NEC

While the Japanese technology giant is well known for its RFID systems and semiconductors, the company is also strong in IT services, with several big customers in this region including Hong Kong Police, Singapore's Ministry of Defense and Malaysia's Communication and Multimedia Commission.

To further cement its standing in the IT services market, NEC last year established a managed services and outsourcing center in Singapore to target organizations that wish to outsource their IT operations, from data centers to IT governance. The company expects to raise the revenues for its IT solutions business in the Asia-Pacific region by 20 percent to S$500 million (US$294 million) this year.

NEC has also instilled a strong culture of research and development among its ranks. With a clear focus on innovation, the company's research arm NEC Laboratories has constantly produced a slew of ground-breaking inventions such as the world's fastest magnetic RAM (random access memory) chip and the world's first Chinese-Japanese translation software providing real-time, speech translation of travel-related Chinese and Japanese conversations on a personal digital assistant.