The labor market today is suffering greatly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the socio-economic quality of life for millions of individuals throughout the globe plummeted with employment opportunities still dwindling, even at the turn of the decade. Human resource (HR) professionals and organizations across various countries, noticing this incredible dip in employment, have begun to emphasize the importance of utilizing third-party solutions and service providers to achieve cost-effective and mutually-beneficial results. These firms—business process outsourcing (BPO) and shared services companies—offer hopeful aspirants employment while promising growing organizations the ability to find and hire highly-capable talents. One such enterprise, Asticom Technology, stands a cut above the rest in its shared services capabilities across the APAC region. It is a professional employer organization (PEO) that excels at delivering modern HR solutions that include payroll, staffing, and managed services as well.

In an exclusive interview with Manage HR, Mharicar Castillo-Reyes, President and CEO of Asticom Technology, shares her insights on the pandemic’s effects on employment while highlighting the advantages of partnering with the organization for improved HR operation.

Could you walk us through Asticom Technology’s inception and its business objectives?

Asticom Technology was re-established in March 2015 with less than five employees. Today, after five dedicated years of service, we stand strong with a workforce of over 3000 employees and generate an average revenue of 1.6 billion pesos every year. Our objective is to improve the lives of people all over the world through high-quality, responsive, and shared HR services. And these offerings also enhance a business’ talent recruitment ability, improving overall workflow productivity. With that forward-thinking attitude, Asticom Technology is following a theme based on faith for this year under the banner: #AstiLeaps2021. The idea here is to create a smooth and positive transition into the new year, curbing the misgivings of 2020. The company will strive to successfully venture into new local and international opportunities throughout 2021, where we fully expect to witness several HR-related transformations across enterprises worldwide. We want to ensure that our solutions and services focus on the exact needs of our existing and potential customers.

Recently in January, Asticom Technology also launched Asti Business Services, Inc. (ABSI) to handle the many responsibilities of an IT-BPO, while Asticom Technology focuses on supporting clients through expert staffing and various technological capabilities.

How did the pandemic affect your business?

We are delighted to say that the COVID-19 pandemic did not disrupt our operations as much as it did for most other organizations. Since Asticom Technology is also a subsidiary of Globe Telecom, the largest mobile network operator in the Philippines, it was able to respond quickly to the pandemic. The individuals placed in various companies via our staffing services were well-prepared to implement a work-from-home environment in less than three days to minimize any downtime in productivity. We believe in “bridging people, fueling passions,” and we continuously work toward connecting the most highly-qualified candidates with businesses to form the perfect teams. The management of Asticom Technology additionally released various essential work-from-home content and offered prepaid WIFI services to help improve the transition into a new, hybrid workspace.


How do Asticom Technology’s services help clients overcome their challenges?

The company’s managed services help solidify our stand as an accredited BPO that excels at delivering sought-after PEO services throughout the APAC region. We offer HR, administrative, financial services alongside extensive IT support, sales and retail services, and engineering and logistics services as well. Our skilled teams have worked very hard toward developing unique solutions for revenue generation as well as sales support services for organizations across various industries, aiming to drive maximum productivity.

Our staffing services allow us to support people by providing them the right employment opportunities, and in turn, strengthening the productivity of our client companies. We are able to provide expert assistance to our partners in the form of the best talents and technologies the market currently has to offer. We also try to identify new and developing areas within a business to understand how we can improve the efficiencies of our services, all the while evolving according to the changing needs of a client. In doing so, Asticom Technology successfully delivers a broad range of capable talents across multiple specializations to meet any and all requirements in a working environment. With the attention to detail we express, it goes without saying that our services adhere to national and international standards, avoiding any unnecessary regulatory complications.

We help companies in the telecommunications, fintech, IT, retail, health, logistics, automotive, education, real estate, and aviation industries with our intuitive payroll services, where Asticom Technology takes on the full responsibility for all payroll management functions. This service includes the implementation of a proprietary payroll system as well.

Is there a case study to help elaborate on the resourcefulness of Asticom Technology’s services?

We onboarded one of the largest online fintech companies in the region over five years ago and have cultivated a strong partnership with them ever since. The COVID-19 pandemic went on to prove the strength of our relationship with the client, where we helped them seamlessly manage all their transactional operations via remotely located employees due to lockdown protocols. Moreover, as the company focuses mainly on their online presence through their smartphone and web-based applications, Asticom Technology supported the client in successfully activating accounts for a major part of their customer base.
This client began to face a few problems during the initial signs of a lockdown. But we quickly interjected and, after functioning at 80 percent capacity for three days, ensured to drive productivity to an all-time high. Asticom Technology’s services proved to be extremely instrumental in acquiring new customers for the fintech company and helped them exceed their estimated revenue figures within a period of six to eight months. The client continues to be a close partner of our company today, and we expect to maintain and improve the relationship as we leap into 2021.

"We offer HR, administrative, financial services alongside extensive it support, sales and retail services, and engineering and logistics services as well"

Where do you see Asticom Technology over the next few quarters?

Our enterprise launched ABSI to help local and international clients as a holistic provider of BPO services. Moving forward, we intend to name two more daughter companies that are currently in development. One of which is a Basic Requests for Admin and Delivery (BRAD) product, Asticom Technology is set to revolutionize on-demand logistics, and administrative and corporate workflows for all parties involved, covering and augmenting the entirety of a business’ supply chain. And the other upcoming daughter company is a Fiber Infrastructure Network and Services Inc. which aims to help the telecommunications industry and the country enable the Filipino Digital Lifestyle. We expect to see our group transformed within the next three years, catering to the global markets as an end-to-end shared services company whose thirst for delivering the best HR outcomes for business and aspirants is never-ending.