Ng Kuo Pin (NCS)
Singtel’s technology services subsidiary NCS has ramped up its Australian presence through purchasing IT consulting company The Dialog Group for A$325 million.
Established in 1979, Dialog is Australia’s largest privately-owned IT services company and has a presence across Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Perth, Darwin, and Adelaide.
Dialog has a team of more than 1000 IT specialists serving a diverse range of clients across the government, healthcare, transportation, financial services and technology sectors.
According to NCS, the acquisition accelerates its “regionalisation strategy” in APAC and increases synergies between Australia and Singapore. The combined companies will provide stronger end-to-end core IT and digital services for government and enterprise clients, increasing NCS’ in-market headcount to 1,300 staff.
“This acquisition is a significant step in the regionalisation of NCS and leverages the combined strengths of NCS and Dialog and their established track records and reputations across both Singapore and Australia,” NCS CEO, Ng Kuo Pin said.
“The scale of this acquisition, our largest to date, reflects our firm commitment to growing our business beyond the shores of Singapore, particularly in Australia where we can also leverage the strategic presence of the Singtel Group.”
The acquisition combines Dialog’s core IT capabilities and NCS’ Next digital services to bolster its focus on innovation, cloud, artificial intelligence and data analytics.
NCS told shareholders this combination of talent and expertise will create a stronger end-to-end suite of technology and digital services for NCS’ clients in Australia and across the region.
“At NCS, our purpose is to advance our communities by harnessing technology and bringing people together to make the extraordinary happen. Similarly, Dialog’s commitment to clients and technology has made it one of the leading tech companies in Australia, serving both government and enterprise clients,” Ng said. “This alignment of purpose makes Dialog a perfect fit. Collectively, our capabilities, talent and reach will fortify and consolidate our position in Australia and help our clients and the industry meet the digital transformation demands of the future economy.”
Dialog CEO Alan Key added the combined companies will have a strong breadth and depth of capabilities and expertise for Australian clients with access to deep-tech capabilities across 55 specialisations.
“Both NCS and Dialog’s talent development cultures and programs will develop the best talent pipeline and create exciting jobs and growth opportunities,” he said.
They will also be able to leverage synergies from NCS Next Innovation Centres, spanning Singapore and Melbourne, to drive innovation through cross-border collaboration and co-creation. The newly combined NCS and Dialog will unlock synergies in talent development and build a steady pipeline of tech talent for the Australian market, NCS said.
“Depending on staff skill sets and areas of interest, they will also get an opportunity to be involved in exciting and impactful projects, reflecting NCS’ commitment to building a place for talent to grow and thrive professionally,” NCS said.
The completion of the acquisition is subject to fulfillment of closing conditions, and is expected to be completed within one month.
NCS has been scaling its presence in Australia since December 2020 to serve clients in Australia through NCS Next, its digital innovation and services arm - which supports enterprises’ growing demand for digital transformation solutions.
This latest deal follows NCS Next’s acquisition of two technology companies last year in cloud consultancy Riley and Eighty20 Solutions.
