“I worry about whether our people will reskill quickly enough,” says Sam Liew, CEO of NCS. PHOTO: TAY CHU YI, BT

[SINGAPORE] When Sam Liew took the helm as CEO of Singtel’s subsidiary NCS on Apr 1, he inherited a business in which government contracts accounted for more than 69 per cent of its revenue in FY2026.

His first order of business as the new boss was to bet even bigger on the government.

“We are doubling down (on the) Singapore government,” he said in an exclusive interview – his first sit-down one as CEO – with The Business Times.

Demand for AI within the government is rising, as Singapore pushes to accelerate its adoption of the technology across the country, guided by the National AI Strategy 2.0.

Beyond AI, Liew noted robust demand for systems integrators at different levels of the government technology stack, particularly in infrastructure and cybersecurity.

“Those are areas that NCS can actually participate very actively to support the government, to drive even faster digitalisation or AI implementation among the agencies,” he said.

Ironically, AI is also compressing the scope of work within the contracts NCS is pursuing, potentially reducing the headcount required to fulfil such projects.

“We do need to break ourselves up into smaller teams, because we need fewer people to perform the same amount of work,” Liew said.

“(We need to) spread ourselves out and to win more work.”

AI-first restructure

To manage this varied impact of AI on its business, NCS has restructured itself internally.

It previously operated as three business groups, centring on telcos, government contracts and enterprises. Now, it operates across 10 “domain pillars”, which include fields such as public service, healthcare and central government.

Liew also reorganised NCS’ engineers into two shared delivery units so they can move across domains.

With this new structure in place, he is steering NCS towards its next phase of growth. One area he is “building up and doubling down on” is Singapore’s healthcare sector.

The demand for AI in this field is driven by Singapore’s ageing population and a general shortage of healthcare professionals. These two factors give NCS an opening to use technology to close the gap.

Healthcare worker rostering, digitalising prescriptions and capturing medical insights through AI are just some of the use cases the systems integrator is exploring, he said.

Although the deployment of technology in the healthcare sector is still in the early stages, Liew noted that reception on the ground is positive.

Building the talent pool at NCS

As NCS focuses on the government and healthcare sector, it is looking for ways to ensure that its 15,000-strong workforce keep abreast of developments in AI technology.

The company has reskilled more than 1,000 software engineers to become AI and prompt engineers. It is also training its technical and non-technical staff in AI skills through AI training programmes.

The rise of AI is not stopping NCS from hiring fresh graduates, though. Liew said developing younger employees is the key to ensuring the group does not end up with a vacuum in its middle management.

Over the last 12 months, NCS has hired about 800 fresh graduates and interns. It is also running work-study programmes, through more than 60 of its staff have graduated following part-time study.

For Liew, ensuring that NCS continues to thrive in the age of AI is not just about corporate strategies and financial management. It is as much about developing the right talent.

“I worry about whether our people will reskill quickly enough,” he said.

Source: The Business Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.