Ben Juson – Providing Tailor Fit Solutions to Everyone

Hi and welcome to another episode of Outsource Accelerator podcast. My name is Derek Gallimore and this is episode 136. Today, again, I’m happy to be joined by Ben Juson of Aptus, it’s a kinda boutique specialty BPO, dealing in high-end task complexity. Today we want deep dive into what Aptus does. This is not an infomercial, we do not get paid from any of these guys. This is actually just because I wanna deep dive into the BPO industry and what BPOs do, and hopefully by me exploring these things it helps you guys update in the audience, understand and know a little bit more about Aptus but also outsourcing and the opportunities out there generally. So, I hope you enjoy these conversations. Ben has a 20-year track record in outsourcing, so he’s really a knowledgeable guide to speak on both Aptus, to build a BPO such as Aptus and to speak generally for the industry. So if you wanna get in touch with Ben or know any more then go to our show notes which is outsourceaccelerator.com/136 enjoy.

Derek: Hi and welcome back everybody, today again I’m lucky to join by Ben Juson. Hi Ben.

Ben: Hi Derek, How you doing?

Derek: Fantastic, thank you and thanks for joining us and of course Ben is from Aptus which is a BPO and we are gonna hear about Aptus today, I wanna deep dive into what exactly what they do and their value. So, Ben, it will be amazing if you could just initially introduce yourself.

Ben: Sure, sure. Hi, everyone Ben Juson here, Managing Director of Aptus Global Solutions. Been in the industry for pretty much 16 years and go out to join Derek discuss more outsourcing.

Derek: Fantastic, Yeah. So I’m really wanna hear about Aptus and I suppose I’m really interested in that just because you are a relatively, you know small relatively new BPO but you really focusing on the kinda high end, high-value services and also including things like AI, which is pretty much the talk of the town at the moment. How would you describe Aptus beyond obviously being the outsource service provider? And what are values? what are the strengths there?

Ben: I guess, I guess can be described in just one word which is a tailor, we don’t actually provide scripts or standard services that are related to outsourcing. There’s no specific. What we do is we design solutions based on what the client needs. So there’s nothing, If you go to our website you find nothing there, no details on how we run a certain service, how we do a service, so that’s what we are. We basically asking what do you need. If we think that outsourcing can really help your business then we will design a solution for you. If we believe that it’s not for you then will strict about it as well.  Now there has been a lot of company out there that requires small to medium outsourcing solutions, not necessarily the theorist, medium-sized company, might be a big name out there, big brand, but they require small portion only operations to be outsourced, and that’s how Aptus started. So we slowly provided the industry or the global market with call center solutions like any other except again it’s more tailor-suited to the need of our clients. So what they can expect is that if they come over to us we will design something that is a tailor for them.

Derek: Right, It’s kind commonly, It’s a good approach isn’t it because you know BPO reaches business process outsourcing.Not only, you know there’s a lot of different names for it like outsourcing or offshoring and call centers stuff like that but, that is becoming quite commoditized isn’t it and it’s almost a distraction from what the actual service is and service, as you suggest, is actually a business solution isn’t it, It’s kinda providing a solution to someone’s need as opposed to, you know we provide desks for people that you hire. So, I kinda appreciate your approach. Where do you see specializations and your strengths?

Ben:  Is that mostly on a high-level type of business solutions, although what now call centers services you’re probably usually answering calls. Most of what client tell right now is inborn to a high level. High level is the right term, but except they’re data analytics, market research, even accounting, high-level accounting, and taxation are being outsourced to us. So not the usual stuff that you see in the usual BPO company. We got the drafting from the Engineers, Architectural designs, Software development, Systems development, right now we are actually providing service and example to an Australian company we’re in we actually created and maintain they’re GPS fleet management tracking system that’s uploaded to there satellite and it’s all been done here in the Philippines.

Derek: Right, It’s fascinating isn’t it. Anything that can be done in a front of a computer can be really outsourced kinda and people need to see how big opportunities really. How do you price your packages, Ben? Are you kinda, you know one of these models where it’s there x amount for the desk and then whoever you hire is that his salary on top for you presenting a business solution and kinda pricing it as a solution.

Ben: It’s pretty much a lot. We don’t specific,(inaudible) the concept to use, model to follow is not different from the rest. We do FTE base build a model so how many FTE is required to do the job, kinda certain of work, punch the hours or months and then that’s great. Now there are cases that are not favorable to the clients so we explore other ways of the building model, such as transactional build model, the client is charged at a certain rate corporate per transaction depending on the volume of their transaction, the more volume obviously I can spread my cost. And then we also got project based where all those companies out there that just wanna outsource something, you know for a certain period of time, there’s project-based cost or fixed rate. So we do different models based on what is favorable to the client. Our thinking will that if we do a good job, the customer is happy even if we don’t profit that much it would be a long-term business, that’s what I’m after.

Derek: Yeah, and you know this is, as you mentioned in the previous episode, if people buying into not just, you know whatever employee for however much per hour but they also pat on pass on getting your 20 years experience and outsourcing they get the kinda the sophistication business process outsourcing as a whole kinda added to the package, I imagine you spend time alongside them designing the approach, the processes and things like that there’s incredible kinda value enhancement isn’t it.

Ben: That is correct, yes. Because of the expertise of the technicalities here in the industry and obviously (inaudible) solution that they get as well.

Derek: Yeah, absolutely. You mentioning like because there’s a lot of interest in the outsourcing market. You were saying set up as A78 solution initially and then you merged with Aptus is that right? So you’re, instead of building a bigger brand?

Ben: That’s true, that’s true. I started at A78 solutions, founded the company back in March 2016, fairly about two years. After about 4-6 months of operations from the, I founded a company, I was fortunate enough that from zero accounts, clients. After six months, I got 6 accounts as well, so is that lowkey in the local industry, suddenly you are starting getting proposals about, mergers and acquisition. Now I found Amorcito Valdez and Atty. Anette Gozon from GMA7 the broadcasting network. Apparently, they share my vision, they share my vision to create tailor suited outsourcing solutions for small to medium business requirements for the global market. So, when I sell that, I realize we’re on the same path anyway. So sure I’m willing to accept the partnership, mergers so that how we became Aptus Global Solutions.

Derek: Fantastic, and what sort of size and scale are you?

Ben: If we’re counting physical human being or just about 70-75 FTE, but if I may if count the AI side that would be about 300 plus already.

Derek: Right, and so that’s really intriguing I wanna see get you back, you know we can discuss the future where all this is going, but AI is such a hot topic in outsourcing now there’s a lot fear in the industry that it’s gonna be taking jobs. What do you guys do with AI? How do you incorporate it into your services?

Ben: Well, You’re actually correct. There’s a lot of people are actually that are afraid AI just because of the unknown, if you ask me it’s not a matter of being afraid it’s the matter of being prepared. So when we realized that it’s not technology out there it’s slowly evolving and slowly replacing the job of the human being, a live human being. We thought one is upskilled or mental so they can leverage the technology and still get employed but not anymore be doing the low-level type of work. A complete example would be, one client that we got we are doing data analytics to a luxury brand, a global luxury brand that data analytics is done manually by data analytics guy. And once they, he just crammed with a lot of stuff. So we actually proposed to the client that ‘Hey, how about we create some AI system that will do this blah blah blah and then we train the person who was doing the manual stuff to administer the AI’, so he became some sort of engineer now, software engineer manning the backside of the system and obviously the system is not yet perfect, the technology is not yet 100%. So there’s always a time that there’s human intervention so that’s when things get escalated to him. In level 1 on now, on a higher field, now more level 2 type of guy.

Derek: Yeah, and that’s a win-win for everyone isn’t because it upscales your workforce, it gets better value, the better output for the client obviously. People are concern about job losses but it’s inevitable isn’t it because you’re not still having people riding on a horseback you know, inevitably things progress but it’s good because it empowers, and upscales people, educates people and ultimately everyone is getting better efficiency for the input.

Ben: I agree, I agree well it’s no different from industrial actually got invented and introduced in the human way of lives back in 18th century. There are a lot of people were actually thinking, wow we have no jobs anymore what will we do. But honestly this new technology created new jobs and I think the same thing will going to happen in the next few years. This technological revolution would create new jobs that we haven’t seen before.

Derek: Absolutely, yeah it’s a bright future ahead isn’t it. Suddenly I am a very different future, but I wanna get you back to discuss exactly that but in the meantime thank you so much for joining us. If people wanna get in touch or Aptus, how can they do that?

Ben: Please contact us at aptus.ph or call our number 706-35-54

Derek: That’s fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us.

That was Ben Juson of Aptus. A lot of insight there with Aptus and also the industry, generally.  If you want to get in touch with Ben and you wanna know any more, then go to outsourceaccelerator/136 and of course if you want to ask us anything then just drop us an email at [email protected]. See you next time.