The high value of offshoring lower-value tasks.
Go-Virtual Assistants Inc. (GO-VA) was founded in May 2014 by Matt Kesby, an Australian Entrepreneur and Execution Practise Leader for FranklinCovey at the time. It is registered in the Philippines and recently moved office to the Cebu IT Park in Cebu City, Philippines. GO-VA finds the top talent in the market, have their client decide who and how work will be performed and then, house and care for them in their office in Cebu City.
The office is led by Fiona Kesby, Matt Kesby’s sister, who relocated to the Philippines in May 2015 and brought 16 years of Australian and international recruitment experience. GO-VA’s philosophy is to offshore low value tasks to the Philippines in order to create more time for Australia, New Zealand, United States, United Kingdom and Singapore -based team members to execute on strategy and scale their business.
Although a relatively young company, GO-VA has achieved several important milestones. From its inception, GO-VA strives to be a company that cares about their employees. It was, and still is, one of the few companies in the Philippines that offered private medical insurance to all of its team members from the very first day of employment, together with one dependent, for free. This is in contrast to the practice of the majority of companies which offer this benefit only after a team member has passed the six-month probation period.
Another landmark event happened in October 2019 when it was welcomed into the Circle of Excellence for SME Company of the Year in the Asia CEO Awards. In the same year, GO-VA’s small team of developers, who worked on a payments automation software used in Australia, was made a finalist in the Australian Fintech Business Awards for Payments Innovator of the Year. GO-VA takes pride in being engaged by WorldRemit, a rapidly-growing, online money transfer company with around three million users as of 2018, having beaten out bigger competitors. GO-VA served as the incubator when WorldRemit set up their first team of 220 people in the Philippines. The online money transfer company chose GO-VA for its commitment to values and its ability to scale fast.
As part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR), GO-VA supports Mercy in Action. Mercy in Action is a UK-registered charity that was founded in 1995. Its main mission is to help rescue vulnerable children from the dangers of the streets by offering them food, nurture and an education. Over time, its work has grown to encompass projects which are vital for the whole community, such as house building, small business enterprises, and schooling and feeding programs. Every holiday season, Mercy in Action organizes enough groceries to feed families in distress, and this is a project that GO-VA has been supporting for two years.
In the operational side of business, GO-VA keeps waste minimal. Most of its communication is paperless; the only documents GO-VA prints out are those which are necessary (e.g. employment contracts). GO-VA has also privately helped many of their employees in their greatest time of need. For example, GO-VA has advanced salary to some employees to allow them to cover medical bills.
GO-VA’s ten-year goal is to create 4,000 jobs in the Philippines and help its clients grow their businesses at least three times, using a combination of people and technology. Another ten-year goal is to bring the World Mosquito Program to Cebu City and help stop the threat of dengue fever.
“GO-VA has consistently experienced year on year growth and has achieved one of the lowest turnovers in the industry, thanks to its brother-sister team par excellence. Extending the familial vibe of the business is how the management believes that the most important value a company should focus on is the value of care, with team members being made to feel safe and have the ability to asks questions or share concerns without the fear of job loss.”
