The innovation blueprint: How we turn our customers ambitious ideas into a competitive edge

Innovation is a tricky concept. It’s subjective, often difficult to articulate, and, more often than we’d like to admit, it fails. Articulating its value can be even harder. And yet, innovation is happening all the time, all around us.

In this article, I want to explain what, in my experience, needs to be present for innovation to truly succeed. 

This August, I will celebrate my 15th anniversary with NTT DATA. When I look back on that decade and a half, my most prized memories are all connected to innovation projects. I’ve worn many hats – developer, project manager, researcher – but in every role, I’ve been hands-on in projects that pushed the boundaries of what was possible. The projects challenged our customers, and they challenged the market. They forced us to think outside the box, to collaborate deeply, and to relentlessly pursue new knowledge.

That commitment is why NTT DATA invests $3.4 billion annually in R&D. It’s the reason we can take on ambitious challenges and explore emerging technologies with our clients. And on a personal level, it’s why I’m here, 15 years later, as excited as ever to see what we can build next.

For years, the playbook for fostering innovation has been dominated by a few famous models.

We’ve all heard of Google’s legendary ”20% time,” which allowed employees to work on personal passion projects, or the corporate hackathon, an intense burst of creativity designed to generate new ideas over a weekend. While the intent behind these methods is commendable, I’d argue they are often ineffective for creating sustainable, strategic change. 

The fundamental flaw in these classic approaches is that they operate in a silo and lack influx of external ideas. They create a separation – an ”innovation bubble” – that is disconnected from the daily operations and strategic priorities of the business. An brilliant idea from a hackathon might win applause, but it often dies on Monday morning when it meets the reality of budgets, roadmaps, capabilities and a lack of executive sponsorship. 

This divide between IT, daily operations, and business strategy is the single biggest blocker to meaningful innovation. When innovation is treated as a side activity instead of a core part of the business engine, it struggles for justification. Great ideas wither without resources, funding, or a clear path to integration. 

At NTT DATA we have thousands of technology accelarators that can be used innovation projects to build the foundation at low cost. And cross-industry experience. There is no hackathon that would setup a private 5G network to solve warehouse tracking challanges. 

That’s why a more holistic and ecosystem approach is not just better, it’s essential. True transformation happens when innovation is added directly into business strategy, not forced out from a bubble. It requires a collaborative ecosystem where ideas are born from real-world challenges, inspiration is collected and are aligned with strategic goals from day one. 

If siloed models don’t work, what does?

In my experience, successful innovation isn’t the result of a single brilliant mind but the product of a carefully assembled ecosystem. With unlimited funds, anything is possible. But when resources are limited and outcomes are uncertain, success hinges on bringing the right parties to the table. The fewer of the following elements are in place, the higher the risk of failure or risk for an rather ordinary result is. I’ve seen this ecosystem come to life in several projects I’ve been fortunate to lead, such as PARSONII, Waddi (Green Nudging), and VisitData. None of these would have been possible without the following ingredients: 

1. The visionary customer 

It all starts here. A successful co-innovation project requires a customer who sees technology not just as a cost center, but as a fundamental driver of their future competitive advantage. This is a customer who is willing to engage strategically, share their deepest business challenges, and is brave enough to question their own established processes. They don’t come to us for a pre-defined solution; they come to us with a critical business problem to solve. 

Sometimes it can also be the other way around, if we know the business strategy, we might call years later and say “we have this new technology, we have this hypothesis, want to try?” 

2. The invested solution partner (NTT DATA) 

Our role goes far beyond simply writing code or managing a project. As an invested partner, we bring our global R&D insights to the table. We actively look for alignment between a customer’s strategic needs and our own Technology Focus Areas (TFAs). When that synergy exists, we are prepared to co-invest our own resources, expertise, and funding, sharing the risk because we believe in the shared reward. We are not just a global consulting business; we are a co-creator of innovation. 

3. The enabling technology partner 

In today’s world, you don’t build everything from scratch. This is where the hyperscalers, like Microsoft, Google, or AWS, play a crucial role. We work with technology partners who are eager to see their services and capabilities bundled in novel ways. They often provide crucial technical support, expertise, and sometimes even funding, because our lighthouse projects demonstrate the cutting-edge potential of their platforms. 

4. The right timing (the ’zeitgeist’) 

An idea can be brilliant but fail if it’s too early or too late. The sweet spot is aligning with major socio-technological trends. As I write this in late 2025, topics like Generative AI and Sustainability continue to reshape industries at an incredible pace. We often use the Gartner Hype Cycle as a guide: the foundational technology has made its way out of universities, but it has yet to prove its full value, and there’s no off-the-shelf software available yet. This is the fertile ground where real innovation can flourish. 

5. The amplification engine (Marketing & PR) 

Many projects treat marketing as an afterthought, something to do after the work is done. This is a missed opportunity. Involving marketing and communications from the beginning turns a project into a lighthouse for the industry. It creates powerful internal and external storytelling, attracts new insights as the story is shared, and builds momentum. Sometimes, a potential second customer sees the progress and figures out an application the original team hadn’t even considered. 

6. (Optional but powerful) The knowledge partner 

While not always required, involving an academic institution or an NGO can add incredible depth. They can independently study and validate the technology’s adoption, measure the real-world impact, and provide unbiased analysis. This adds a layer of credibility and academic rigor that benefits everyone in the ecosystem. Here we can briefly mention link to  projects (PARSONII, Waddi, VisitData) as examples of this ecosystem in action.

So, how do we get from a simple conversation to a fully funded project? To accelerate the journey, we’ve moved away from lengthy discovery phases and adopted a more dynamic, hands-on approach centered on collaboration from the very first minute. 

Our process is designed  to be transparent and efficient, ensuring we focus our collective energy on ideas that have real strategic value. It boils down to three key steps. 

Step 1: The co-creation workshop  

Instead of a series of separate meetings, we kick things off by bringing the right people from your organization and ours into a collaborative Design Thinking workshop. This is where the magic happens. In this intensive session, we rapidly move from understanding your core business challenges (empathize and define) to brainstorming a wide range of potential solutions (ideate). 

This workshop format allows us to handle the strategic dialogue and the qualification process simultaneously. We can immediately validate ideas against customer business needs, our NTT DATA’s Technology Focus Areas (TFAs)  and Gartners Hype Cycles in a creative, open environment. We leave the workshop not with a long report, but with one or two high-potential concepts that everyone is excited about. 

Step 2: Building the joint business case and securing the mandate  

The most promising concepts from the workshop become the foundation for a single, unified business case. We work together to define the project’s scope, potential ROI, and the co-investment required from all parties. This document is our shared blueprint for success. 

Crucially, this is a joint approval process. The business case must be formally approved by all key partners – that means you, us, and any other contributing technology partners. This ensures complete alignment and commitment from everyone before a single dollar is spent. Once this mutual mandate is secured, we officially allocate funding from NTT DATA’s R&D budget to the project. 

Step 3: Agile execution and storytelling  

With the joint mandate in place, we move seamlessly into execution. The project is run using agile methods, ensuring transparency and continuous collaboration. As we’ve discussed, marketing and communication are integrated from the start, allowing us to share the journey, the learnings, and the successes. This transforms our joint effort into a powerful story of innovation in action. News coverage of our projects is regular and I’ve been featured numerous times on television at prime time before news about the royal famliy.