NTT DATA’s recent announcement that it has been named a Microsoft Partner of the Year in Converged Communications marks a high‑visibility moment for both the systems integrator and the Microsoft Teams ecosystem — but the headline is only the opening act. Behind the award claim sit large enterprise transformations, hybrid voice architectures, and the operational realities of rolling AI into everyday collaboration. This feature unpacks what NTT DATA is claiming, verifies the key facts where possible, and offers a critical, procurement‑grade analysis of the technical and commercial implications for enterprises considering a Teams‑centric telephony and collaboration consolidation.
Background / Overview
NTT DATA published its award announcement and related materials describing the win in the Converged Communications category of the Microsoft Partner of the Year program and highlighted a major reference engagement with Siemens as proof of capability. The company also points to a broader set of recognitions during the same award cycle and emphasizes its global scale: more than one million Microsoft Teams phone users under management across 40+ countries, and large transformational projects that blend Operator Connect and Direct Routing for hybrid PSTN access. Microsoft’s Partner of the Year program is an annual, widely watched awards program that recognizes partners across categories such as Azure, Modern Work, Security and Industry. Microsoft’s own partner pages and regional award listings confirm the program continues to be a major channel signal for enterprise buyers and the partner ecosystem. The 2025 awards cycle drew thousands of nominations across global categories. NTT’s announcement is substantiated by its own Siemens case study describing a global telephony consolidation (35,000 telephony seats, multi‑carrier hybrid deployment, and >20% reported annual cost savings), and by multiple NTT press pages that restate the Partner of the Year honors as a company milestone. Those assets form the primary public evidence for the claims being made.What is “Converged Communications” — practical definition
Converged communications is not marketing jargon: it refers to the unification of previously siloed communication channels — voice, video, chat, meetings, presence, contact center and collaboration — into a single, integrated platform. In modern enterprise deployments that platform is frequently Microsoft Teams and the Microsoft 365 stack, augmented with:- Cloud PSTN access (Microsoft Calling Plans, Operator Connect)
- Carrier interconnection and SBC‑based models (Direct Routing)
- Managed meeting spaces (Teams Rooms)
- Contact‑center integrations and omnichannel routing
- AI‑driven productivity features (Copilot for Teams, meeting recaps, voice‑to‑text)
- Global service delivery, compliance and support models
What NTT DATA announced and the linked Siemens story
The award claim
NTT DATA’s corporate and regional press pages state the company was named Microsoft Partner of the Year in Converged Communications (part of a broader set of 2025 awards that NTT says it won, including Global GSI Growth Champion). The announcement frames the recognition as validation of NTT DATA’s portfolio and scale in delivering secure, AI‑enabled collaboration globally.The Siemens engagement (NTT’s case study)
NTT’s published Siemens case study is the clearest public example cited in the announcement. Key published numbers and claims include:- A global telephony transformation supporting 35,000 telephony users inside Siemens’ wider Teams deployment (Siemens had roughly 290,000 Teams users at the time of the story).
- A hybrid voice approach combining Operator Connect and Direct Routing to meet local regulatory and PSTN availability requirements.
- Reported savings of “over 20% annual cost savings” as a consequence of the telephony consolidation and operational standardization.
- Use of AI agents and Microsoft Copilot for Teams to drive productivity improvements and standard workflows at scale.
Verification and cross‑checks — what’s confirmed and what needs caution
- Confirmed: Microsoft runs an annual Partner of the Year awards program; Microsoft’s public partner channels document the winners/finalists program and note the scope and timing of the 2025 awards cycle. That program’s existence and its role as a recognized industry signal are unambiguous.
- Confirmed (by NTT’s published documentation): NTT DATA’s press pages and the Siemens case study clearly describe the converged communications offering and the Siemens deployment profile (35,000 telephony seats, hybrid Operator Connect + Direct Routing deployments, global coverage). Those assets are primary evidence supplied by the vendor and client narrative.
- Cross‑source corroboration: Microsoft’s global partner award pages and regional winners listings verify the awards program and list winners across categories. However, public Microsoft listings for each specific category are published by Microsoft and sometimes updated by region and season. At the time of reporting, Microsoft’s partner pages document the 2025 awards program and the broad winners list, but the granular, consolidated public winners list for every single category may vary by local/region pages. Where independent trade coverage exists, it is typically tied to regional winners or high‑profile local finalists. Readers should treat vendor press materials as accurate company assertions and confirm final award lists on Microsoft’s official Partner of the Year winners pages or the Microsoft Partner blog when absolute confirmation is required.
- Claims to validate further: NTT’s assertion of “over one million Teams phone users managed globally” and the exact award title breakdown (which NTT lists as multiple Partner of the Year honors in the 2025 cycle) are reasonable and consistent with a company of NTT’s scale, but they are vendor statements. Microsoft’s consolidated winners pages and regional partner listings are the canonical public record for award outcomes; in the absence of a single Microsoft page explicitly naming NTT for every claimed award category, procurement teams should ask the vendor for the award nomination confirmation materials used in the Partner of the Year judging process and cross‑check the title on the Microsoft winners page.
Why the Siemens deployment matters — technical and commercial takeaways
The Siemens case study demonstrates the operational profile enterprises can expect when moving telephony into a Teams‑centric, hybrid voice architecture:- Hybrid PSTN model: combining Operator Connect (carrier‑managed cloud calling) with Direct Routing (SBC / session border controller to carrier interconnect) allows countries or sites to remain compliant with local rules while keeping centralized management where feasible. This pattern is common for global enterprises that need number portability, emergency services (E‑911 or local equivalents), and legal intercept or retention controls.
- Centralized incident and support model: Siemens offloaded L2 support for Teams and telephony to NTT, showing the managed‑services model is a key part of the economics — not just licensing consolidation. Managed services reduce internal runbook burden but introduce third‑party SLAs and escalation dependencies.
- Measurable cost savings: the cited 20%+ annual cost savings is a typical vendor‑reported outcome for large PBX retirements and carrier rationalization, but it always relies on baseline assumptions (device refreshes avoided, carrier rate renegotiations, license rationalization). Buyers should insist on the baseline math and the cost components that contribute to the stated savings.
- AI and Copilot integration: Siemens plus NTT claim AI agents and Copilot for Teams contributed to productivity and process standardization. This is an emerging, high‑value area but one that requires governance, prompt logging and human‑in‑the‑loop rules in regulated workflows.
Strengths of the converged communications approach (and NTT’s pitch)
- Operational simplicity: one client, one identity plane, one set of governance tools across chat, meetings and voice reduces the number of administrative silos.
- Improved contextual productivity: embedded AI (meeting recaps, draft follow‑ups, voice‑to‑task automation) reduces time spent on non‑value tasks when correctly instrumented.
- Telecom consolidation: retirement of legacy PBXs, centralized trunking and standardized global configurations unlock hard OPEX savings.
- Regional engineering for compliance: hybrid Operator Connect + Direct Routing patterns let organizations meet local PSTN/E911/regulatory requirements while keeping a single service catalog.
Key risks and failure modes — what buyers must demand before committing
- Governance and compliance gaps
- Transcripts, call recordings and Copilot prompts are data flows with regulatory risk (GDPR, HIPAA, industry‑specific rules). Mitigation: documented retention policies, tenant‑level Purview classification and DLP, redaction pipelines for PII, and formal legal sign‑off.
- Emergency calling and resiliency
- E911/ENA-equivalent behavior across Operator Connect and Direct Routing must be tested — telephone emergencies are a safety risk if misconfigured. Mitigation: run full failover drills, validate location services and make rollback plans to legacy PBX if needed.
- AI hallucinations and automation risk
- Agentic AI and Copilot can produce incorrect outputs; for high‑stakes tasks (legal, finance, regulated advice) human review is mandatory. Mitigation: human‑in‑the‑loop rules, prompt/version logging and escalation flows.
- Vendor and platform lock‑in
- Deep Teams integration reduces migration options and increases long‑term migration cost. Mitigation: require exportable archives, open APIs, documented data portability and contractual escape clauses.
- Hidden FinOps and usage cost
- Copilot seat pricing, meeting transcription/analytics, and consumption for audio analytics can escalate. Mitigation: staged license rollouts, FinOps governance and measurement during pilot.
- Delivery scale and local presence mismatch
- Global partners may centralize expertise regionally; customers should confirm local SLAs, named local leads, and escalation matrices. Mitigation: demand named resources, local support SLAs and onshore/offshore splits in contract documents.
Practical checklist: what enterprises should request from the vendor
- Named award confirmation: ask the vendor to provide the Microsoft Partner of the Year nomination confirmation and the specific Microsoft winners page reference used for the award. Use Microsoft’s public winners directory as the canonical verification channel.
- Two recent references in the same vertical and similar scale, with measurable before/after KPIs (AHT, FCR, telephony OPEX, license utilization).
- Architecture artifacts:
- PSTN interconnect diagrams (Operator Connect versus Direct Routing).
- SBC design, survivability and geographic failover.
- Transcript/recording retention diagram and data flow.
- Compliance artifacts:
- SOC2 / ISO attestation summaries, redaction workflows and DLP/Purview configurations.
- FinOps plan:
- Forecasted Copilot seats, transcription budgets, sampling strategies for enriched analytics and monthly consumption gates.
- Pilot plan:
- Discovery (0–30 days): inventory telephony estate and define CFO‑grade KPIs.
- Pilot (30–90 days): run a 6–12 week trial with 50–500 seats, instrument CDRs/CDR exports and transcript accuracy metrics.
- Validate (90–180 days): governance certification, E911 testing and ROI confirmation before scale‑up.
- Contractual protections:
- Exit and data‑export clauses, SLA credits, and audit windows.
Implementation details that matter (technical checklist)
- SBC and Direct Routing choices: central cloud SBCs vs. regional SBCs — latency, survivability and local regulatory needs drive the design.
- Operator Connect interop: ensure carrier coverage in each target country, and confirm number porting timelines and policies.
- Recording and transcription governance: separate the capture tier from storage/analytics; maintain canonical raw audio exports for portability.
- Copilot integration points: define which data sources Copilot will access, retention windows, and whether sensitive content is excluded from model training.
- Monitoring and observability: instrument Teams CQD, CDR export pipelines and centralized dashboards for adoption and quality metrics.
- Security: enforce conditional access, MFA, tenant hardening, and third‑party connector approval processes.
Market context and what the award implies strategically
Microsoft’s Partner of the Year awards are an influential commercial signal: they often correlate to improved GTM access with Microsoft field teams, early product previews and co‑sell motions. For large systems integrators like NTT, awards amplify commercial momentum and help justify investment in repeatable IP (e.g., managed Teams Phone, AI factories, global UC runbooks). But awards do not eliminate the need for procurement rigor. Buyers must translate an awards badge into verifiable evidence: runbooks, SOC/pen test artifacts, named references and production telemetry.Bottom line — a pragmatic verdict
NTT DATA’s award announcement and the Siemens case study together paint a credible picture: a global managed‑services competitor delivering large, hybrid Teams telephony projects with measurable cost and operational benefits. The technical approach — Operator Connect + Direct Routing, managed Teams Rooms, and AI‑infused productivity — aligns with best practices for industrial‑scale converged communications.That said, the following cautions must be observed by any procurement or technical owner considering a similar engagement:
- Treat vendor award claims as a starting signal, not a substitute for documented evidence and on‑the‑record client references.
- Validate the hard numbers (cost savings, scale, uptime statistics and Copilot outcomes) with telemetry and finance‑grade KPIs.
- Insist on contractual controls for emergency calling, data portability and AI governance.
- Run a time‑boxed pilot with clear go/no‑go gates tied to adoption, security compliance and measurable OPEX outcomes.
Recommended next steps for enterprise IT leaders
- Request vendor award verification and the exact Microsoft winners pages used in the nomination. Confirm award details on Microsoft’s Partner of the Year directory.
- Commission a 60–90 day pilot targeting a bounded cohort (50–500 seats) with clearly instrumented KPIs.
- Require named references, sanitized telemetry and a documented E911 / emergency‑calling test plan.
- Map data flows for transcripts/recording/Copilot prompts and require retention/redaction and export workflows.
- Negotiate a phased commercial model tied to adoption and measurable ROI (do not buy Copilot tenants for the whole organization without measured evidence).
Converged communications is now a procurement priority for any enterprise aiming to reduce tool sprawl, accelerate hybrid work and embed AI productivity into daily workflows. NTT DATA’s Partner of the Year announcement and Siemens case study illustrate what success can look like at scale — but transforming that narrative into repeatable, low‑risk business outcomes requires the same diligence that enterprise architects apply to any mission‑critical migration: verify, pilot, instrument and govern.
Source: NTT, Inc. NTT DATA wins award for converged communications | NTT DATA
