NCS ramps up digital services arm NEXT to meet growing global demand
NCS today announced that NEXT, its digital services arm which offers clients deep-tech capabilities and end-to-end digital services, has grown to scale in key markets in the two years since embarking on its growth strategy to regionalise and expand its business beyond Singapore. With a fivefold increase in headcount since 2019, NEXT has become a 2,000-strong team of digital specialists across 18 specialisations in Asia Pacific, well-placed to help clients accelerate digital transformation and leverage emerging technologies such as metaverse and responsible artificial intelligence (AI) for innovation breakthroughs.
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NCS organised an immersive NEXT launch simultaneously at Marquee in Singapore, THE LUME in Melbourne, and on a large-scale virtual platform with a metaverse experience and a digital human presenting future trends to clients and partners.
(Third from left) Mr Ng Kuo Pin, CEO of NCS; Singtel Group Independent Non-executive Director Lim Swee Say; Senior Minister of State Tan Kiat How; Ms Wynthia Goh, Senior Partner and global Co-lead of NEXT at NCS; and other NCS NEXT leadership team in Singapore.
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Mr Ng Kuo Pin, CEO of NCS, said, “With NCS as the growth engine for the Singtel Group, we’ve advanced NEXT to be one of the largest end-to-end digital powerhouses in the region with the purpose of igniting possibilities for our clients’ growing digital demands. NEXT leverages NCS’ digital services companies including ARQ Group, 2359 Media, Riley, ClayOPS, Velocity and Eighty20 Solutions1, and the current NEXT team to bring to scale industry-leading specialisations and talent to drive innovation.”
NEXT’s focus on leading the charge in digital services is in line with NCS’ three axes of growth transformation – expanding in Asia Pacific, doubling down the government sector and enterprise business and growing its digital capabilities. NCS’ digital-led revenue contribution has increased from 37% in FY2020 to 48% in first quarter ended 30 June 2022.2
Access to digital specialists across Digital, Data, Cloud and Platforms
As more clients seek to be at the forefront of technology and breakthrough thinking, NEXT will focus on four key pillars – Digital, Data, Cloud and Platforms. These pillars will address key digital trends that could impact governments and enterprises over the next few years, such as responsible AI, multi-platform digital world, robots as your colleagues, meta-everywhere and digital humans.
NEXT, together with NCS’ core service offerings in applications, infrastructure, engineering and cybersecurity, offers clients a comprehensive suite of technology services to help them accelerate digital transformation and better scale operations.
Industry leaders driving NEXT’s growth
At the helm of NEXT are two industry veterans – Wynthia Goh and Tristan Sternson – who will jointly lead strategic growth plans to accelerate NEXT’s global reach and innovation ecosystem, particularly in the key markets of Singapore, Australia and APAC region. According to IDC, the digital services market in APAC will grow at a CAGR of 16.9% over 2020-2025 to reach US$190.8 billion in 2025.3
Wynthia Goh has led NEXT since its setup and brings more than 20 years of experience leading regional digital teams in global organisations as well as helping clients successfully harness technology to drive growth. She is a recipient of Singapore’s 100 Women in Tech awards in 2020.
Tech pioneer Tristan Sternson has led ARQ Group in Australia to become a multi-award-winning digital and tech services firm with a 26-year heritage of technological innovation. ARQ delivers advisory, design and managed services to more than half of Australia’s top 20 ASX-listed companies.
Ms Wynthia Goh, Senior Partner and global Co-lead of NEXT at NCS, said, “With NEXT, clients can tap into NCS as a local partner as well as access global talent to help them develop innovative solutions and achieve their business outcomes. We’re excited to showcase the synergies and collective strength of NEXT’s scalable and agile teams to support the growing demand for digital transformation across industries.”
Mr Tristan Sternson, Senior Partner and global Co-lead of NEXT at NCS, added, “We have combined some of the best digital businesses in Asia Pacific to work closely with our clients and partners to unlock the full potential of digital technologies. NEXT will enable cross-pollination of tech innovation to ignite possibilities and make the extraordinary happen with partners and clients, which will create positive impacts on businesses and the communities they operate in.”
To mark the milestone, NCS organised an immersive NEXT launch simultaneously at Marquee in Singapore, THE LUME in Melbourne, and on a large-scale virtual platform with a metaverse experience and a digital human presenting future trends to clients and partners. Attendees were also invited to experience demonstrations of AI, multi-robots operations platform, augmented reality and cloud innovation.
1 NCS has a majority stake in Eighty20 Solutions (Eighty20).
2 Digital revenue refers to capabilities in Digital (data analytics, mobility, artificial intelligence), Cloud (development of cloud strategies and implementations), Platforms (IoT solutions, intelligent data fusion platform and smart video analytics platform) and Cyber. Source: Singtel Financial Results (a) FY2022 (b) FY2023 Q1 ended 30 June 2022