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OUR strong team
FOUNDED ON TRUST
A HOME-GROWN SUCCESS STORY
CEBU OPERATIONS CENTER
Today, our operations span three floors in Cebu City supporting several clients in North America, Australia, UK and the UAE. We acknowledge that Stark BPO won't be where it is today without the 18 brave men and women who were part of our pioneering team. Just as important, our team wouldn't come about had it not for the backing of our first client who believed and supported a very talented pilot group that we put together on Stark BPO's launch on August 21, 2016.
As one united team, we took on the challenge of meeting our first client's process needs and growth objectives in our maiden year, guided by our shared values. We take pride in our results because we didn't just meet those expectations, we exceeded them. Our shared values are the results of close collaboration and teamwork. We empowered our team members to contribute to the identification of these values that are important to them. These values are fittingly reflected in our company name and in our culture.
Our story is one of raw courage and will to succeed. Beyond numbers, we believe that success should also be measured by how we take care of our people, and how our people take care of our staff and co-workers is what success looks like.
Our values and our mission are aligned. They are easy to remember and practical. Most of all, they are deeply rooted in the belief that we have in our people. That's the same belief we had from the day Stark BPO was born because our people are at the heart of what we do. After all, we are our clients' trusted outsourcing partners. Excellence is a by-product of he synergy of our values, strong sense of purpose and unrelenting drive to succeed.
CEBU OPERATIONS CENTER
A HOME-GROWN SUCCESS STORY
CEBU OPERATIONS CENTER
Stark BPO Services is located in the heart of Cebu City, the Queen City of the South, Philippines, a less than 10-minute walk to the historic Fuente Osmeña Circle and Cebu Provincial Capitol. Stark BPO occupies 3 floors of Onael Building with fully operational total capacity of over 150 seats combined plus training, conference room and huddle rooms.
Stark BPO - IT Infrastructure
Stark BPO’s Systems and Network infrastructure complies with both BCP and DRP standards. Below is a Quick Summary of Stark BPO’s IT infrastructure, ISPs, Redundancy and Emergency Recovery Systems
Stark BPO IT infrastructure systems are hosted on-premise on a virtual environment with redundant physical host servers, storage drives & network for load balancing, fail-over and high availability, most of which are within multiple server platforms, using the most top known equipment in a secured environment to ensure continuous inter-operability, redundancy and scalability.
Stark BPO's hardware systems are composed of multiple physical host servers running on virtual platform configured as a resource pool hosting multiple virtual servers. Stark' network runs on Cisco platform with its proprietary routing practices. Network has standby cold spare units pre-configured for any hardware faults. Data technology uses network attached storage linked to multiple drives and file services across all production and backup environment comprising of standard RAID disk configuration for redundancy and fault-tolerance. Backup comprises of onsite, multiple rotating offsite and a cloud replicating backup systems.
A HOME-GROWN SUCCESS STORY
A HOME-GROWN SUCCESS STORY
A HOME-GROWN SUCCESS STORY
Millions of young Filipinos aspire to work in the BPO industry because of better pay and equal opportunities that traditional industries in the Philippines don't generally offer. The opportunities are tremendous. The new experience that awaits a new hire in a new industry will be personally and professionally rewarding. There's no denying that the BPO sector has been a life-saver for many Filipino families across the country. Prior to the entry of the BPO industry in the early 2000s, the Philippines was heavily dependent on OFW remittances that have kept the Philippine currency and the national economy afloat.
The BPO sector is now forecasted to eclipse the annual remittance of OFWs by 2023. This unprecedented growth has attracted a large amount of foreign investment into the BPO industry as the number international and local BPO operators multiply. Stark BPO is one of those upstart, home-grown companies that's 100% locally-owned and managed.
Stark BPO started with only 18 agents in 2016 providing lead generation services for its pioneer client, a Dubai-based digital marketing provider. In just its 4th year, Stark BPO has expanded its client base and now supports processes in the US, Canada, UK and Australia for customer service, sales support, data processing and non-voice accounts.
In July 2019, Stark BPO expanded to another floor which increased its capacity to 100 seats. In the third quarter of 2020, anticipating further growth in the coming year, it began construction on another floor and installed high end workstations on this new floor. Stark BPO now has 3 fully operational floors with total agent capacity of 150 seats, combined.
OUR happy team
STARK BPO TURNS 4
SHINING BRIGHTER THAN EVER
TEAM MEMBERS' FEEDBACK
Stark BPO turned 4 on August 21, 2020. As a team of dedicated call center professionals, we take great pride in our achievements, individually and collectively. Time does fly and flies too fast. It wasn't too long ago when we started and braved this new journey, taking a giant leap of faith. Glad we did!
We count the years like we count our blessings. With the all-out backing provided to us by our first client in 2016, we put together a very talented, experienced and hardworking team to manage the process. We did not only achieve our targets, we exceeded them. Heading into our 5th year, our optimism and focus are locked-in as we turn every stone and aim for bigger goals by conquering every task given to us.
These milestones are a tribute to Stark BPO's pioneers as well as our new team members that have contributed to our growth. Each one has made our organization's beginning stories a truly remarkable tale. In 2019, we celebrated our 3rd year anniversary on the 24th of August at Dakong Bato Beach Resort in Dalaguete, Cebu. This year, due to the pandemic, for the safety of our staff, we decided to move the celebration to 2021 on Stark BPO's 5th year anniversary.
Through faith in the Almighty, we endeavored to start a remarkable journey together in building not just a company but a home, believing that success is built and not borne, inspired by our mission to provide an unbeatable value. To generate a positive and significant impact on our client's business processes through smart call center outsourcing solutions at a fraction of the cost. We made it happen at Stark BPO.
TEAM MEMBERS' FEEDBACK
SHINING BRIGHTER THAN EVER
TEAM MEMBERS' FEEDBACK
"A happy place to work, a supportive environment and people-oriented management. This is our home, built by a hardworking and dedicated team."
- Quenne, Pioneer Staff, Operations
"Stark BPO, thank you for giving me the opportunity to grow in this company and become a big part in the team's success.
- Dhio, Customer Service Agent
"More than just a great team. Stark BPO has been instrumental to my professional advancement. To have witnessed the company grow to where it is now in just 4 years is an amazing accomplishment."
- Sherbi, Pioneer Staff, Operations
"Stark BPO provided me great avenues to grow as a call center professional. I excelled in every account I was assigned to, (sales and customer service) which further broadened by experience."
- Jhong, Pioneer Staff, CSR
"I'm one of the founding members who joined Stark BPO in 2016. I'm grateful that I have made the right decision. It's a great privilege to have this opportunity to help lead this company from day one."
- Judy, Pioneer Staff, Finance Admin
"Prior to joining Stark in 2016, I was your typical call center-hopper between 2012 and 2015. When I joined Stark BPO, I learned to appreciate my job. Most importantly, I learned to appreciate Stark BPO, a company that values its people. "
- Jess, Outbound Sales since Oct. 2016
SHINING BRIGHTER THAN EVER
SHINING BRIGHTER THAN EVER
SHINING BRIGHTER THAN EVER
Since early 2000's, several multinational companies have expanded their BPO operations to other key cities in the Philippines outside of Manila, namely Davao, Iloilo, Bacolod and Clark. Cebu is next to Manila in terms of global recognition due to better infrastructure and abundance of young qualified workforce coming out of Cebu City's top colleges and universities, such as USC, USJR, SWU, UC, SIT, CDU, CIT-U, STC and other post-secondary institutions.
Cebu is one of only two cities in the Philippine Economic Zone Authority’s (PEZA) list of “Centers for Excellence.” This is awarded to cities that have a strong hold in certain industries and disciplines. Moreover, Cebu City and Manila are the only Philippine cities in the Top 15th rank according to Tholons Services Globalization Index (TSGI) 2020. Most of the BPO companies that continue to hire outside of the National Capital Region (NCR) are located in Cebu City, the provincial capital. It is followed by the cities of Mandaue, Lapu-Lapu , Talisay and Consolacion.
The Philippine BPO industry directly employs over 1.3 million Filipinos nationwide which generated $26.3 Billion in 2019, a 7.1% improvement from the previous year. We, at Stark BPO are proud to be contributing to this growth in our small ways through job creation, career opportunities and advancement.
We are optimistic that the future is bright for our organization and the Philippine BPO industry as a whole. We are proud to serve our clients and their customers. We are committed to providing the most cost-effective, reliable, and highly efficient outsourcing solutions.
Counting Our Blessings.
Grateful for every opportunity to serve and grow.
OBJECTIVE GUIDE TO CALL CENTER OUTSOURCING
Credits: Hubspot Article by Swetha Amaresan
Smart companies always do whatever they can to eliminate costs. Budgeting is key as it can help businesses invest more into the aspects of their company that they want to focus on — such as employee appreciation or newer equipment.
One way that many companies consider cutting costs is through outsourcing call centers. Some industry leaders firmly stand by this decision, believing that it alleviates costs that can afford to be cut down. Others, however, disagree with this decision and believe that keeping call centers close to home is worth the additional costs.
If your business is in the process of considering this switch, read on to learn more about outsourcing customer service as well as the pros and cons of hiring an external call center.
Outsourcing Customer Service
Outsourcing customer service allows companies to re-focus their time and resources on other aspects of the business, such as product development, content creation, and sales. Rather than assigning more employees to their customer service department, companies can hire an external service to oversee a specific business function, e.g. existing or small business customers. These outsourced services can also take over a business's call center completely. This means the company is outsourcing all of the operations involved with that call center, rather than just one or two functions.
Call center outsourcing occurs when a business hires an external customer service organization to staff and manage their call center from a separate location. In this situation, the customer service organization hires and trains their employees to handle all communication with customers for the business.
Among the benefits to call center outsourcing are as follows:
1. It Costs Less
One of the primary reasons for outsourcing customer service is that it vastly lowers call center costs. The cost of living in certain foreign nations such as the Philippines and India, which is a common choice for outsourcing — is much lower than that of the U.S. companies. These countries pay workers lower wages, thus saving your company money.
2. Your Company Can Save Time
Interviewing, hiring, and training call center employees can take longer than expected. You need to make sure these employees have the skills to handle interpersonal communication, gain knowledge on the company and products, and solve customer problems. An outsourced call center can take some of this weight off of your company's shoulders by handling staffing. That way, you can refocus your time on other in-house tasks that require your attention.
3. It's Helpful For International Expansion
If your company is already international or is considering international expansion, it's helpful to have outsourced call centers. Specifically, it's beneficial if those call centers are placed in external nations where you'd like to eventually start doing business. That way, there will already be a local call center in place with employees who speak the same language and are a part of the same culture.
4. There's An Increase in Flexibility
Outsourced call center employees work for your company when needed, rather than as full-time employees. Whenever a company has shifting needs, they can quickly and easily assign outsourced call centers to meet those needs, knowing that they don't need to up-charge or pay overtime. Instead, these employees will just continue to be paid for the hours they spend on the phone.
5. You Can Provide 24/7 Customer Service
24/7 customer service is something that has become expected by consumers. However, it's unbelievably costly to pay local employees to work overnight shifts. By having an outsourced call center, you can easily cover 24 hours of the day just by having international employees work during the daytime. Time zone differences will make 24/7 coverage happen without your having to assign someone extra shifts.
6. You Can Easily Transfer Overflow Calls
There are certain times of the year when there's a higher call volume than usual, like around holiday seasons. During these times it can be difficult to manage a sudden spike in customer service calls. By having an outsourced call center whose job is to handle overflow, you can easily transfer calls to the call center without breaking a sweat.
If you're in the hunt for a reliable call center provider, search no more. Stark BPO offers the most cost-effective, smart outsourcing solutions for your business. Call us on WhatsApp: +1-778-917-5533. You may also send an email to: info@starkbpo.net
The Good Call Center Guide
Credits: Callcenterbasics.com
Call Centers are talked about, probably because they affect our lives in so many ways. Whatever product or service we may buy, on many occasions we will end up dealing with one.
A call center is defined as the part of an organization that deals with inbound or outbound communications with customers
A call center can be a stand-alone business or an integral unit of a larger organization. Its primary function is to handle customer contacts. These interactions range from customer service calls, technical support calls, sales calls and the like. It can therefore be summarized that it is a unit that does business over the phone.
Call centers are critical to support the marketing and customer service functions of many large companies. Most top Fortune 500 companies has at least one call centers which employs an average 4,500 agents. More than $300 billion is spent on call centers around the world.
What Defines an Effective Call Center?
An effective call center needs to balance three factors: people, process, and technology.
People
It is a good idea to start with hiring the right people to do the job. Although the common known employee is the telephone representative or the agent, there are many other support positions that need to be filled up if the business is expected to perform effectively.
Process
Process refers to the internal procedures by which specific tasks are carried out within the organization. Every department almost has their own process and this must perfectly mesh with processes in other departments to ensure seamless operations.
Technology
Technology is important because it helps the organization in saving time, storing information, and managing relationships. One of the most important call center software is the CRM tool or the customer relationship management tool. This is where data is collected from which business decisions are based upon.
The other significant call center software is the ACD or the automatic call distribution software. This is important in making sure that incoming calls are evenly distributed among staff.
An effective contact center harnesses the value its top three resources: people, process, and technology.
BPO industry news
Credits: sfweekly.com
BPO Philippines – Still The Top Choice
The Philippines’ vital business process outsourcing industry (BPO) may have taken a hit during the first few months of quarantine to curb the spread of COVID-19, but true to its history of resilience, it is slowly adjusting to shifting demands and new normal standards that will make it all the more the outsourcing destination of choice once the pandemic ends.
As with other industries, BPO companies in the Philippines were disrupted by the restrictions that the government put in place beginning mid-March. The mobility of workers—most of whom live outside business districts and largely rely on public transportation to get to their place of work—was severely hampered. Most of businesses closed down and several services shuttered as the Philippines tried to stop the spread of the virus. Only essential businesses remained in operation.
The Philippine government, however, had to strike a balancing act. Knowing fully well the contribution of the industry to its growth story, the government allowed BPO companies to resume activities, while enjoining firms to practice stricter health standards and social distancing measures.
Business process outsourcing to the Philippines remained brisk up until the pandemic. At the beginning of the decade, the industry was already employing 1.3 million Filipinos and was generating more than US$26 billion dollars in annual revenues, equivalent to around 7 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. The BPO industry remains one of two main pillars of the Philippine economy, aside from overseas Filipino workers whose remittances have, by and large, propped up the country’s dollar reserves. Today, there are more than 800 outsourcing providers operating in the country. Holding the fort for many BPO companies in the Philippines is a vast labor pool of highly educated and skilled workforce, which, to a large extent, grew up with a close cultural affinity to the West. Thanks to relatives working abroad and open borders allowing for exchange of ideas, Filipinos take pride in their English-speaking communication skills. The Philippines has become the country of choice of international firms outsourcing bulk of their operations where labor cost is low and productivity high.
Key services outsourced by these firms are customer service, inbound sales and technical support. While BPO companies in the Philippines largely support English language services, many of these firms also offer Asian and other European languages. But BPO companies in the Philippines are always making one step forward as new challenges from globalization and cross-border interactions emerge. Data processing and management, content moderation and computer-animated design are just a few of the services now on offer as new variables such as artificial intelligence put pressure on the entire labor structure.
No crisis can permanently stop BPO companies in the Philippines from flourishing. These BPO companies in the Philippines will always adjust to the current normal. As firms across the globe begin to emerge from the crisis brought about by the pandemic, operations are set to continue and expansion will provide an avenue of choice.
The value proposition of the Philippine BPO industry as one of the world’s leading BPO destinations remains unchanged. There’s really no alternative to the Philippines in terms of cultural affinity, English language proficiency and service capabilities.
Philippines: A Leading Outsourcing Hub
At the beginning of the millennia, business process outsourcing (BPO) to the Philippines was on the cusp of growth. The country became home to over 800 BPO companies, which were responsible for the employment of around 1.3 million people. The industry also generated over $30 billion in annual revenues or 7.4 percent of the Philippines's GDP.
Since then, the performance of the BPO industry in the Philippines has skyrocketed, making it the world's second-largest BPO destination – and the largest and leading call center outsourcing hub.
The country has the perfect mix of factors that make the business climate very conducive to the industry. First off, the Filipino culture has a very close affinity to that of the West, which makes it easier to conduct business. Filipinos, no matter where you find them in the country, have all been educated using the English language, and their proficiency is unparalleled in Asia.
The Philippines has been voted the best English-speaking country in the region. No other country can match the track record of the BPO industry in the Philippines, which is already over two decades old and rich in competitive experience. Complementing this is the industry's excellent infrastructure, which contributes to the continued growth of BPO companies in the Philippines.
The country's key competitive advantages and value proposition for outsourcing clients remain unchanged, and more than makeup for the impact of global pandemic which started in 2020. Overall, we are optimistic that the Philippine outsourcing industry is well positioned to grow for years to come.
Philippines KeepING THE $26B Outsourcing Engine HumMING
The Philippine Star -November 20, 2020
MANILA, Philippines — The coronavirus pandemic is leaving nothing unscathed, not even the digitally-inclined business process outsourcing (BPO) companies, a critical dollar earner and job-generating sector now poised for its first revenue decline in 11 years and slower future growth. Members of the IT-Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), the sector’s umbrella group, are seen generating $26.2 billion this year, 0.5% down from last year $26.3 billion. The forecast was down from $27-$28 billion seen last year. If realized, it would mark the first year-on-year decrease in revenues since 2009, a year after the global financial crisis.
With revenues slightly flat, jobs creation would likewise get stalled at 1.3 million full-time employees, also below the 1.33 to 1.37 million projected a year ago. IBPAP President Rey Untal was not worried. “I consider that good news in consideration of the fact that if we look at GDP (gross domestic product) in the Philippines, we will likely end the year down 7-8%. For this industry to be reporting flat growth, is again great,” Untal told reporters in an online briefing.
With dramatic policy shifts ushered in by coronavirus elsewhere, Untal is optimistic CREATE, now pending at the Senate, would prove to be “investment friendly” to BPOs over the long haul. The impact would linger beyond this year. BPO revenues next year are seen to grow to $27 billion before hitting between $28-29 billion in 2022, albeit down from as much as $32 billion originally. Full-time jobs are likely to reach up to 1.36 and 1.43 million in 2021 and 2022, respectively, also down from as much as 1.57 million.
The local BPO sector’s performance is tracking global counterparts whose work were also hampered by broad lockdowns to control the spread of the deadly virus. As expected, Untal said BPOs did not encounter difficulty shifting to work-from-home arrangements, benefiting from years of digital investment in the workplace that only “accelerated” with the health crisis.
That said, current dismal revenue and jobs projections were once seen unthinkable for a sector that years back, were thought to take over remittances as the country’s top dollar source. That did not happen, although this year, remittances are forecast to drop a bigger 2% by the central bank although actual inflows would remain way above BPO earnings.
A surge in demand for healthcare is precipitating growth in medical BPO services including telemedicine. Expansion is also picking up for global-in-house centers.
Overall, Untal is banking on typical sources of growth of finding new locations away from traditional central business districts to the provinces, skills training and large investments in the telco sector ahead of a new player and driven by demand for better network services. “There are tremendous opportunities across the board,” Untal said.
BPO Sector Expected to Grow to $29 Billion by 2022
The Philippine information technology-business process management industry expects to recover from a flat growth this year, with both employment and revenues likely to achieve moderate expansion over the next couple of years.
The IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines set revised targets for 2022, projecting the headcount growth at 2.7 percent to 5 percent, or around 1.37 million to 1.43 million full-time employees, and industry revenues amounting of $29.09 billion with a compound annual growth rate of 3.2 percent to 5.5 percent in the next two years.
The IT-BPM is a pillar of the Philippine economy. In 2019, the sector recorded total full-time employment of 1.3 million, up by 5.8 percent from 2018 while revenues amounted to $26.3 billion, representing a 7.1 percent increase from the previous year. Similar to other industries, the IT-BPM was deeply impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic but was able to leverage on the government’s immediate assessment of the industry as an essential sector.
Since then, the industry has proven its resilience—starting with only 50-percent productivity in March to over 95 percent in November through a blended service delivery model. While the global economy is bracing for a 4.5 percent downturn, the global IT-BPM industry is expected to outperform global economy as it maintains its forecast of flat growth.