Member Spotlight
John H. Sykes founded Sykes Enterprises, Inc. in 1977 as a small technical engineering firm in Charlotte, North Carolina. The company’s initial purpose was to provide design and engineering services to Fortune 500 companies. Business was strong and the firm grew rapidly. The company expanded into New York in 1983 and Colorado in 1985. By 1990, Sykes Enterprises had branched out into Texas and established an Information Services Division in Tampa, Florida, which was later to become the company headquarters. In 1991, many companies were having a hard time weathering the recession. Leaner business years, however, worked in Sykes Enterprises’ favor. Many companies were looking to outsource support services, and employment at Sykes actually rose during the early 1990s. In 1991, the company had 1,150 employees at 23 offices in the United States, Canada, and Europe.
In 1994, Sykes opened a customer support call center in Sterling, Colorado, providing technically skilled job seekers with an alternative to low-paying jobs with little future. The call center marked the beginning of what was to become the most profitable division of Sykes Enterprises. Software and hardware manufacturers were realizing that customer service was a vital part of retaining brand loyalty among buyers of their products, but found it difficult to maintain efficient and reliable call centers of their own. Sykes decided to target those companies with a cost-effective option for outsourcing customer support. When a customer had a question about a recently purchased product, a call to the manufacturer would be seamlessly directed to a Sykes call center. Sykes provides customer contact management solutions and services in the business process outsourcing (BPO) arena.
Sykes has taken leaps and bounds in getting involved with the community and helping in any way they can. For the past two summers they have done a donation drive for the Women’s shelter on supplies/personal hygiene needs. They participated in Berwick’s Week of Caring and had about 15 staff members spend 2 hours cleaning up the Berwick Theater. In March, they had a large drive for games/books/craft supplies for the Big Brother/Big Sister after school programs as well as had a team bowl at their annual Bowl for Kids’ Sake. Staff members also did a spring cleaning and they had a donation of clothes and toys that were donated to the Save Berwick Pool fund. They have become a part of the community watch awareness walks in Berwick. Currently they are gathering School supplies to help the local area “Stuff the Bus”.
Sykes has received commendations from the Mayor of Berwick, Outstanding Community Business Award and Letter of Recognition from the Women’s Center in Bloomsburg, a thank you Letter from the Big Brother’s Big Sisters of the Bridge, a thank you letter of Participation in the 2014 Heartbeat of Sykes (annual fundraiser for the American Heart Association). Within the next 90 days they anticipate adding an additional 90 employees with a new business coming to the site.
For more information visit www.sykes.com.
The subject of each month’s Member Spotlight is selected from attendees of Chamber events.