@ Sykes Enterprises, Incorporated 400 North Ashley Drive, Suite 2800 Tampa, FL 33602, USA www.sykes.com Annual Report 2016 BOARD OF DIRECTORS PRINCIPAL OFFICERS JAMES S. MACLEOD LT. GEN. MICHAEL P. DELONG (retired) CHARLES E. SYKES Chairman of the Board Director President and Chief Executive Officer Chairman and CEO President and CEO CoastalSouth Bancshares, Inc. Gulf to Gulf Consultants ANDREW J. BLANCHARD International LLC Executive Vice President CARLOS E. EVANS Consultant and General Manager Director The Boeing Company for The Middle East and Africa Board Affiliations: JOHN CHAPMAN SYKES is a global business process outsourcing (BPO) leader in providing comprehensive inbound Goldman Sachs Middle Market BDC Executive Vice President and WILLIAM J. MEURER Chief Financial Officer VANESSA C.L. CHANG Director customer engagement services to Global 2000 companies, primarily in the communications, Private Financial Consultant Director JAMES D. FARNSWORTH Director, EL & EL Investments Director of Eagle Family of Funds financial services, healthcare, technology, transportation and retail industries. SYKES’ differentiated Director of Walter Investment Executive Vice President Director, Edison International and General Manager Director, Transocean Ltd. Management Corporation end-to-end service platform effectively engages consumers at every touch point in their customer Director, American Funds Family and Managing Partner (retired) other funds advised by Capital Group for Arthur Andersen’s Central JAMES T. HOLDER Florida Operations lifecycle, starting from digital marketing and acquisition to customer support, technical support, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary PAUL L. WHITING up-sell/cross-sell and retention. Headquartered in Tampa, Florida, with customer contact engagement Director WILLIAM D. MUIR, JR. President Director JENNA R. NELSON Chief Operating Officer Executive Vice President, centers throughout the world, SYKES provides its services through multiple communication Seabreeze Holdings, Inc. Chief Executive Officer (retired) Jabil Circuit, Inc. Human Resources Spalding & Evenflo Companies, Inc. channels encompassing phone, email, web, chat, social media and digital self-service. Utilizing its CHARLES E. SYKES DAVID L. PEARSON LORRAINE LEIGH LUTTON Director Executive Vice President integrated onshore/offshore and virtual at-home agent delivery models, SYKES serves its clients Director (Principal Executive Officer) and Chief Information Officer Chief Executive Officer President and Chief Executive Officer through two geographic operating segments: the Americas (United States, Canada, Latin America, Roper St. Francis Healthcare Sykes Enterprises, Incorporated LAWRENCE R. ZINGALE Executive Vice President India and the Asia Pacific region) and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). SYKES also provides and General Manager various enterprise support services in the Americas and fulfillment services in EMEA, which include order processing, inventory control, product delivery and product returns handling. For additional information please visit www.sykes.com. CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS 400 North Ashley Drive, Suite 2800, Tampa, FL USA 33602 • phone: (813) 274-1000 • fax: (813) 273-0148 • www.sykes.com INDEPENDENT AUDITORS Deloitte & Touche LLP • 201 N. Franklin St., Suite 3600, Tampa, FL USA 33602 REGISTRAR AND TRANSFER AGENT Computershare • P.O. Box 43078, Providence, RI 02940-3078 • (800) 962-4284 SYKES’ shares trade on The NasdaqGS Stock Market under the symbol “SYKE” ANNUAL MEETING SYKES’ annual meeting of shareholders will be held at 8:00 a.m. (EDT) • Wednesday, May 24, 2017 The meeting will be held at: Rivergate Tower, 400 N. Ashley Drive, Suite 320, 3rd Floor, Conference Room A, Tampa, FL 33602 INVESTOR INFORMATION Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and the Form 10-K Annual Report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission are available on the Company’s website at: http://investor.sykes.com or upon written request to SYKES’ Investor Relations department in Tampa, Florida, or by contacting: Subhaash Kumar • Global Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations • phone: (813) 274-1000 Dear Shareholders, While the topics of artificial intelligence and chatbots – which we’ll discuss in greater detail later in this letter – generated a lot of curiosity in the customer engagement industry in 2016, we remained focused on executing our business strategy and delivering proven solutions to the market. The results: • We altered the demand trajectory of our business in 2016, with growth outpacing 2015 levels by a wide margin. • We acquired Clearlink, which delivered solid revenue growth and operating margin performance right out of the gate. CHARLES E. SYKES President and CEO • We built upon the success of our at-home agent platform in North America to extend this dynamic solution to Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). We are pleased to note that this important rollout went according to plan and is already bearing fruit. • We hired new operational leadership to further position us for sustained growth and margin expansion. Striking a balance between revenue growth and operating margin expansion is an art that we have operationalized into science. However, that balance became JOHN CHAPMAN skewed significantly in 2016, temporarily blunting our margin performance. Why? Executive VP and CFO Because the success we enjoyed on many fronts also created some short-term hurdles in 2016. The combination of heavy seat capacity investments and expansion, aggressive ramp schedules, longer speed to agent proficiency and higher than anticipated demand weighed on our operating margins. Fortunately, the challenges we faced were isolated to one geographical area, and we’re confident we have a credible plan for course correction. Also, as we move into 2017, we are well positioned to capitalize on the strong sales execution of 2016, thanks in part to Clearlink. In short, we believe we have accurately calibrated our actions and expectations going into 2017. In this letter, we will provide an overview of our 2016 operating results. We will also discuss trends in the industry and our positioning relative to those trends. Finally, we will highlight our agenda for 2017. 2016 in Review A BANNER YEAR FOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT From a business development perspective, 2016 was a banner year. Thanks to our operational performance, industry reputation and competitive differentiation, we won numerous substantial opportunities across our vertical markets, including communications, financial services, technology, healthcare, travel and retail. The most significant wins were in the communications and financial services verticals. EVOLVING OPPORTUNITIES IN COMMUNICATIONS Within communications, there was a nice pick-up in growth, despite market indicators to the contrary. It is true that global smartphone shipments have slowed sharply, down from 47% growth in 2012 to 1% in 2016, according to a recent estimate by research firm IDC. It is also true that smartphone penetration SYKES ANNUAL REPORT 2016 | 1 rates are starting to top out. In the U.S., for instance, smartphone penetration rates are approaching 80% – up from 45% in early 2012, according to comScore. And smartphone product cycles are seeing little incremental innovation. So what’s driving our growth? We are still seeing opportunities in the wireless space, driven, in part, by resets in pricing plans and bundles. And wireless is just one part of the growth equation; there are opportunities within broadband as well. What’s more, there are other macro growth levers within the communications vertical ¬ in particular, the horizontal and vertical merger and acquisition activity where there is consolidation among broadband and wireless providers entering into the media/broadband space and vice versa. This reordering of the industry landscape is creating opportunities as change leads to a need for customer acquisition, service and retention. In addition, continued vendor consolidation and increased outsourcing are adding more fuel to growth within the communications vertical. And with the coming launch of 5G next-generation mobile networks in the 2017-2018 time frame, we could see an additional catalyst emerging. EXPANDING OUR ROLE WITH FINANCIAL SERVICES CLIENTS The financial services vertical saw a major upswing relative to 2015. Growth was robust and was partly a result of new client wins, particularly with regional banks, thanks to our domain expertise. We also saw significant growth with existing clients as well as share gains through vendor consolidation, both in areas of credit cards (bolstered by growth in cash-back reward cards among players in the credit card industry) and retail banking Growth was robust (segments such as deposits, online banking, fraud protection, etc.). and was partly a result of new client wins, Somewhat similar dynamics are also at play in the financial services particularly with vertical as with the communications vertical, as non-bank small regional banks, thanks business lenders and new finance technology companies such as SoFi to our domain expertise. compete with both traditional banks and credit card providers. The financial services vertical could see even greater commercial opportunity over the coming years as interest rates begin their ascent. SEIZING DEMAND IN TECH, TRAVEL AND RETAIL Within the technology vertical, demand drivers included the continued adoption of Internet of Things devices, gaming and advanced networking support. Within our