Matthew Narciso of SuperStaff tells us how they help build exceptional outsourced teams.
Tell us about you, your career, and how you founded SuperStaff.
Matthew Narciso: I have spent the entirety of my career at the intersection of technology and human capital, which is really just a fancy way of saying that I worked either in the outsourced components of technology firms or the technology components offshoring companies.
I started as a customer support representative at a call center while going to college in Oklahoma. That translated into working in the client services space in the tech arena bouncing between Seattle, DC, and San Francisco, before transitioning overseas into outsourced human capital, where I mostly built offshore expansion road maps for technology firms.
After years of building offshore business units throughout Asia for expanding global companies, I began to develop an appetite to open a brand that went beyond the traditional South and Southeast Asian manpower solutions. My passion and vision were to unlock the global workforce in its entirety, specifically as it related to specialized talent pools.
The financial backers which powered me to rebrand an existing offshore division of theirs and essentially launch SuperStaff is a business that believes deeply in the power of offshore economics and global talent pools. And when we put together the roadmap for SuperStaff, we envisioned a comprehensive human capital solution that would allow companies to grow domestically and internally through our dedicated global talent acquisition solutions or leverage leased external workforces available in every language from the four corners of the world.
This powerful multi-pronged manpower solution allows companies on the main street to hire any position anywhere and leverage it for their business wherever it is located. This workforce approach reduces operational expenses, optimizes retention and hiring turnaround times, and taps into highly specialized talent pools the world over.
We knew there was a need in the marketplace, but we didn’t realize how fast businesses would take it. But as the impacts of the pandemic forced companies to think outside of the box, we were propelled into triple-digit growth every year since launch, and it does not look like we will be slowing down anytime soon.
Do you have small habits that made a meaningful impact on your life and business?
Matthew Narciso: Because we operate globally, it’s nearly always prime business hours for us. However, there is this magical time between 5 AM and 7 AM when many of my major markets in the west have just closed, and many of my eastern markets are a couple of hours from opening. I use this time nearly every day to hit the gym as hard as I possibly can. This allows me to clear my mind, ease the tension in my body, and empowers me to enter the day feeling energized and calm.
As it relates to business habits, every meeting has very comprehensive minutes, no matter how big or small. I review those notes every Friday before ending the week and every Monday before beginning it. This allows me to maintain perspective on what happened, what is happening currently, and what needs to happen, as it is easy to lose your place in the hustle and bustle of the workweek or the aftermath of the weekend.
These two habits ensure that I feel good, think clearly, and am acutely aware of unfolding situations. That’s a triple threat tool for any businessperson.
How does SuperStaff market its product/services online?
Matthew Narciso: We invest quite heavily in our digital presence, including a plethora of approaches ranging from direct digital outreach and SEO to publication of interactive content and speaking at digital forums.
We have a business content team of highly specialized researchers who constantly create case studies, white papers, and other beneficial resources for business executives struggling with workforce challenges.
We are also quite active on social media, particularly LinkedIn and business forms.
We like to join in discussions related to the great resignation, the great rehire, the great employee-executive disconnect, the talent war, wage escalations, and global workforce dialogue.
While we are certainly active in networking and reaching out via all digital mediums to prospective clients, our core belief is that as long as we provide useful and beneficial information that gives the larger executive audience advantages and tools to work with, they will seek us out. And they do.
What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to manage your online marketing?
Matthew Narciso: We have a pretty comprehensive tech stack, but some of the key ingredients are actually the classics, such as Pipedrive, HubSpot, WordPress, HootSuite, SEMrush, and the Google Suite.
As far as the particular skills needed to manage our tech stack, and online marketing in general, we are a big believer in hiring tenured specialists who are capable of being a generalist.
For example, social media, content, digital outreach, and SEO are all distinct sub-departments of the overall Digital Presence division. Each has a sub-department head that has vast experience in their specialty.
What is your hiring policy/process, and how do you retain your employees?
Matthew Narciso: We believe in hiring globally, passively, and actively so as not to pigeonhole ourselves into only one type of applicant. We are posting on all the major job boards, trolling all of the major professional networking sites, and actively searching in every market to that we have access to find the very best talent available.
Like all hiring, the initial effort begins with strict adherence to the job description, which is followed by talent pooling, paper screening, and interviews with the talent acquisition specialist assigned to that particular type of hiring, which then is handed off to our program and operational managers for final screening. Once candidates graduate from the interview process, they finish off with comprehensive background validation before being onboarded as members of SuperStaff.
And while this sounds like an elongated process, most of our outsourcing centers have been able to complete this in less than 11 days!
And once we get that talent, we make a very competitive offer that includes above-market compensation, life insurance, health insurance, performance bonuses, compelling employee engagement packages, and a personalized career path roadmap that collaborates with our People and Culture our Operations department.
How are you funding your growth?
Matthew Narciso: Believe it or not, our venture has been self-sufficient since our first year of business. We took an initial business loan from our backers, achieved profitability within the first year, started paying it off, and are now investing in ourselves. And while we can always rely on robust financial backing from committed shareholders, we have no outside debt and continue to be profitable.
This year specifically, we have invested quite heavily in our human infrastructure, building multiple state-of-the-art campuses, expanding our business continuity capabilities, and building a Solutions Architect Team specializing in each major market where our services are in very high demand.
We are also pushing quite heavily into Latin America in addition to our North American and Southeast Asian operational headquarters.
Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?
Matthew Narciso: As per solution level, we compete with any and all types of workforce and manpower service providers.
For example, as it relates to Business Process Outsourcing for our contact center solutions, we compete with companies like TaskUs and Support Ninja. Whereas on a Knowledge Process Outsourcing level, such as hiring an offshore Data scientist, controllers, financial analysts, and things of that variety, we are going to tender against mega firms like Accenture. And in the Recruitment Process Outsourcing arena, we compete with Randstad, Korn Ferry, People Scout, and other firms like that.
But as a whole, I do believe that SuperStaff stands alone and are pioneer in the comprehensive human capital space. I am not aware of any other firm that offers global RPO, BPO, KPO, and staffing solutions under one brand.
Our primary way of staying in the game is to stay ahead of it. We aim to constantly expand and build upon our human capital solutions and keep that human capital at an industry-leading retention rate by continually investing in our workforce instead of simply prioritizing margins.
Tell us a customer success story of yours.
Matthew Narciso: We have some really exciting customer success stories! One of our clients in the biotech space happened to find themselves in a unique position for growth at the onset of the pandemic, which created an urgent need for their solution.
However, their entire workforce was in a single country. Considering the challenges of travel and business licensing in the pandemic, they were pigeonholed and could not expand to meet the market’s needs.
After sitting down with SuperStaff and exhaustively planning their proxy workforce expansion, we launched specialized support teams servicing markets in more than 20 languages across 84 countries.
Now, we work with these folks from four continents instead of the one office in a small town from which they started the pandemic. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for them to burst onto the scene, and through SuperStaff, they were able to do that in a major way.
Your final thoughts?
Matthew Narciso: As each of us strives to make our respective companies the best possible company that it can be, we must realize that it all begins and ends with having the best available talent.
And as wages surge, the talent war heats up, and the delta between the amount of jobs being offered and the actual availability of the workforce deepens, companies are finding out that they must leverage offshore economics and scour the globe for the best of the best.
I think we are in a unique time where global digitization has created the ability to manage satellite workforces. This has led to the perfect approach to a daunting challenge and limitless opportunity.
I would encourage companies to look toward the horizons and not limit themselves. Whether that talent is in Tulsa, Bogota, Manila, or Paris, your company and your clients deserve the very best. And when you have the best working for you, clients and results will surely follow.
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