NCS has acquired fast-growing digital services firm ARQ Group for A$290 million, a move rhr brings to scale NCS NEXT in Australia, which now offers a compelling end-to-end digital transformation value proposition for clients.
Headquartered in Melbourne, with offices in Sydney and Brisbane, ARQ has deep expertise in cloud, digital, data and analytics solutions.
This investment is NCS’ fourth in Australia in the past 15 months as it expands its footprint in a market strategic to its regionalisation plans.
NCS recently acquired Australia’s largest privately-owned IT services company The Dialog Group following two previous investments — cloud consultancy Riley that specialises in Google cloud applications and a majority investment in cloud transformation specialist Eighty20 Solutions that has unique capabilities across Microsoft platforms.
NCS CEO Ng Kuo Pin said the latest acquisition completes a jigsaw of strategic investments in Australia, ramping up their presence in a market that is critical to their regional expansion.
“Taken together, our four investments to date have given us the necessary scale, capabilities and credibility to compete as a regional digital powerhouse as we help governments and enterprises in Singapore and Australia achieve their digital transformation goals,” said Ng.
ARQ has a strong client coverage and serves half of ASX’s top 20 companies across diverse sectors in financial services, utilities, retail, healthcare, travel and government. This includes ANZ bank, AustralianSuper, Domino’s, Qantas, Transurban, nib, NAB, The Coffee Club, NSW Rural Fire Services, Queensland Government-Department of Education, and Victoria State Government-Department of Transport.
Also, ARQ has a strong partnership ecosystem across major cloud hyperscalers in Australia and its expertise in delivering tailored tech innovation at scale through its 560-strong team is expected to bolster NCS NEXT capabilities in digital, cloud, data and platforms to fulfill growing digital transformation demand in Australia’s large addressable market.
ARQ CEO Tristan Sternson joining the NCS group presents a tremendous opportunity to continue growing the business as this enables the company to go international and serve regional clients.
“We are well primed for expansion, having grown our government footprint to over a third of our business, acquired many new customers and hired 300 new talents on board,” said Sternson.
