ECONOMY INTERVIEW
Now trending The pandemic accelerated some trends and introduced new ones that are shaping the future of work
Chuck Sykes President & CEO – Sykes Enterprises agencies took a huge hit. But when balancing out across the company, we registered decent growth levels.
How did demand for your services change over the course of the pandemic? The two words I would associate with the pandemic are acceleration and resilience. All trends that were already unfolding accelerated. And companies today, as they think about the future, are trying to figure out how to make their business model more resilient. We had a lot of clients that began to outsource more because they want to build more resilience into their models. Additionally, consumer demand for greater internet bandwidth and personal computers began to increase because more and more people were working from home. With that, e-commerce-based companies saw great growth as well. So, for many industry segments, it was a fortuitous event but for our travel segment, it was devastating. The hotels, airlines and online booking 24
| Invest: Tampa Bay 2021 | ECONOMY
What are some of the unfolding consumer trends relating to retail products? It used to be that the office was one of the main domains in which we lived, coupled with our homes and our cars. Now, rather than people going to work, companies are bringing work to people and I believe that will be a trend that sticks. We made an investment based on that trend in 2012 and at that time I thought maybe 30% of our industry workforce of 9 million people would eventually work from home. Now, from what I have seen in the United States alone, we might go to 50% or even 70%, which is the percentage of our staff that is currently working remotely. Not every home environment is conducive to what we do. I think when discussing evolving trends, the world of work has been completely flipped upside down and this will be the future. People are missing face-to-face interactions but there will be ways to cope with that. As far as growth industries, I would concentrate on the two domains of the home and the car, rather than the office. What makes the Tampa Bay region such a great location for your corporate headquarters? The company was started in Charlotte and we moved the company here in 1992 with 800 employees and about $40 million in revenue per year. The company was privately held but we always had aspirations to take it public. The tax environment in Tampa is very attractive and can make a material difference to a business. I think the amazing thing now is that the state of Florida will continue to grow because of the new world of work where companies take work to people. People will continue to come in droves to Florida for its warm climate and cool living.
