Australian BPO market shake up

Probe and Stellar businesses to merge

It’s been a turbulent time in Australia for the contact centre outsourcing industry with closures, mergers and acquisitions seemingly occurring at a pretty hectic pace and now it’s time for another one.

Probe Group and Stellar (the Group) today released a Press Release* announcing they have entered into an agreement to merge.

The transaction will create a market-leading customer experience and business process outsourcing services provider with unparalleled service capability.

The combined Group will be the largest and most diverse Australian owned customer experience outsourcing provider, employing 12,600 people and over 15,000 deployed workstations across 6 countries.

The Group services blue-chip corporate, government, and fast-growing technology clients across Australia, Asia, and North America.

Management Structure

Probe Group CEO Andrew Hume will continue to lead the combined Group alongside the highly regarded management teams of both businesses.

Stellar’s long term shareholders will continue to be investors in the combined Group, alongside existing Probe investors including Quadrant Private Equity, Five V Capital and Probe Group Founder Rodney Kagan.

With strong outsourcing market trends to continue, driven by expanding BPO capabilities and uptake of advanced technology, the Group provides a full-service BPO solution (spanning full outsourcing to managed services).

Group Chairman Jonathon Pearce said “Quadrant is very pleased to be backing the Group’s management and strategy.

We are building a scaled, full-service BPO provider with a core focus on customer experience outsourcing that leverages advanced AI, automation technologies and data insight services to support the growing demand from the domestic and international customer base”.

Stellar Chair, John Hollingsworth said: “We are pleased to be part of the transformative merger of two market-leading customer experience organisations. Stellar has enjoyed significant success and growth over its 22-year history and we see this merger as the natural next stage in our evolution. The Stellarshareholders are delighted to be continuing as investors in the combined group and we look forward to being a part of what will be an exciting journey for customers, employees and shareholders of both companies.”

Importantly, the Australian BPO market is expected to grow significantly in the coming years as companies plan to move outsourced services back onshore given disruptions in offshore markets.

The Group is well-positioned to support this trend, and ensure client uptime, with advanced technology providing flexibility for staff to be online in any location.

The Group manages customer conversations and interactions by human and automated voice, email, SMS, chat, instant messaging, social media, digital analytics and virtual agents.

Both businesses have been trusted service providers to government and corporate clients for decades, and these relationships have been heightened in recent months with demands being placed on call volumes and online engagement.

Good news for the local industry 

Andrew Hume, CEO said “With the current trend towards repatriating offshore operations, we believe that it is very important for the Australian market to have a scaled, tech-powered, Australian-owned BPO provider with the capability to manage any contract regardless of size or complexity, as a preferred local alternative to the large offshore players.

Australian businesses need an Australian alternative. Stellar and Probe understand our local market, we understand the Australian consumer and we understand local market nuances. With some 5,800 people employed across Australia, we are proud to emerge as a very large Australian employer, creating jobs in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia.”

With COVID-19 continuing to drive changes within the industry it will be interesting to see how things continue to pan out.

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*Source: Probe Group and Stellar merge Press Release. If you have industry news send it to us > 

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