• Japanese operator combines whole raft of units to form $11bn business
• NTT Ltd. makes all the right noises about helping enterprises with digital transformation
• Setting up home in UK throws down the gauntlet to European incumbents

Japan's NTT has chosen London for the headquarters of its newly-formed IT arm, NTT Ltd., giving major European incumbents something to think about.

The new unit brings together the expertise of no fewer than 28 NTT businesses, including NTT Com, NTT Security, and Dimension Data, resulting in an $11 billion global services supplier with 10,000 clients, and 40,000 staff worldwide. The telco's systems integration business, NTT DATA, will not be rolled into NTT Ltd., but will partner with it instead.

"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 Jun Sawada, CEO of NTT Corporation.

The aim is to offer a consistent one-stop-shop for telco and IT systems and services to corporate customers in any market.

"Today, we've created a global technology services provider that delivers a full breadth of industry-leading products, solutions, and managed services that address our clients' business needs," said Jason Goodall, who was the CEO of Dimension Data, but who has now been appointed CEO of NTT Ltd.

While global in outlook, picking London as its headquarters sends a message to Europe's enterprise DSPs that NTT considers their customers fair game. So, should the likes of Orange Business Services, T-Systems and BT Global Services be concerned?

Well, when it comes to areas like cloud, which is only becoming more important to enterprises' digital transformation strategies as time goes on, NTT is pretty much the only telco that comes close to the scale of the major online players like Amazon and Microsoft.

Indeed, NTT Com is the only telco brand that features in Canalys' top 10 list of global cloud services provider, which are ranked by share of total spend.

Whereas previously NTT had a separate brand for pretty much every service and solution it offered, it is now taking them to market under the one name, NTT Ltd. That will make it an easier sell to enterprises looking for a 'trusted digital transformation partner'.

The only slightly odd thing about the announcement is that NTT has chosen London as the home for NTT Ltd., with Suwada citing its stable economy, strong infrastructure, schools and housing as good reasons to settle down there. Clearly NTT hasn't been keeping up with the news lately.

"Britain has a long standing and proud reputation as a global tech leader and it's fantastic that NTT Ltd. has chosen London for its global headquarters," said outgoing UK Prime Minister Theresa May. "A key part of our modern Industrial Strategy is to put the UK at the forefront of the tech and data revolution, and they will join many other world-leading companies who call Britain home."