Already effectively established within the area, Singapore is seeking to turn out to be a worldwide innovation hub. One of the organisations spearheading this thrust is NCS.
About a month in the past, NCS made a triple acquisition in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia to spice up digital capabilities and gas development throughout the area. With this transfer, ClayOPS, Velocity Business Solutions and Riley strengthen NCS’ information analytics and cloud capabilities. Following this triple acquisition, NCS final week acquired a majority stake in Eighty20 Solutions in Australia, giving them an added edge as they embark on regional development and growth to a worldwide market.
OpenGov Asia had the pleasure of talking to Mr Howie Lau, NCS’ Managing Partner, Corporate Development and Partnerships, to discuss his journey in NCS and be taught extra about their plans to propel Singapore into a worldwide innovation hub.
An enormous within the tech trade, Howie joined NCS about 4 months in the past, bringing with him a wealth of expertise and data in varied fields of selling, company improvement and enterprise management.
Before becoming a member of NCS, Howie was on the Infocomm Media Development Authority for 3 years, the place he was concerned in expertise improvement throughout the expertise and media sector. Howie’s previous work expertise additionally contains serving because the Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Consumer Business at StarHub. As Vice President of Corporate Development at Lenovo, he was largely concerned within the ASEAN and South Korea markets.
Despite his illustrious profession, Howie is a down-to-earth man with an incisive understanding of the position of IT within the public and non-public sector, and a coronary heart for group influence – one thing he sees clearly in NCS. He seems to be ahead to the chance to work with governments and enterprises to advance communities, utilizing expertise to bridge the digital divide and create a vibrant, inclusive society.
Since its starting in 1981, NCS has grown and expanded to fifteen international locations and is a number one expertise providers agency in Southeast Asia. Currently, it plans to develop into the bigger Asia-Pacific area, in addition to Greater China and Australia in addition to different markets the place it’s much less current. It will leverage the experience and capabilities it has in partnering with governments to collaborate with different enterprises. Further, its service organisation, NCS NEXT, presents its shoppers customised digital transformation plans and options in cloud computing, cyber safety, AI and different areas.
When articulating the path that NCS can be taking, Howie revealed that there are three levers of transformation that NCS is presently focusing on 1) Moving into bigger APAC, together with Greater China and Australia, 2) increasing NCS’ experience with the federal government into different enterprises and 3) deepening their capabilities in its NEXT providers reminiscent of AI, cloud, information, UI/UX and design journey.
“Increasingly, prospects’ transformation are requiring new digital capabilities and options. They are actually not requiring us to easily take care of their bread-and-butter cybersecurity, engineering and infrastructure wants. They are taking a look at, for instance, the following technology of AI bots to have their customer support carried out in a greater approach, or in search of us to combine new options into their current information techniques.”
While they may seem as separate, Howie notes that the three levers usually are not discrete and divergent, however extremely complementary. In reality, all three levers of development – natural development, development via partnerships and potential inorganic levers – should be engaged. Digital transformation requires adjustments in conducive insurance policies and methods that tackle all three levers of development and realizing which to make use of within the respective enterprise environments in different international locations.
Partnerships, Howie firmly believes, can be efficient after they construct on mutual successes and work synergistically. The intention must be to ‘develop the pie’ collectively so that everybody advantages. A certain option to acquire new shoppers is to ship credible successes within the markets that NCS is much less current in whereas serving current ones. Existing successes show the flexibility to ship for potential shoppers within the wider area.
Howie says he can’t overstate the significance of staying related. In the sector, issues change consistently and rapidly from a technical standpoint. Added to this, associated insurance policies evolve regionally and globally as governments attempt to higher guarantee sovereignty, security and fairness. Keeping up with all of this requires agility.
The secret’s staying in contact with what’s related, deciphering the complexity of latest applied sciences earlier than shoppers do and making sense of issues inside context. Ultimately, it’s about serving to shoppers chart a path to delivering their outcomes and output, tweaking expertise and options to match particular necessities.
“In the short-term, we’re centered on our shoppers and our expertise. On the shoppers’ facet, we wish to be sure we’re in a position to ship credible successes within the markets the place we’re much less current, to show our spectrum of capabilities within the bigger area. We additionally wish to guarantee we’re attracting attention-grabbing capabilities from others within the trade, to affix us on this journey, as we do nice work for our shoppers that can be bringing a optimistic influence to the broader communities.”
To develop its digital ecosystem NCS will at all times rely on the core of the enterprise: expertise and experience. While the corporate has an enormous expertise pool, it’s consistently seeking to entice contemporary expertise to affix the ranks in doing groundbreaking work with a variety of shoppers and bringing influence to the communities.
For Howie, Singapore’s conducive enterprise atmosphere positions the nation effectively to spearhead the constructing of an APAC digital ecosystem. The Singapore model is highly effective as a result of it’s seen as impartial with credible implementation. It has sturdy infrastructure, monetary stability and sound insurance policies that foster development.
Moreover, the Singapore authorities has put in place FTAs that facilitate growth, collaboration and progress regionally. The nation is recognised as a very good place for startups to develop with many prime tech corporations headquartered in Singapore, providing alternatives for collaboration and growth.
When requested in regards to the position of the federal government vis-a-vis the non-public sector when it got here to development, Howie takes the view that everybody performs a task within the ecosystem to assist to develop the vibrancy of the sector making certain a secure, equitable atmosphere – creating and sustaining requirements of operation, putting in coverage and infrastructure, growing capability and functionality and attracting native and worldwide expertise.
Within NCS, methods to draw expertise embrace a Management Associate programme through which suitably certified graduates are provided a 2-3 12 months traineeship with the corporate. They are skilled and mentored, with a transparent pathway to transitioning to full-time workers. Furthermore, the corporate additionally grows its expertise pool via acquisitions of different corporations; the most recent examples being Riley and Eighty20 Solutions from Australia. When such corporations are acquired, NCS typically retains key workers as they’re gifted and aware of the operations.
Howie segued into the significance of ‘coronary heart’ in enterprise. It has been stated that tradition eats technique for breakfast, that means that regardless of the perfect enterprise plans charted by corporations, the cultural context through which they function can get in the way in which.
To set up a conducive tradition, moderately than change behaviour, Howie believes it’s crucial to work on perception and motivation. The ardour for transformation and development requires getting individuals throughout the organisation to see potentialities and to think about the general imaginative and prescient coming to life. Imparting imaginative and prescient and serving to the crew perceive and relate to it, will create and foster the appropriate tradition.
Within the corporate, they use an in-house acronym – AEIOU – to extra simply assist individuals bear in mind what NCS is all about. Adventure, Excellence, Integrity, Ownership, Unity (AEIOU) is a set of cultural values that guides everybody at NCS. Having frequent values is significant in making certain that the consistency of mindsets is maintained.
Driving for excellence, Howie is satisfied, entails establishing a type of steadiness – weaving in techniques of care for workers. Ultimately, the individuals who make up an organisation drive the expansion. This was epitomised when NCS refreshed its model on seventh July 2021.
He had a profound realisation that it was not nearly a change within the firm brand. What struck him on the time, was the sense of pleasure and pleasure among the many workers as they embarked on this journey of regional growth to turn out to be a dominant participant within the international ICT trade.
Howie provides that leaders who can stroll the discuss are essential within the equation for development as a result of they solid an extended shadow.
Looking forward, Howie is worked up about nurturing mutually helpful partnerships to make a big, optimistic influence wherever they function, be it by way of the benefit of entry to citizen providers, training, healthcare, wealth or job creation. At the tip of the day, he desires NCS to be referred to as an organization that makes a distinction on the earth by serving its companions and communities.
Howie Lau, NCS, Managing Partner, Corporate Development and Partnerships, on Driving Growth and Transformation Regionally and Globally – OpenGov Asia
