NCR Corporation opens regional Services Centre of Excellence in Kuala Lumpur

• Houses 400 trained, multilingual professionals serving APAC region
• Facility is also a centre for training

NCR Corporation recently announced the opening of a new, stare-of-the-art Regional Services Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Kuala Lumpur. The American-based technology company provides services in point-of-sales as well as ATM hardware and software.

The facility is located in Bangsar South City, and will function as NCR’s services hub for the Asia Pacific region, serving the banking, hospitality and retail industries.

It will house 400 highly trained, multilingual service professionals tasked to manage, monitor and maintain transaction networks for banks, stores and restaurants.

The centre, NCR says, will enable them to quickly introduce next-generation services to keep commerce running with data analytics, process automation, remote diagnostics and digital connected services for large, global brands as well as local neighbourhood businesses.

“NCR is committed to placing the customer first and enabling them to thrive as they embark on their digital transformation journey,” says NCR’s Global Services Delivery senior vice president Bill Bancroft.

“This centre will drive service excellence with advanced technology for complex, digital transaction networks, supported by Malaysia’s reliable infrastructure, stable government, strategic location and its diverse, multilingual talent pool.”

Adding to that, NCR vice president for Services Delivery – Asia pacific Nick Vreugdenhil says: “This state-of-the-art centre allows NCR to further scale our business and bring additional value to our retail, banking and hospitality customers by increasing the breadth of our service offerings across the APAC region.”

Powered by talent

Bancroft says that Malaysia is an important market, and local talent and support is key to their operations here. Eighty percent of the team at the CoE is local, Bancroft notes.

“We’re looking for local support, and we want to continue to foster that. Working with the government, we have a process to identify, train and employ Malaysians.

“What Malaysia brings to us is talent in a lot of different languages, helping us bring support to 12 different countries. Today, we are support 680 different clients and the team here is able to do that successfully,” he adds.

The CoE is also a place for training. Bancroft points out that the state-of-the-art equipment in the centre isn’t just for clients, but for students. “They undergo actual training on those devices.”

NCR’s APJ Managed Service Business managing director Jaideep Agrawal adds that the centre not only invested in tools and technology for training, but also has two full-time trainers to help develop skills locally.

“Instructor-led training is much more powerful than taking an online course,” he says. “We need our technicians, when they’re out on the field, to understand and solve issues in an effective way.” Hands-on training is thus much more important here.

Jaideep can’t comment on the exact number of new people they are looking to hire, but says that it’s purely driven by the needs and requirements of the business.

NCR’s new CoE could be a boon for our growing fintech economy, at least. “Today’s announcement is a step forward in realising our vision of Malaysia becoming an emerging regional hub for fintech,” says Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC)’s Investment and Industry Development VP Hew Wee Cheong, at the launch.

“With our commitment to innovation and building a sustainable pipeline of diverse technical and multilingual talent, Malaysia is an ideal location for corporations to boost their tech profiles.”