In a statement, Singtel said the move to transfer the management of this division to Australia will give Optus more autonomy and accountability.

“With a more unified and collaborative approach across Optus, we will be able to better meet the localised need of our business customer and bring solutions to market more quickly. Importantly, we still will be able to leverage the insights and global reach of Singtel, while having the autonomy to make decisions quickly,” comments Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin.

Singtel Group CEO Yuen Kuan Moon says expressed confidence that the decentralisation will be successful, taking note that the implementation was based on the success of other recent restructures.

Optus recorded a revenue of $1.21 billion in the financial year ended March 2022.

In 2021, Singtel’s telco ICT arm, NCS, was spun off from Singtel’s enterprise business as a B2B digital services company in Asia.

The move facilitated NCS’ regionalisation and saw NCS opening a facility in Melbourne to provide cloud products and services to Australia last year.

“With NCS scaling its business in Australia, we expect the combined synergies and capabilities of NCS and Optus to be mutually beneficial as both companies respond more easily to the specific needs of that market,” Yuen says.

In 2021, the group established another company under a decentralised model—a regional data centre business in Singapore, and designated Bill Chang as CEO taking effect on 1 July 2022.

Chang is also the CEO of Singtel’s enterprise portfolio, a role he has held since 2012.

“With companies racing to digitalise and transform their business models and processes in the wake of the pandemic, and consumer lifestyles getting ever more digital, the growth in data traffic and demand for data centres will be unrelenting. We’re well-placed to capture the exciting growth opportunities across this region,” Chang says.

Singtel Group’s long-time business associates, Telkom in Indonesia and Gulf and AIS in Thailand are among the business’ first partners.

This first appeared in the subscription newsletter CommsWire on 16 June 2022.