Singapore-headquartered managed services provider NCS Group has opened a “centre of excellence” for cloud computing services in Melbourne as part of its Australian expansion.
The NCS NEXT Cloud Centre of Excellence aims to provide support for its government and enterprise customers looking to ramp up their cloud initiatives, with a team of multi-disciplinary, cloud-native practitioners and experienced project managers from across Asia-Pacific.
The facility is part of NCS’s NEXT Innovation Triangle, connecting Melbourne to the company’s operations in Singapore and Shenzhen, China.
NCS, owned by SingTel and a sibling company of Optus, arrived in Australia last year via a partnership with Optus Enterprise to bring integrated ICT and digital services to Australian industries and government sectors.
“Organisations don’t migrate to the cloud for the sake of it - they want to transform and offer new services and experiences to their customers. Emerging technologies like AI, edge computing and 5G, the applications that inspired Industry 4.0, have grown to maturity in Australia, to the point where governments and businesses alike are seeking to find real ways that they can be applied to their operations,” the centre of excellence’s lead Chris Fleischmann said.
“ NCS NEXT Cloud COE will facilitate the practical application of these technologies and help to find lasting solutions to the challenge’s local organisations face. By tapping into NCS’ 40 years of experience in supporting the public sector in APAC and our strong partner ecosystem, NCS Australia will play an active role in nurturing and pushing the local ICT space forwards”.
NCS Australia also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the State Government of Victoria, through the Department of Treasury and Finance’s Invest Victoria program, during the launch.
The company said it aims to create 500 new jobs within the market “over the next few years”, focusing on innovation, technology advancement, artificial intelligence, 5G-enabled internet of things (IoT) applications, advanced analytics and cloud.
Victorian treasurer Tim Pallas commented, “Victoria is the tech capital of Australia and we’re so proud to welcome NCS to Melbourne, creating jobs and continuing our thriving reputation of innovation and excellence.”
