Japanese giant NTT has pulled together 28 business units within its global group to form a single international ICT services firm with 40,000 staff, 10,000 customers and annual revenues of $11 billion.

The new converged entity, called NTT Ltd., will be based in London and headed up by CEO Jason Goodall: He was Group CEO of IT services firm Dimension Data, one of the main operations being combined to form NTT Ltd.

In addition to Dimension Data, the new international firm will comprise NTT Security, and global network and data center operator NTT Communications. Many of the smaller units being integrated into NTT Ltd. are currently subsidiaries of these three core operations: One example is German data center operator e-shelter, which was acquired in 2015 and which has just opened its 12th data center.

For the full list of units that comprise NTT Ltd., see this logo fest.

However, the new outfit does not include systems integrator and consultancy NTT Data, which instead will be a key partner to NTT Ltd. "When we combine the new capabilities of NTT Ltd. along with NTT DATA, we create a top five global technology and business solutions provider with $20 billion revenues outside of Japan," noted NTT Corp. CEO Jun Sawada in an official announcement. "We will accelerate our execution as one NTT in order to contribute to a smarter and better world through digital transformation," he added.

In combining lots of separate units and a host of brands, NTT is aiming to attract enterprise customers with a single offering that can meet international connectivity, security, cloud and IoT needs and make it an even stronger rival to the likes of Orange Business Services, AT&T Business, Verizon Enterprise, Tata Communications, BT Global Services and others.

"This integration underscores that the historical demarcation line between telecom and IT is nonsensical in today's digital economy," says Camille Mendler, chief analyst for enterprise services at Ovum.

"NTT is one of the very few service providers with a telecom heritage with real global credibility as a digital service provider. It has played a long game, spending decades to build up digital competences. It has been highly acquisitive, and for the most part has invested well across the world, taking as much care to build positions in emerging markets as developed economies," continues Mendler.

"But the days of diffusion branding -- maintaining different brands for different customers and geographies -- are over. It doesn't make sense anymore: NTT divisions like NTT Data, Dimension Data, NTTCom and NTT Security have competed against each other. Stopping that is critical for NTT to become more than the sum of its parts," concludes the analyst.

— Ray Le Maistre, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading