NTT Communications' Enterprise Cloud Service enables Honda to strengthen global supplier network

Honda Motor Co., Ltd. has leveraged NTT Communications' Enterprise Cloud service to significantly strengthen its global supplier network with faster, more secure file sharing and reduce annual operating costs.

NTT Com, a global strategic partner of Honda, has been providing the automaker with its Enterprise Cloud service from delivery centers in Japan and Singapore since 2013. To date, Honda has increased its file-sharing speed by a factor of 14, while reducing operating costs by 30% on an annual basis. Honda is currently planning to expand its use of Enterprise Cloud infrastructure in other key areas of its global business.

NTT Com's Enterprise Cloud (www.ntt.com/enterprise_cloud_e), the first private cloud to deploy Software Defined Networking (SDN), is built on global cloud infrastructure provided from 11 delivery centers in 9 countries. Offering complete enterprise solutions with the highest levels of security, the cloud leverages SDN to provide flexible support for critical enterprise applications.

Honda's global network encompasses more than 10,000 suppliers and 54 countries. In 2011, it began reorganizing its internal system for development, procurement and production in specific markets, aiming to strengthen cross-group collaboration to quickly launch price-competitive products that meet local demands. Such collaboration requires the sharing of CAD and other huge data files with suppliers globally, but Honda experienced difficulties with differing systems and security levels among its many markets, resulting in slow data transfers along with added time and cost to introduce new systems.

NTT Com's solution was to use Enterprise Cloud to standardize existing systems and reduce the time and cost of deploying new systems with a virtualized environment. As a result, Honda has vastly increased its large data transfer speeds and broadly standardized its supplier network, thereby supporting faster and more cost-efficient development, procurement and production operations.

1) High-speed file transfers
Honda's cloud infrastructure for file transfers is connected directly to Arcstar Universal One (www.ntt.com/universalone_e), NTT Com's high-quality managed network service. In addition to high-speed transfers among differing systems in differing markets, Honda has used this infrastructure to achieve greater efficiency for related internal operations.

2) Globally standardized security
Moving to NTT Com's cloud environment has enabled Honda to standardize its global security policy in an integrated manner with Camellia file encryption, one of the world's strongest encryption technologies, and the SSL communication encryption protocol.

3) Fast, low-cost global cloud infrastructure deployment
Honda also benefits from a flexible cloud environment that is connected to NTT Com's high-quality global network. NTT Com's cloud infrastructure, provided from 11 delivery centers in 9 countries, has enabled Honda to deploy systems that are 90% faster and cost 30% less to operate than before.

NTT Com's Enterprise Cloud solution for Honda
"NTT Com's Enterprise Cloud solution has significantly strengthened and upgraded our global system for collaborative product development," said Honda's Mikiya Fujita, Manager of System Service Division, Global Master Management Department. "Their cloud infrastructure has enabled us to collaborate much more closely with our suppliers around the globe. We also have streamlined and standardized processes and increased security while slashing the cost and time of new system deployment."

Going forward, NTT Com will continue to serve as a global strategic partner while Honda migrates additional ICT infrastructure to the cloud for even stronger development, procurement and production operations.