Interview with Takuya Endo, Head of Transormation Project Promotion Department @ NTTDATA Institute of Management Consulting, Inc.

Mr. Takuya, can you tell us about your professional background and your current role at NTTDATA Institute of Management Consulting, Inc.?

When I joined NTT DATA in 1998, I started my career in account and solution sales, planning and proposing systems to help clients solve their management challenges. I always made a point of visiting client sites so that my proposals reflected the on-the-ground reality and a realistic, yet ideal future state.

After about eight years in sales, I moved to an HRD consultant role at an NTT DATA Group company, where I helped design talent development frameworks both within and outside the Group. I then returned to NTT DATA headquarters as part of the HR and Talent Development team, leading the design and rollout of global talent development programs in collaboration with group companies and universities across Asia.

In 2016, I joined Mizukami Printing Co., Ltd. (now MIC Corporation) as Head of IT and helped launch the IT function. I built core infrastructure such as the ERP, HR systems, and internal networks, and then led IT-driven business process proposals and new business development for clients, acting as an early driver of digital transformation.

Although I had shifted my career into HR, this role brought me back into the IT domain. Taking on a more senior position allowed me to work from a management perspective, which I felt was a clear step forward in my career.

In 2019, I joined Tata Consultancy Services Japan as a manager and was promoted the following year to Head of Talent Development. I oversaw talent development initiatives, localizing programs from TCS headquarters in India for Japan and overhauling new graduate training and placement, which contributed to better retention. I also drove data-driven initiatives to develop project managers and deepen specialized skills in each department.

In 2023, I moved to NTT DATA Institute of Management Consulting, where I work directly under the executive team to drive company-wide growth initiatives, including talent development, branding, strategic resourcing, and the use of AI.

You began your career at NTT DATA walking into client sites yourself, grounding every proposal in on-site reality. Two decades later, you’re driving transformation strategy at a national scale. Looking back, what personal principles from those early days still anchor your leadership today?

First of all, I should clarify that my current responsibilities are not on a nationwide scale. My role is to contribute to the growth of NTT DATA Institute of Management Consulting by driving firm-wide growth initiatives.

Across IT, HR, and branding, I try to take a holistic view of the company and design and drive initiatives that are aligned with our management challenges and overall strategy. At the same time, I place great value on what is known in Japan as the “Three Realities Principle” (genba, genbutsu, genjitsu).

I make a point of visiting the front lines to observe and listen for myself.

When considering solutions, I focus not on the technology or methods themselves, but on why we use them and how we can make the most of them.

In addition, drawing on the agility and responsiveness I developed in my sales career, I put considerable effort into understanding the current situation and into ensuring that new initiatives are well embedded and adopted during execution.

In those initial years selling IT solutions to Japan’s distribution industry, wha were the toughest challenges you faced convincing traditional businesses to embrace technology? And what did those moments teach you about human behavior in transformation?

It comes down to two things: accurately grasping the customer’s challenges and ensuring that our proposals clearly and precisely address those challenges. I learned the importance of continuously questioning what the customer is really struggling with and whether we can truly solve it, and of preparing proposals that we can genuinely stand behind. When these elements come together, they lead to new business; when they do not, I have experienced the frustration of losing deals, even with long-standing clients.

In terms of “human behavior in times of transformation,” one key insight is that people will not change unless they feel the need for change and perceive clear benefits. To help others recognize the need for change, logical arguments alone are not enough; it is also essential to address the emotions behind resistance and to foster the courage and confidence needed to take the first step.

You made a bold pivot from frontline sales to human resource development, something most wouldn’t see coming. What triggered that shift? Was it a moment, a mentor, or a realization about where real transformation begins?

My transfer was made possible by applying through an internal job posting, triggered by the fact that I had hit a ceiling in my sales career. I had several experiences where, no matter how promising an IT solution I proposed, the actual impact remained limited if the client organization and its employees did not change the way they worked or did not make an effort to leverage IT.

I later learned from my manager in the new department that encouraging change in people and organizations is what enables the effective use of IT, and that it is possible to play a role in driving that change. This resolved the doubts I had carried during my time in sales and led me to decide to make organizational and talent development a core pillar of my career.

At NTT DATA Institute of Management Consulting, you head the Transformation Project Promotion Department. How do you manage to balance strategic initiatives, team leadership, and cross-department execution? And how do you personally keep your team energized amid constant change?

My primary role is to translate the management’s vision into concrete initiatives, break it down to an implementation level, and drive its rollout across the organization. From the perspective of an internal consultant, the management team can be seen as my clients; at the same time, employees are also clients in the sense that they are the ones who ultimately experience the impact and benefits of these initiatives.

With this dual perspective in mind, I strive to work with team members to build a shared image of what success will look like when an initiative is fully realized. Because many of these initiatives span multiple years, I set clear milestones so that we can regularly confirm together what has progressed and to what extent, and maintain a tangible sense of ongoing change.

Most consulting firms stop at strategy slides. Yours seems to emphasize execution, embedding transformation into culture, systems, and brand. How do you ensure that consulting outcomes at NTT DATA IMC actually turn into measurable, lived change for clients?

At our company, we uphold the vision “Lighting the way to a brighter society.” This naturally includes illuminating the path forward, but we place particular emphasis on running alongside our clients on that path and supporting them in becoming self-sustaining.

While I will omit the detailed explanation of each element, when we embark on a new engagement with a client, we focus less on what we will do and more on what we aim to achieve, and we set things up so that we can regularly check how far we have progressed toward that goal.

You’ve worked across HR, branding, and IT. How do these three forces interact in successful transformation? And what’s one lesson you’ve learned about aligning people’s mindset with a company’s digital or brand shift?

Looking back on my career history, a common thread emerges. The impact of introducing new IT solutions ultimately depends on the people who use them. In addition to “hard” mechanisms such as performance evaluation systems, “soft” elements such as a culture and values that encourage growth and taking on challenges play a critical role in shaping individual behaviors. In this sense, the HR function is highly influential in driving transformation.

When a company and its services have a clearly defined brand, employees tend to feel a stronger sense of belonging, which in turn fuels their motivation to grow. As they become more change-oriented, they are more likely to embrace transformation and proactively leverage IT as a means to achieve it.

Aligning digital and brand shifts with people’s mindsets ultimately comes down to creating even small but tangible success stories. By doing so, people can experience firsthand that change is something positive and gain confidence in continuing to pursue it.

Japan’s management consulting market is projected to grow from USD 6.83 billion in 2025 to 11.73 billion by 2030, driven by the twin engines of digital (DX) and green transformation (GX). From where you sit, what new client expectations or business models are emerging, and how is NTT DATA IMC positioning itself to lead rather than follow this curve?

Our firm is a group company of NTT DATA, a global IT services and systems integration company, and we combine two functions: strategy consulting and policy think tank arm within NTTDATA group. With a strong focus on upstream consulting, we look at today’s challenges from a future-oriented perspective and aim to help realize a brighter society by proposing innovative business strategies and public policies.

While I am not a client-facing consultant myself, so I cannot speak directly from project experience, I do feel that our clients’ issues are becoming more complex, and that today’s business environment and social conditions can no longer be fully addressed with templated solutions alone. Some of the matters clients bring to us can be handled by a single unit, but there is a clear increase in cases where multiple units need to collaborate closely to deliver a solution.

Transformation sounds glamorous until you face cultural inertia, legacy systems, and organizational fatigue. What have you found to be the most effective way to break through that resistance, both inside your teams and with clients rooted in the old way?

Drawing on my own experience and approach, I usually start by conducting a stakeholder analysis for a given initiative, mapping stakeholders along two axes similar to a standard power-support matrix: how supportive they are likely to be of the change, and how much influence they are likely to have over it. I then analyze where different internal stakeholders might fall within this matrix.

This perspective is not about judging individuals as “good” or “bad.” Rather, it is a form of stakeholder analysis that clarifies how each person is positioned in relation to the initiative and informs how to tailor the sequence of engagement and the content of proposals. That said, these are ultimately my own hypotheses, so there are many cases where I adjust my view based on how people actually respond once I start engaging with them.

Next, to reduce resistance, I try to propose small initial steps by asking, “Why don’t we start here?” As this connects with the earlier question, I place great importance on the sense of progress people gain from small actions and use that to help nurture a growth mindset.

You’ve lived every layer of transformation from tech, talent, and trust. What’s the one piece of advice you’d give to young professionals who want to build a meaningful career in consulting or transformation leadership but don’t know where to start?

It is very difficult to narrow my advice down to just one thing. That said, if I had to choose, it would be this: be mindful of the values you want to cherish in your work and do your very best in the role in front of you in a way that aligns with those values.

Paradoxically, even if you choose a job because you believe it is meaningful, the experience may not always turn out exactly as you had envisioned. On the other hand, when you fully commit to the role you have been given and the expectations placed upon you, you can generate strong results and sometimes open up new paths you had not originally anticipated.