norms
Williams joined NTT DATA right after the Dell merger. “We needed a way to rapidly integrate, simplify, reduce friction, and help our people — especially those from newly acquired businesses — be as productive as possible,” he says.
It wasn’t just an M&A problem. Williams’ team did a productivity study and found that employees spent an average of 17 minutes daily logging in to applications. “You add that up across 140,000 people, and it’s a lot of wasted time that we could have spent with clients,” he says.
With so many people working remotely — onsite at client locations, and from home offices — Zero Trust was the security paradigm that made sense in the new workforce reality. Williams set his sights on an identity-centered Zero Trust strategy to help maintain NTT DATA’s client-first, community-driven focus.
Simplified M&A with identity at the center
The NTT DATA team was clear in their search for an identity partner. They wanted to create an identity “abstraction layer” that would leave the company free to follow a best-in-class software and services strategy rather than being tied to any specific platform or toolset.
After evaluating several vendors, the team chose Okta because of its vendor-neutral approach, leadership in the identity space, and top-notch Customer First team. Together, NTT DATA and Okta created an implementation plan to unify the company around a common identity standard.
It took just two months to onboard nine critical applications to Okta Workforce Identity and roll it out to 140,000 employees. “Okta’s Customer First team was a huge part of how we were able to move so fast,” says Williams. “Finally, we truly had one login, so we weren’t entering credentials six times a day.”
The team integrated Okta Lifecycle Management with Office 365 to take the complexity out of identity creation and used Okta Workflows to help automate M&A processes.
Kristen Jensen, the IT senior director who manages Salesforce, remembers her team spending a lot of time on password resets before Okta. “No one wants frustrated salespeople,” she says. “Now, Okta pulls from our Microsoft Active Directory group to enable Single Sign-On automatically. Having one ID and one password has made everyone’s life easier.”
To streamline merger integration, Williams’ team uses a hub-and-spoke model. A central hub on Okta creates and stores identities, and spokes off that hub represent each of NTT DATA’s more than 900 subsidiaries. As businesses are integrated, the central hub automatically assigns each employee a unique login ID that is pushed to the corresponding spoke, leaving each spoke to manage its own technology choices while using employee IDs that remain unique across the entire company.
This hub-and-spoke model speeds up and smooths the merger process while keeping NTT DATA flexible and adaptable. Okta acts as a bridge to help acquired organizations maintain their existing technology stack and minimize disruptions to business while also ensuring they can seamlessly collaborate with the rest of NTT DATA on day one.
Integrating trusted partners to bring Zero Trust to life
Okta also plays a foundational role in NTT DATA’s Zero Trust journey. By simplifying processes and taking a security approach based on a holistic, global view of identity, NTT DATA has significantly reduced risk across the company.
“Okta’s been an exceptional partner for us, especially in the Zero Trust space,” says Williams. Deep integrations with over 7,000 different applications allow the team to integrate their Okta instance with other trusted security partners, such as CrowdStrike, Proofpoint, and Tanium.
“Tying all that security knowledge together helps us move away from security that says, ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to this middle category of ‘yes, but,’” he says. “Having that conditional piece in place, along with multiple trusted partners, helps us bring Zero Trust to life.”
Aggressive growth with people at the core
Throughout the journey, Customer First has played an integral role. “From the initial storyboarding, what-if scenarios, all the way to today, where we continue to iterate, they’ve been a huge part of our success,” says Williams. This support also extends to enabling and empowering NTT DATA staff through training. “Okta’s training and certification program speaks to its commitment to making sure Okta products are well understood. It also helps us attract and retain key security talent in today’s incredibly challenging environment,” adds Williams
With Okta, NTT DATA can continue its growth trajectory while keeping people at the heart of the technology journey. “Okta gives us that ‘One NTT' experience all the way through the stack, which makes it so much easier for people,” he says. “It doesn’t matter where you are, what you’re doing, what device you’re using — the experience is the same.”
When it comes to M&A, Shurkey says he’s never had it so good. “With Okta, we have a built-in acquisition integration solution. I can guarantee timelines with confidence, knowing we have the identity processes in place to meet them.”
About NTT DATA
NTT DATA is a $30+ billion trusted global innovator of business and technology services. We serve 75% of the Fortune Global 100 and are committed to helping clients innovate, optimize and transform for long-term success. As a Global Top Employer, we have experts in more than 50 countries and a robust partner ecosystem of established and start-up companies. Our services include business and technology consulting, data and artificial intelligence, industry solutions, as well as the development, implementation and management of applications, infrastructure and connectivity. We are also one of the leading providers of digital and AI infrastructure in the world. NTT DATA is part of NTT Group, which invests over $3.6 billion each year in R&D to help organizations and society move confidently and sustainably into the digital future.
