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Guest: Steve Ashbee

Presenter: Henry Acosta

Guest Bio: Steve Ashbee, born in England in 1969, established a UK business in 1997 offering a team of spiritual counsellors delivering psychic and astrological predictions via telephone. In order to maintain the customer service lines through the night he then setup operations in Australia in 1999 to offer Psychics Connect clients a 24-hour service.

His business experienced rapid growth in the UK and Ireland, USA and Canada up until 2009. The negative impact from the Global Financial Crisis significantly affected revenues leading to a reduction in labour and the need to re-evaluate his marketing strategy.  For the business to stabilise and grow again, Steve knew he should focus on the Australian market as it was more likely to weather the GFC. He then turned his attention to the Philippines and in 2013 established Bureauserv Global Inc. to support Psychics Connect.

Segment overview: Bureauserv Global Inc. specialises in providing innovative and cost-effective business outsourcing solutions with advanced computer telephony applications. We are committed to assisting businesses achieve their desired growth by developing services tailored to their specific needs. With expertise across a variety of business process services, backed by our distinctive ‘Investment in People’ philosophy, we constantly review procedures, think ahead and embrace ingenuity. This forward-thinking approach helps our clients manage the growth of their business with confidence. Bureauserv has significantly matured and continues to grow with 30 personnel supporting SMEs in Australia, Singapore and the UK, allowing businesses to remain competitive by increasing levels of productivity while keeping costs under control. The business now offers Customer Service and Sales, Digital Marketing, Accounting, Bookkeeping and Payroll and Virtual Assistance/Administrative Support.

Address: Suite 1402 Ma. Natividad Building 470 T.M. Kalaw, Ermita, Manila

Contact: (LOCAL) +63 2 353 5555

Website: www.bureauserv.com.au

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Guest: Julio Endara

Presenter: Henry Acosta

Guest Bio: Julio Endara is an end to end solutions provider that can play executive and hands on roles mixing expertise in business, operations, change management and technology to deliver quality results to clients. He has gained extensive business and cultural exposure while carrying out work at a variety of industries and geographies, can lead teams varying from small to hundreds of staff and multi-million budgets. Julio is currently providing IT and business solutions from Volenday as well as performing as an independent consultant.

Segment overview: We are joined by Julio Endara the Managing Director, Business Development at Volenday. Volenday is an Outsourcing company focused on delivering high-quality and flexible solutions to solve the most pressing business needs of their clients. Through their capabilities, proactive ideals and holistic involvement, they empower their clients in strategically achieving their goals as well as sharpening their competitive edge in their respective fields. Volenday provides leading business solutions to clients primarily covering three areas: Recruitment, Staffing and IT Services (Software Development, Technical Support). The reach of their expertise encompass markets like that of the the United States, Philippines, 

Address: Multinational Bancorp Center, 6805 Ayala Ave, Makati, 1226 Metro Manila

Contact: (LOCAL) (02) 263 5122

Website: www.volenday.com

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Guest: Apple Esplana-Manansala

Presenter: Henry Acosta

Guest Bio: Apple co-founded and manages PuzzleBox BPO, Inc. along with her husband who leads the company as its President and CTO. She brings 12-year experience in Marketing and Business Development which she gathered from retail giants and a few business start ups in this new venture. Apple works closely with their team to make sure that they deliver to their clients the best service and excellent experience that they deserve.

Segment overview: PuzzleBox BPO, Inc. is a dynamic outsourcing company that offers various services like Customer, Game, and Social Media Support; Graphic Design; Website, Application Design and Development; Web Analytics; Hosting; and Consultancy. They deliver world class services at globally competitive investments serving local and international clients alike. PuzzleBox BPO, Inc. aims to be the top mind in outsourcing aim to develop a company that brings out the best of the people.

Address: 8F One World Square Building, Mckinley Hill, Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City Philippines 1632, Florence Way, Taguig, 1632 Metro Manila

Contact: (LOCAL) +632 310 1227, +632 798 0034 & +632 798 0028

Website: www.puzzlebox-inc.com

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Guest: Stu Abancio

Presenter: Henry Acosta

Guest Bio: Stu is the all around guy of the start up Talent search firm, Phil.Exeq Search Solutions. They help out their business partners in by using strategic talent acquisition in looking for quality talents for our clients. Stu enjoys building relationships and connecting people within his community.

Segment overview: Stu Abancio of Phil.Exeq Search Solutions joins us in this segment to discuss how their services are different from your ordinary recruitment firm. They provide innovative recruitment solutions thru their skills in talent acquisition, which effectively connects highly eligible candidates with suitable organizations. The company aims to provide companies with candidates that will greatly help their business in more ways than expected and to provide candidates with an environment that will suit their needs. They also serve as partners and consultants to clients and provide them with strategies that will help them create a productive and healthy environment for the growth of their employees. The Phil.Exeq team provides an open and flexible consultancy service for the advancement of their clients.

Address: Unit 908, The Taipan Place, F. Ortigas Jr Avenue, Pasig City, 1605

Contact Number(LOCAL): (02) 535 4354

Website: www.philexeq.com/

To know more about Phil.Exeq Search Solutions, listen to the podcast below.

The interview will start at the 22:32 of the podcast episode.

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Guest: Kevin Thompson

Presenter: Henry Acosta

Guest Bio: Kevin Thompson is the Director of Operations at Open Look Business Solutions. He started his career as a sales professional with an outstanding record of success in the niche publishing sector. He is originally from Southern California and began his career in advertising sales for a variety of special-interest automotive publications. In 2010, he moved to the Philippines tasked to develop and manage the offshore advertising sales team for a Niche Media company, in two years the team of six reps generated and managed over $1.3 million in advertising. Since moving to the Philippines his role expanded outside of simply sales, and has grown to oversee all operation functions.

Segment overview: Open Look Business Solutions is  a full-service publishing house capable of assisting clients in all areas of the publishing process including marketing, publication design, website development and support, telemarketing and sales, printing, distribution, and more. With 40 combined years of experience in publishing-based settings, Open Look Business Solutions has the formula to deliver high ROI to their clients.

Address: Woop Corp Bldg 6 E Benedicto St Brgy Zapatera, Cebu City, 6000 Cebu

Contact: LOCAL +6392 535 5966

Website: www.open-look.com

To know more about Open Look Business Solutions, listen to the podcast below.

The interview will start at 25:52 mark of the podcast episode.

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Guest: Mike O’Hagan

Presenter: Wayne Bucklar

Guest Bio: Mike was born a Kiwi moving to Australia at the age of 17. For the next 10 years Mike moved around Australia, doing a wide range of jobs. At the age of 34 he started and grew an Australia-wide short distance removal business – MiniMovers. This business topped $30M turnover with 500 staff.

In 2007 Mike exited the day to day of this business (still retaining full family ownership) and started educating himself. He completed a 3 year Masters in Entrepreneurship programme at MIT in Boston USA; he became a Commissioner on the Fair Pay Commission charged with setting the Minimum Wages in Australia; and he took up several Board positions.

In 2010 his Australian business was affected by the GFC. It plunged into a +$1Million a year loss. Using Offshoring strategies – his own people, in his own space – trained and managed to his processes with his work culture – Mike turned the loss into a substantial profit – within a few months. He followed this up by using his Philippines team to build a new way to market to new customers and added new services to the business, which were possible due only to the lower costs.

Mike returned to Australia and shared this with other business owners. They didn’t “get it.” Until an informal group of 10 business friends asked Mike to show them the opportunities in Manila. During a rather disorganised week Mike showed his business friends the Offshoring Opportunities he was seeing and using. At the end of the week everyone raved about what they had learned – Mike’s Business Tours was born.

Segment overview: Mike O’Hagan has structured a 3 and a half day business tour that goes through all sorts of different businesses where in they visit about 20 different businesses. They have 3 to 4 long structured lectures around different structures that business owners could use, why they would use each structure, why they wouldn’t use each structure. They also talk about locations that tour participants can operate in, some work better for certain things, some for other things, and they talk about managing them and setting out the management processes and then how to extract a lot of productivity out of it.

The tour gets the full range from everything coming here and participants are curious about the Philippines and that is why they have decided that they need to learn what to do before they do it which is highly advisable.

Mike has seen a lot of train wrecks here from people that are trained to outsource here. Tour participants have no idea what they’re doing and they want to learn before they do it, and they find Mike’s Tours an all-around source that teaches everything they need to be able to go about it in the right  way. It’s across the board, all sorts of businesses, entrepreneurial, sometimes the participants have growth pains, sometimes they’ve got margin squeeze, sometimes they’re just simply looking for new ways, for new opportunities to sidestep the massive growth changes that are coming their way.  

To know more about Mike’s Manila Tours, listen to the podcasts below.

The interview will start at the 12:00 of the podcast episode.

The interview will start at the 20:10 of the podcast episode.

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