UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 20152016

Or

For The Transition Period From                    To                    

Commission File Number 0-28274

Sykes Enterprises, Incorporated

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

(813) 274-1000

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:None

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.    Yes  ¨☐    No  x☒

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Exchange Act.    Yes  ¨☐    No  x☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15 (d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  x☒    No  ¨☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files).    Yes  x☒    No  ¨☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.  x

☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of “accelerated filer,” “large accelerated filer” and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act (Check one):

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).    Yes  ¨☐    No  x☒

The aggregate market value of the shares of voting common stock held by non-affiliates of the Registrant computed by reference to the closing sales price of such shares on the NASDAQ Global Select Market on June 30, 2015,2016, the last business day of the Registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was $1,008,374,946.$1,200,267,356.

As of February 10, 2016,9, 2017, there were 42,784,96642,894,518 outstanding shares of common stock.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I

Item 1. Business

General

Sykes Enterprises, Incorporated and consolidated subsidiaries (“SYKES,” “our,” “us” or “we”) is a global leader in providing comprehensive outsourced customer contact management solutions and services in the business process outsourcing (“BPO”) arena. We provide an array of sophisticatedleader in providing comprehensive inbound customer contact managementengagement solutions and services to a wide range of clients including Global 2000 companies medium-sized businesses and public institutions around the world, primarily in the communications, financial services, technology/consumer,healthcare, technology, transportation, and leisure, healthcareretail and other industry verticals.industries. Our differentiated end-to-end solutions and service platform effectively engages consumers at every touch point in their customer lifecycle, starting from digital marketing and acquisition to customer support, technical support, up-sell/cross-sell and retention. We serve our clients through two geographic operating regions: the Americas (United States, Canada, Latin America, Australia and the Asia Pacific Rim) and EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa). Our Americas and EMEA regions primarily provide customer contact managementengagement services (with an emphasis on inbound technical support, digital marketing and demand generation, and customer service), which includes customer assistance, healthcare and roadside assistance, technical support, and product and service sales to our clients’ customers. These services are delivered through multiple communication channels including phone, e-mail, social media, text messaging, chat and digital self-service. We also provide various enterprise support services in the United States that include services for our clients’ internal support operations, from technical staffing services to outsourced corporate help desk services. In Europe, we also provide fulfillment services, which includes order processing, via the Internet and phone,payment processing, inventory control, product delivery and product returns handling. (See Note 25, Segments and Geographic Information, of the accompanying “Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements” for further information on our segments.) Our complete service offering helps our clients acquire, retain and increase the lifetime value of their customer relationships. We have developed an extensive global reach with customer contact managementengagement centers across six continents, including North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa. We deliver cost-effective solutions that enhance the customer service experience, promote stronger brand loyalty, and bring about high levels of performance and profitability.

SYKES was founded in 1977 in North Carolina and we moved our headquarters to Florida in 1993. In March 1996, we changed our state of incorporation from North Carolina to Florida. Our headquarters are located at 400 North Ashley Drive, Suite 2800, Tampa, Florida 33602, and our telephone number is (813) 274-1000.

In April 2016, we completed the acquisition of Clear Link Holdings, LLC (“Clearlink”), pursuant to a definitive Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated March 6, 2016. We have reflected Clearlink’s operating results in the accompanying Consolidated Statement of Operations for the period from April 1, 2016 to December 31, 2016.

In July 2015, we completed the acquisition of Qelp B.V. and its subsidiary (together, known as “Qelp”), pursuant to definitive Share Sale and Purchase Agreement, dated July 2, 2015. The Company hasWe have reflected theQelp’s operating results in the accompanying Consolidated StatementStatements of Operations for the period from July 2, 2015 to December 31, 2015.2015 and the year ended December 31, 2016.

Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to those reports, as well as our proxy statements and other materials which are filed with, or furnished to, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) are made available, free of charge, on or through our Internet website at www.sykes.com (click on “Company” then “Investor Relations” and then “SEC Filings” under the heading “Financial Reports and Filings”) as soon as reasonably practicable after they are filed with, or furnished to, the SEC.

Industry Overview

The customer contact managementengagement solutions and services industry – which includes services such as digital marketing and demand generation, customer acquisition, customer support and customer retention – is highly fragmented and significant in size. According to Ovum, an industry research firm, the total number of individuals, or agent positions, working in the customer contact managementengagement services industry worldwide was estimated at roughly 9.910.2 million in 2015.2016. With approximately 78% of the customer contactengagement work done by in-house contactengagement centers, the number of agent positions working for outsourcers, such as SYKES, was estimated at 2.12.2 million in 2015. Both the2016. The outsourced and total agent positions are forecasted by Ovum to grow at compound annual growth rate of 5.4%4.9% and 2.0%2.8%, respectively, from 20152016 to 2018. It is estimated that no single outsourcer has more than five percent of the total agent positions worldwide. Measured in dollar terms, the size of the outsourced portion of the customer contact managementengagement solutions and services industry worldwide was estimated at approximately $68$72 billion in 2015,2016, according to

International Data Corporation (“IDC”), an industry research firm. IDC also estimates that the outsourced portion of the customer contactengagement solutions and services industry is expected to grow to approximately $81 billion by 2018, a compound annual growth rate of 6.0%6.1% from 20152016 to 2018.

We believe that growth for broader outsourced customer contact managementengagement solutions and services will be fueled by the trend of Global 2000 companies and medium-sized businesses utilizing outsourcers. In today’s marketplace,

companies requireincreasingly are seeking a comprehensive suite of innovative full lifecycle customer contactengagement management solutions and services that allow them to acquire customers, enhance the end user’s experience with their products and services, strengthen and enhance their company brands, maximize the lifetime value of their customers through retention and up-sell and cross-sell, efficiently and effectively deliver human interactioninteractions when and where customers value it most, and deploy best-in-class customer management strategies, processes and technologies. However, a myriad of factors, among them intense global competition, pricing pressures, softness in the global economy and rapid changes in technology, continue to make it difficult for companies to cost-effectively maintain the in-house personnel necessary to handle all of their customer contact managementengagement needs.

To address these needs, we offer comprehensive global customer contact managementengagement solutions and services that leverage brick-and-mortar and virtual at-home agent delivery infrastructure as well as digital self-service capabilities. We provide consistent high-value support for our clients’ customers across the globe in a multitude of languages, leveraging our dynamic, secure communications infrastructure and our global footprint that reaches across 20 countries. This global footprint includes established brick-and-mortar operations in both onshore and offshore geographies where companies have access to high-quality customer contact managementengagement solutions at lower costs compared to other markets. We further complement our brick-and-mortar global delivery model with a highly differentiated and ready-made best-in-class virtual at-home agent delivery model, which we acquired through the Alpine Access, Inc. (“Alpine”) acquisition in August of 2012.model. In addition, through the acquisition of Qelp, we strengthened our service portfolio, which includes email, chat and social media, to provide digital self-service customer support. The acquisition of Qelp furthersupport that differentiates our go-to-market strategy as it expands options for companies to best service their customers in their channel of choice to deliver an “effortless customer experience.” By working in partnership with outsourcers, companies can ensure that the crucial task of retainingacquiring, growing and growingretaining their customer base is addressed while creating operating flexibility, enabling focus on their core competencies, ensuring service excellence and execution, achieving cost savings through a variable cost structure, leveraging scale, entering niche markets speedily, and efficiently allocating capital within their organizations.

Business Strategy

Broadly speaking, our value proposition to our clients is that of a trusted partner, which provides provena comprehensive suite of full lifecycle customer serviceengagement solutions and services to Global 2000 companies that drive customer acquisition, differentiation, brand loyalty and increased lifetime value of end customer relationships. By outsourcing their customer acquisition and service solutions to us, clients are able to achieve designs of exceptional customer experience and drive tangible business impact with enhancedgreater operational flexibility, enhanced revenues, lower operating costs and faster speed to market, all of which are at the center of our value proposition. At a tactical level, we deliver on this value proposition through consistent delivery of operational and client excellence. Our business strategy is to leverage this value proposition in order to capitalize on and increase our share of the large and underpenetrated addressable market opportunity for customer contact managementengagement solutions and services worldwide. We believe through successful execution of our business strategy, we could generate a healthy level of revenue growth and drive targeted long-term operating margins. To deliver on our long-term growth potential and operating margin objectives, we need to manage the key levers of our business strategy, the principles of which include the following:

Build Long-Term Client Relationships Through Customer Service Excellence.We believe that providing high-value, high-quality service is critical in our clients’ decisions to outsource and in building long-term relationships with our clients. To ensure service excellence and consistency across each of our centers globally, we leverage a portfolio of techniques, including SYKES Science of Service^®. This standard is a compilation of more than 30 years of experience and best practices. Every customer contact managementengagement center strives to meet or exceed the standard, which addresses leadership, hiring and training, performance management down to the agent level, forecasting and scheduling, and the client relationship including continuous improvement, disaster recovery plans and feedback.

Increasing Share of Seats Within Existing Clients and Winning New Clients.We provide customer contact management supportengagement solutions and services to numerous multinationalGlobal 2000 companies. With this client list,large target market, we have the opportunity to grow our client base. We strive to achieve this by winning a greater share of our clients’ in-house seats as well as gaining share from our competitors by providing consistently high-quality service as clients continue to consolidate their vendor base. In addition, as we further integrate the recently-acquired digital marketing, demand generation and customer acquisition or sales conversion capabilities of Clearlink and leverage it across our highly differentiated virtualbrick-and-mortar and at-home agent delivery capabilityplatforms both domestically and internationally usingwithin our knowledge of verticals and business lines,vertical markets mix, we plan to win new clients as a way to broaden our base of growth.

Diversifying Verticals and Expanding Service Lines.To mitigate the impact of any negative economic and product cycles on our growth rate, we continue to seek ways to diversify into verticals and service lines that have countercyclical features and healthy growth rates. We are targeting the following verticals for growth: communications, financial services, technology/consumer, healthcare and retail. These verticals cover various business lines, including wireless services, broadband, retail banking, credit card/consumer fraud protection, content moderation, telemedicine and soft and hard goods retailers.

Maximizing Capacity Utilization Rates and Strategically Adding Seat Capacity.Revenues and profitability growth are driven by increasing the capacity utilization rate in conjunction with seat capacity additions. We plan to sustain our focus on increasing the capacity utilization rate by further penetrating existing clients, adding new clients and rationalizing underutilized seat capacity as deemed necessary. With greater operating flexibility resulting from the Alpine acquisition,our at-home agent delivery model, we can rationalize underutilized capacity more efficiently and drive capacity utilization rates.

Broadening At-Home Agent and Brick-and-Mortar Global Delivery Footprint.Just as increased capacity utilization rates and increased seat capacity are key drivers of our revenues and profitability growth, where we deploy both the seat capacity and the virtual at-home agent delivery platform geographically is also important. By broadening and continuously strengthening our brick-and-mortar global delivery footprint and our virtual at-home agent delivery platform, we are able to meet both our existing and new clients’ customer contact managementengagement needs globally as they enter new markets. At the end of 2015,2016, our global delivery brick-and-mortar footprint spanned 20 countries while our virtual at-home agent delivery platform was recently launched in EMEA, building on our existing presence in 40 states and nine provinces within the U.S. and Canada, respectively.

Creating Value-Added Service Enhancements.To improve both revenue and margin expansion, we will continue to introduce new service offerings and add-on enhancements. MultilingualDigital marketing and demand generation, multilingual customer support, sales and marketing, digital self-service support and back office services are examples of horizontal service offerings, while data analytics and process improvement products are examples of add-on enhancements. Additionally, with the rapid emergence of on-line communities, such as Facebook and Twitter, we continue to make on-going investments in our social media service offerings, which can be leveraged across both our brick-and-mortar and virtual at-home agent delivery platforms.

Continuing to Focus on Expanding the Addressable Market Opportunities. As part of our growth strategy, we continually seek to expand the number of markets we serve. The United States, Canada and Germany, for instance, are markets which are served by in-country centers, centers in offshore regions or a combination thereof. We continually seek ways to broaden the addressable market for our customer engagement services. We currently operate in 14 markets.

Continue to Grow Our Business Organically and through Acquisitions.We have grown our customer contact management outsourcing operationsengagement solutions and services utilizing a strategy of both internal organic growth and external acquisitions. Our organic growth and acquisition strategy is to target markets, clients, verticals, delivery geographies and service mix that will expand our addressable market opportunity, and thus drive our organic growth. Entry into The Philippines, El Salvador, Romania and Colombia are examples of how we leveraged these delivery geographies to further penetrate our base of both existing and new clients, verticals and service mix in order to drive organic growth. While the Alpine Access, Inc. (“Alpine”), Qelp and QelpClearlink acquisitions are examples of how we used an acquisitionacquisitions to augment our service offerings and differentiate our delivery model, the ICT Group, Inc. (“ICT”) acquisition is an example of how we used an acquisition to gain overall size and critical mass in key verticals, clients and geographies.

ContinuingStrategic Rationale for the Clearlink Acquisition

We completed the acquisition of Clearlink in April 2016. Clearlink is one of the leading inbound demand generation and sales conversion platforms serving numerous business-to-consumer and business-to-business clients across various industries and subsectors, including telecommunications, satellite television, home security and insurance. Consumers are rapidly adopting and increasing their utilization of digital channels as a preferred method to Focusengage with brands, whether that engagement is before, during, or after purchase. The acquisition of Clearlink positions us to capitalize on Expanding the Addressable Market Opportunities. As parttrends around the digital customer experience lifecycle, in particular the convergence of

customer care and customer acquisition. Combining Clearlink’s digital marketing, demand generation, and sales conversion model with our growth strategy,post-sales customer care and support capabilities allows us to provide the market with a unique and differentiated global customer interaction management platform that more effectively engages digital consumers at every touch point in the customer lifecycle.

Through the acquisition of Clearlink, we continually seekfurther:

Services

We specialize in providing comprehensive inbound outsourced customer contact managementengagement solutions and services in the BPO arena on a global basis. These services include digital marketing, demand generation, customer acquisition, customer support, technical support, up-sell/cross-sell and retention. Our comprehensive customer contact managementengagement solutions and services are provided through two reportable segments — the Americas and EMEA. The Americas region, representing 81.3%83.6% of consolidated revenues in 2015,2016, includes the United States, Canada, Latin America, Australia and the Asia Pacific Rim. The sites within Latin America and the Asia Pacific Rim are included in the Americas region as they provide a significant service delivery vehicle for U.S.-based companies that are utilizing our customer contact managementengagement solutions and services in these locations to support their customer care needs. In addition, the Americas region also includes revenues from our virtual at-home agent delivery solution, which serves markets in both the U.S. and Canada. The EMEA region, representing 18.7%16.4% of consolidated revenues in 2015,2016, includes Europe, the Middle East and Africa. See Note 25, Segments and Geographic Information, of the accompanying “Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements” for further information on our segments. The following is a description of our customer contact management solutions:engagement solutions and services:

Outsourced Customer Contact ManagementEngagement Solutions and Services.Our outsourced customer contact managementengagement solutions and services represented approximately 98.1%99.2% of total 20152016 consolidated revenues. Each year, we handle over 250 million customer contactsengagements including phone, e-mail, social media, text messaging, chat and digital self-service support throughout the Americas and EMEA regions. We provide these services utilizing our advanced technology infrastructure, human resource management skills and industry experience. These services include:

We provide these services, primarily inbound customer calls, in many languages through our extensive global network of customer contact management centers in many languages.engagement centers. In addition, we augment those in-bound calls with the option of digital self-service customer support. Our technology infrastructure and managed service solutions allow for effective distribution of calls to one or more centers. These technology offerings provide our clients and us with the leading edge tools needed to maximize quality and customer satisfaction while controlling and minimizing costs.

Fulfillment Services.In Europe, we offer fulfillment services that are integrated with our customer care and technical support services. Our fulfillment solutions include order processing via the Internet and phone, inventory control, product delivery and product returns handling.

Enterprise Support Services.In the United States, we provide a range of enterprise support services including technical staffing services and outsourced corporate help desk solutions.

Operations

Customer Contact ManagementEngagement Centers.We operate across 20 countries in 6774 customer contact managementengagement centers, which breakdown as follows: 1820 centers across Europe and Egypt, 2226 centers in the United States, fivefour centers in Canada, three centers in Australia and 1921 centers offshore, including the People’s Republic of China, The Philippines, Costa Rica, El Salvador, India, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. In addition to our customer contact managementengagement centers, we employ approximately 7,5005,200 at-home customer contactengagement agents across 40 states in the U.S. and across nine provinces in Canada.

We utilize a sophisticated workforce management system to provide efficient scheduling of personnel. Our internally developed digital private communications network complements our workforce by allowing for effective call volume management and disaster recovery backup. Through this network and our dynamic intelligent call routing capabilities, we can rapidly respond to changes in client call volumes and move call volume traffic based on agent availability and skill throughout our network of centers, improving the responsiveness and productivity of our agents. We also can offer cost competitive solutions for taking calls to our offshore locations.

Our data warehouse captures and downloads customer contactengagement information for reporting on a daily, real-time and historical basis. This data provides our clients with direct visibility into the services that we are providing for them. The data warehouse supplies information for our performance management systems such as our agent scorecarding application, which provides us with the information required for effective management of our operations.

Our customer contact managementengagement centers are protected by a fire extinguishing system, backup generators with significant capacity and 24 hour refueling contracts and short-term battery backups in the event of a power outage, reduced voltage or a power surge. Rerouting of call volumes to other customer contact managementengagement centers is also available in the event of a telecommunications failure, natural disaster or other emergency. Security measures are imposed to prevent unauthorized physical access. Software and related data files are backed up daily and stored off site at multiple locations. We carry business interruption insurance covering interruptions that might occur as a result of certain types of damage to our business.

Fulfillment Centers.We currently have one fulfillment center located in Europe. We provide our fulfillment services primarily to certain clients operating in Europe who desire this complementary service in connection with outsourced customer contact managementengagement services.

Enterprise Support Services Office.Our enterprise support services office, located in a metropolitan area in the United States, provides recruitment services for high-end knowledge workers, a local presence to service major accounts, and outsourced corporate help desk solutions.

Sales and Marketing

Our sales and marketing objective is to leverage our vertical expertise, and global presence, and end-to-end lifecycle of service offerings to develop long-term relationships with existing and future clients. Our customer contact managementengagement solutions have been developed to help our clients market, acquire, retain and increase the lifetime value of their customer relationships. Our plans for increasing our visibility and impacting the market include the launch of new service offerings in digital support and digital marketing, participation in market-specific industry associations, trade shows and seminars, digital and content marketing to industry leading corporations, and consultative personal visits and solution designs. We research and publish thought provoking perspectives on key industry issues, and use forums, speaking engagements, articles and white papers, as well as our website and broad global digital and social media presence to establish our leadership position in the market.

Our sales force is composed of business development managers who pursue new business opportunities and strategic account managers who manage and grow relationships with existing accounts. We emphasize account development

to strengthen relationships with existing clients. Business development management and strategic account managers are assigned to markets in their area of expertise in order to develop a complete understanding of each client’s particular needs, to form strong client relationships and encourage cross-selling of our other service offerings. We have inside customer sales representatives who receive customer inquiries and who provide pre-sales relationship development for the business development managers. Utilizing best practices from our recent Clearlink acquisition, we are employing modern methods of search and digital marketing to cultivate interest in our brand and services. We use a methodical approach to collecting client feedback through quarterly business reviews, annual strategic reviews, and through our bi-annual Voice of the Client program, which enables us to react to early warning signs, and quickly identify and remedy challenges. It also is used to highlight our most loyal clients, who we then work with to provide references, testimonials and joint speaking engagements at industry conferences.

As part of our marketing efforts, we invite existing and potential clients to experience our customer contact managementengagement centers and virtual at-home agent delivery operations, where we can demonstrate the expertise of our skilled staff in partnering to deliver new ways of growing clients’ revenues, customer satisfaction and retention rates, and thus profit, through timely, insightful and proven solutions. This forum allows us to demonstrate our capabilities to design, launch and scale programs. It also allows us to illustrate our best innovations in talent management, analytics, and digital channels, and how they can be best integrated into a program’s design.

Clients

We provide service to clients from our locations in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Australia, the Asia Pacific Rim, Europe and Africa. These clients are Global 2000 corporations, medium-sized businesses and public institutions, which span the communications, financial services, technology/consumer, transportation and leisure, healthcare and other industries. Revenue by industry vertical for 2015,2016, as a percentage of our consolidated revenues, was 34%37% for communications, 24% for financial services, 20%18% for technology/consumer, 7% for transportation and leisure, 5% for healthcare, 3% for retail and 7%6% for all other verticals, including government and utilities. We believe our globally recognized client base presents opportunities for further cross marketing of our services.

Total revenues by segment from AT&T Corporation, a major provider of communication services for which we provide various customer support services, were as follows (in thousands):

We have multiple distinct contracts with AT&T spread across multiple lines of businesses, which expire at varying dates between 20162017 and 2017.2018. We have historically renewed most of these contracts. However, there is no assurance that these contracts will be renewed, or if renewed, will be on terms as favorable as the existing contracts. Each line

of business is governed by separate business terms, conditions and metrics. Each line of business also has a separate decision maker such that a loss of one line of business would not necessarily impact our relationship with the client and decision makers on other lines of business. The loss of (or the failure to retain a significant amount of business with) any of our key clients, including AT&T, could have a material adverse effect on our performance. Many of our contracts contain penalty provisions for failure to meet minimum service levels and are cancelable by the client at any time or on short notice. Also, clients may unilaterally reduce their use of our services under our contracts without penalty.

Total revenues by segment from our next largest client, which was in the financial services vertical in each of the years, were as follows (in thousands):

Other than AT&T, total revenues by segment of our clients that each individually represent 10% or greater of that segment’s revenues in each of the years were as follows (in thousands):

Our top ten clients accounted for approximately 48.5%49.2%, 46.8%48.5% and 45.9%46.8% of our consolidated revenues during the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 2014 and 2013,2014, respectively.

Competition

The industry in which we operate is global and, therefore, highly fragmented and extremely competitive. While many companies provide customer contact managementengagement solutions and services, we believe no one company is dominant in the industry.

In most cases, our principal competition stems from our existing and potential clients’ in-house customer contact managementengagement operations. When it is not the in-house operations of a client or potential client, our public and private direct competition includes 24/7 Customer, Alorica, Arise, Atento, Concentrix, Convergys, Expert Global Solutions, Groupe Acticall/Sitel, iQor, LiveOps, StarTek, Sutherland, Teleperformance, TeleTech, Transcom and Working Solutions, as well as the customer care arm of such companies as Accenture, Conduent, Infosys, Tech Mahindra Satyam,and Wipro, and Xerox, among others. There are other numerous and varied providers of such services, including firms specializing in various CRM consulting, other customer managementengagement solutions providers, niche or large market companies, as well as product distribution companies that provide fulfillment services. Some of these companies possess substantially greater resources, greater name recognition and a more established customer base than we do.

We believe that the most significant competitive factors in the sale of outsourced customer contact managementengagement services include service quality, tailored value-added service offerings, industry experience, advanced technological capabilities, global coverage, reliability, scalability, security, price and financial strength. As a result of intense competition, outsourced customer contact managementengagement solutions and services frequently are subject to pricing pressure. Clients also require outsourcers to be able to provide services in multiple locations. Competition for contracts for many of our services takes the form of competitive bidding in response to requests for proposal.

Intellectual Property

The success of our business depends, in part, on our proprietary technology and intellectual property. We rely on a combination of intellectual property laws and contractual arrangements to protect our intellectual property. We and our subsidiaries have registered various trademarks and service marks in the U.S. and/or other countries, including SYKES^®SYKES®, REAL PEOPLE. REAL SOLUTIONS^®SOLUTIONS®, SYKES HOME^®HOME®, SYKES HOME POWERED BY ALPINE ACCESS^®ACCESS®, SCIENCE OF SERVICE^®SERVICE®, ALPINE ACCESS^®ACCESS®, ALPINE ACCESS UNIVERSITY^®UNIVERSITY®, TALENTSPROUT^®TALENTSPROUT®, SECURE TALK®, CLEARLINK®, BUYCALLS®, A SECURE LIFE®, and SECURE TALK^®LEADAMP®. The duration of trademark and service mark registrations varies from country to country but may generally be

renewed indefinitely as long as the marks are in use and their registrations are properly maintained. We have a pending U.S. patent application which relates to a system and method of analysis and recommendation for distributed employee management and digital collaboration. Our subsidiary, Alpine, was issued U.S. Patent No. 8,565,413 in 2013 which relates to a system and method for establishment and management of a remote agent callengagement center. Alpine was also issued U.S. Patent No. 9,100,484 on August 4,in 2015 which relates to a secure call environment. AlpineClearlink’s subsidiary, LeadAmp, has an additionala pending U.S. patent application.application which relates to lead management software.

Employees

As of January 31, 2016,2017, we had approximately 54,55055,525 employees worldwide, including 41,70044,200 customer contactengagement agents handling technical and customer support inquiries at our centers, 7,5005,200 at-home customer contactengagement agents handling technical and customer support inquiries, 5,1006,000 in management, administration, information technology, finance, sales and marketing roles, 5025 in enterprise support services and 200100 in fulfillment services. Our employees, with the exception of approximately 650500 employees in Brazil and various European countries, are not union members and we have never suffered a material interruption of business as a result of a labor dispute. We consider our relations with our employees worldwide to be satisfactory.

We employ personnel through a continually updated recruiting network. This network includes a seasoned team of recruiters, competency-based selection standards and the sharing of global best practices in order to advertise to and source qualified candidates through proven recruiting techniques. Nonetheless, demand for qualified professionals with the required language and technical skills may still exceed supply at times as new skills are needed to keep pace with the requirements of customer engagements. As such, competition for such personnel is intense. Additionally, employee turnover in our industry is high.

Executive Officers

The following table provides the names and ages of our executive officers, and the positions and offices currently held by each of them:

Charles E. Sykesjoined SYKES in 1986 and was named President and Chief Executive Officer and Director in August 2004. From July 2003 to August 2004, Mr. Sykes was the Chief Operating Officer. From March 2000 to June 2001, Mr. Sykes was Senior Vice President, Marketing, and in June 2001, he was appointed to the position of General Manager, Senior Vice President — the Americas. From December 1996 to March 2000, he served as Vice President, Sales, and held the position of Regional Manager of the Midwest Region for Professional Services from 1992 until 1996.

John Chapman, F.C.C.A, joined SYKES in September 2002 as Vice President, Finance, managing the EMEA finance function and was named Senior Vice President, EMEA Global Region in January 2012, adding operational responsibility. In April 2014, he was named Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Prior to joining SYKES, Mr. Chapman served as financial controller for seven years for Raytheon UK.

Lawrence R. Zingalejoined SYKES in January 2006 as Senior Vice President, Global Sales and Client Management. In May 2010, he was named Executive Vice President, Global Sales and Client Management and in September 2012, he was named Executive Vice President and General Manager of Major Markets.Manager. Prior to joining SYKES, Mr. Zingale served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of StarTek, Inc. since 2002. From December 1999 until November 2001, Mr. Zingale served as President of the Americas at Stonehenge Telecom, Inc. From May 1997 until November 1999, Mr. Zingale served as President and Chief Operating Officer of International Community Marketing. From February 1980 until May 1997, Mr. Zingale held various senior level positions at AT&T.

Andrew J. Blanchard joined SYKES in November 2014 as Executive Vice President Financial Services, Healthcare and Retail.General Manager. From 2013 until his joining SYKES, Mr. Blanchard served as Managing Partner at Avasant, a globally ranked third-party advisory and consulting firm. Prior to 2013, Mr. Blanchard had a 30-year career at Accenture, formerly Andersen Consulting, working across the organization in various leadership roles; subsequently being named Managing Director of a new division, which focused on the global customer contact management industry.

James D. Farnsworth joined SYKES in November 2016 as Executive Vice President and General Manager. From 2015 until his joining SYKES, Mr. Farnsworth was President and Chief Executive Officer of Conduit Global, a business process outsourcing company. From 2014 to 2015, Mr. Farnsworth was Executive Vice President and General Manager of consulting and professional services. From 2009 to 2014, Mr. Farnsworth was Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of virtualwirks, a professional services firm focused on virtualization of people, performance and business practices. From 2006 to 2009 and from 1998 to 2003, Mr. Farnsworth was at Teletech Holdings, a business process outsourcing firm, where he was Senior Vice President and General Manager of Global Delivery and he was in Operations. From 2004 to 2005, Mr. Farnsworth was at Startek, a business process outsourcing firm, where he was Senior Vice President of Operations and Client Services. And from 2004 to 2005, Mr. Farnsworth was Chief Operating Officer of Alpine Access, an at-home agent business process outsourcer.

Jenna R. Nelsonjoined SYKES in August 1993 and was named Senior Vice President, Human Resources, in July 2001. In May 2010, she was named Executive Vice President, Global Human Resources. From January 2001 until July 2001, Ms. Nelson held the position of Vice President, Human Resources. In August 1998, Ms. Nelson was appointed Vice President, Human Resources, and held the position of Director, Human Resources and Administration, from August 1996 to July 1998. From August 1993 until July 1996, Ms. Nelson served in various management positions within SYKES, including Director of Administration.

David L. Pearson joined SYKES in February 1997 as Vice President, Engineering, and was named Vice President, Technology Systems Management, in 2000 and Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer in August 2004. In May 2010, he was named Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer. Prior to SYKES, Mr. Pearson held various engineering and technical managementrolesmanagement roles over a fifteen year period, including eight years at Compaq Computer Corporation and five years at Texas Instruments.

James T. Holder, J.D.,joined SYKES in December 2000 as General Counsel and was named Corporate Secretary in January 2001, Vice President in January 2004 and Senior Vice President in December 2006. In May 2010, he was named Executive Vice President. From November 1999 until November 2000, Mr. Holder served in a consulting capacity as Special Counsel to Checkers Drive-In Restaurants, Inc., a publicly held restaurant operator and franchisor. From November 1993 until November 1999, Mr. Holder served in various capacities at Checkers including Corporate Secretary, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President and General Counsel.

William N. Rocktoff, C.P.A., joined SYKES in August 1997 as Corporate Controller and was named Treasurer and Corporate Controller in December 1999 and Vice President and Corporate Controller in March 2002. In January 2011, he was named Global Vice President and Corporate Controller. From November 1989 to August 1997, Mr. Rocktoff held various financial positions, including Corporate Controller, at Kimmins Corporation, a publicly-held contracting company.

Item 1A. Risk Factors

Factors Influencing Future Results and Accuracy of Forward-Looking Statements

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements (within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995) that are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts, and projections about us, our beliefs, and assumptions made by us. In addition, we may make other written or oral statements, which constitute forward-looking statements, from time to time. Words such as “may,” “expects,” “projects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “seeks,” “estimates,” variations of such words, and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Similarly, statements that describe our future plans, objectives or goals also are forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those discussed below and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our actual results may differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in such forward-looking statements, and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. All forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof, and we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: the marketplace’s continued receptivity to our terms and elements of services offered under our standardized contract for future bundled service offerings; our ability to continue the growth of our service revenues through additional customer contact managementengagement centers; our ability to further penetrate into vertically integrated markets; our ability to expand revenues within the global markets; our ability to continue to establish a competitive advantage through sophisticated technological capabilities, and the following risk factors:

Risks Related to Our Business and Industry

Unfavorable general economic conditions could negatively impact our operating results and financial condition.

Unfavorable general economic conditions could negatively affect our business. While it is often difficult to predict the impact of general economic conditions on our business, these conditions could adversely affect the demand for some of our clients’ products and services and, in turn, could cause a decline in the demand for our services. Also, our clients may not be able to obtain adequate access to credit, which could affect their ability to make timely payments to us. If that were to occur, we could be required to increase our allowance for doubtful accounts, and the number of days outstanding for our accounts receivable could increase. In addition, we may not be able to renew our revolving credit facility at terms that are as favorable as those terms available under our current credit facility. Also, the group of lenders under our credit facility may not be able to fulfill their funding obligations, which could adversely impact our liquidity. For these reasons, among others, if unfavorable economic conditions persist or increase, this could adversely affect our revenues, operating results and financial condition, as well as our ability to access debt under comparable terms and conditions.

Our business is dependent on key clients, and the loss of a key client could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

We derive a substantial portion of our revenues from a few key clients. Our top ten clients accounted for approximately 48.5%49.2% of our consolidated revenues in 2015.2016. The loss of (or the failure to retain a significant amount of business with) any of our key clients could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Many of our contracts contain penalty provisions for failure to meet minimum service levels and are cancelable by the client at any time or on short-term notice. Also, clients may unilaterally reduce their use of our services under these contracts without penalty. Thus, our contracts with our clients do not ensure that we will generate a minimum level of revenues.

Cyber-attacks as well as improper disclosure or control of personal information could result in liability and harm our reputation, which could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

Our business is heavily dependent upon our computer and voice technologies, systems and platforms. Internal or external attacks on any of those could disrupt the normal operations of our callengagement centers and impede our ability to provide critical services to our clients, thereby subjecting us to liability under our contracts. Additionally, our business involves the use, storage and transmission of information about our employees, our clients and customers of our clients. While we take measures to protect the security of, and unauthorized access to, our systems,

as well as the privacy of personal and proprietary information, it is possible that our security controls over our systems, as well as other security practices we follow, may not prevent the improper access to or disclosure of personally identifiable or proprietary information. Such disclosure could harm our reputation and subject us to liability under our contracts and laws that protect personal data, resulting in increased costs or loss of revenue. Further, data privacy is subject to frequently changing rules and regulations, which sometimes conflict among the various jurisdictions and countries in which we provide services. Our failure to adhere to or successfully implement processes in response to changing regulatory requirements in this area could result in legal liability or impairment to our reputation in the marketplace, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our business is subject to substantial competition.

The markets for many of our services operate on a commoditized basis and are highly competitive and subject to rapid change. While many companies provide outsourced customer contact managementengagement services, we believe no one company is dominant in the industry. There are numerous and varied providers of our services, including firms specializing in callengagement center operations, temporary staffing and personnel placement, consulting and integration firms, and niche providers of outsourced customer contact managementengagement services, many of whom compete in only certain

markets. Our competitors include both companies that possess greater resources and name recognition than we do, as well as small niche providers that have few assets and regionalized (local) name recognition instead of global name recognition. In addition to our competitors, many companies who might utilize our services or the services of one of our competitors may utilize in-house personnel to perform such services. Increased competition, our failure to compete successfully, pricing pressures, loss of market share and loss of clients could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Many of our large clients purchase outsourced customer contact managementengagement services from multiple preferred vendors. We have experienced and continue to anticipate significant pricing pressure from these clients in order to remain a preferred vendor. These companies also require vendors to be able to provide services in multiple locations. Although we believe we can effectively meet our clients’ demands, there can be no assurance that we will be able to compete effectively with other outsourced customer contact managementengagement services companies on price. We believe that the most significant competitive factors in the sale of our core services include the standard requirements of service quality, tailored value-added service offerings, industry experience, advanced technological capabilities, global coverage, reliability, scalability, security, price and financial strength.

The concentration of customer supportengagement centers in certain geographies poses risks to our operations which could adversely affect our financial condition.

Although we have callengagement centers in many locations throughout the world, we have a concentration of centers in certain geographies outside of the U.S. and Canada, specifically The Philippines and Latin America. Our concentration of operations in those geographies is a result of our ability to access significant numbers of employees with certain language and other skills at costs that are advantageous. However, the concentration of business activities in any geographical area creates risks which could harm operations and our financial condition. Certain risks, such as natural disasters, armed conflict and military or civil unrest, political instability and disease transmission, as well as the risk of interruption to our delivery systems, is magnified when the realization of these, or any other risks, would effect a large portion of our business at once, which may result in a disproportionate increase in operating costs.

Our business is dependent on the trend toward outsourcing.

Our business and growth depend in large part on the industry trend toward outsourced customer contact managementengagement services. Outsourcing means that an entity contracts with a third party, such as us, to provide customer contactengagement services rather than perform such services in-house. There can be no assurance that this trend will continue, as organizations may elect to perform such services themselves. A significant change in this trend could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, there can be no assurance that our cross-selling efforts will cause clients to purchase additional services from us or adopt a single-source outsourcing approach.

We are subject to various uncertainties relating to future litigation.

We cannot predict whether any material suits, claims, or investigations may arise in the future. Regardless of the

outcome of any future actions, claims, or investigations, we may incur substantial defense costs and such actions may cause a diversion of management time and attention. Also, it is possible that we may be required to pay substantial damages or settlement costs which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

Our industry is subject to rapid technological change which could affect our business and results of operations.

Rapid technological advances, frequent new product introductions and enhancements, and changes in client requirements characterize the market for outsourced customer contact managementengagement services. Technological advancements in voice recognition software, as well as self-provisioning and self-help software, along with call avoidance technologies, have the potential to adversely impact call volume growth and, therefore, revenues. Our future success will depend in large part on our ability to service new products, platforms and rapidly changing technology. These factors will require us to provide adequately trained personnel to address the increasingly sophisticated, complex and evolving needs of our clients. In addition, our ability to capitalize on our acquisitions will depend on our ability to continually enhance software and services and adapt such software to new hardware and operating system requirements. Any failure by us to anticipate or respond rapidly to technological advances, new products and enhancements, or changes in client requirements could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our business relies heavily on technology and computer systems, which subjects us to various uncertainties.

We have invested significantly in sophisticated and specialized communications and computer technology and have focused on the application of this technology to meet our clients’ needs. We anticipate that it will be necessary to continue to invest in and develop new and enhanced technology on a timely basis to maintain our competitiveness. Significant capital expenditures may be required to keep our technology up-to-date. There can be no assurance that any of our information systems will be adequate to meet our future needs or that we will be able to incorporate new technology to enhance and develop our existing services. Moreover, investments in technology, including future investments in upgrades and enhancements to software, may not necessarily maintain our competitiveness. Our future success will also depend in part on our ability to anticipate and develop information technology solutions that keep pace with evolving industry standards and changing client demands.

Emergency interruption of customer contact managementengagement center operations could affect our business and results of operations.

Our operations are dependent upon our ability to protect our customer contact managementengagement centers and our information databases against damage that may be caused by fire, earthquakes, severe weather and other disasters, power failure, telecommunications failures, unauthorized intrusion, computer viruses and other emergencies. The temporary or permanent loss of such systems could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Notwithstanding precautions taken to protect us and our clients from events that could interrupt delivery of services, there can be no assurance that a fire, natural disaster, human error, equipment malfunction or inadequacy, or other event would not result in a prolonged interruption in our ability to provide services to our clients. Such an event could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our operating results will be adversely affected if we are unable to maximize our facility capacity utilization.

Our profitability is significantly influenced by our ability to effectively manage our contact center capacity utilization. The majority of our business involves technical support and customer care services initiated by our clients’ customers and, as a result, our capacity utilization varies and demands on our capacity are, to some degree, beyond our control. In order to create the additional capacity necessary to accommodate new or expanded outsourcing projects, we may need to open new contact centers. The opening or expansion of a contact center may result, at least in the short term, in idle capacity until we fully implement the new or expanded program. Additionally, the occasional need to open customer contactengagement centers fully, or primarily, dedicated to a single client, instead of spreading the work among existing facilities with idle capacity, negatively affects capacity utilization. We periodically assess the expected long-term capacity utilization of our contact centers. As a result, we may, if deemed necessary, consolidate, close or partially close under-performing contact centers to maintain or improve targeted utilization and margins. There can be no guarantee that we will be able to achieve or maintain optimal utilization of our contact center capacity.

As part of our effort to consolidate our facilities, we may seek to sell or sublease a portion of our surplus contact center space, if any, and recover certain costs associated with it. Failure to sell or sublease such surplus space will negatively impact results of operations.

Increases in the cost of telephone and data services or significant interruptions in such services could adversely affect our financial results.

Our business is significantly dependent on telephone and data service provided by various local and long distance telephone companies. Accordingly, any disruption of these services could adversely affect our business. We have taken steps to mitigate our exposure to service disruptions by investing in redundant circuits, although there is no assurance that the redundant circuits would not also suffer disruption. Any inability to obtain telephone or data services at favorable rates could negatively affect our business results. Where possible, we have entered into long-term contracts with various providers to mitigate short-term rate increases and fluctuations. There is no obligation, however, for the vendors to renew their contracts with us, or to offer the same or lower rates in the future, and such contracts are subject to termination or modification for various reasons outside of our control. A significant increase in the cost of telephone services that is not recoverable through an increase in the price of our services could adversely affect our financial results.

Our profitability may be adversely affected if we are unable to maintain and find new locations for customer contactengagement centers in countries with stable wage rates.

Our business is labor-intensive and therefore wages, employee benefits and employment taxes constitute the largest component of our operating expenses. As a result, expansion of our business is dependent upon our ability to find cost-effective locations in which to operate, both domestically and internationally. Some of our customer contact managementengagement centers are located in countries that have experienced inflation and rising standards of living, which requires us to increase employee wages. In addition, collective bargaining is being utilized in an increasing number of countries in which we currently, or may in the future, desire to operate. Collective bargaining may result in material wage and benefit increases. If wage rates and benefits increase significantly in a country where we maintain customer contact managementengagement centers, we may not be able to pass those increased labor costs on to our clients, requiring us to search for other cost effective delivery locations. Additionally, some of our customer contact managementengagement centers are located in jurisdictions subject to minimum wage regulations, which may result in increased wages in the future. There is no assurance that we will be able to find such cost-effective locations, and even if we do, the costs of closing delivery locations and opening new customer contact managementengagement centers can adversely affect our financial results.

The adoption and implementation of new statutory and regulatory requirements for derivative transactions could have an adverse impact on our ability to hedge risks associated with our business.

We enter into forward and option contracts to hedge against the effect of foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations. The United States Congress has passed, and the President has signed into law, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act”). The Dodd-Frank Act provides for new statutory and regulatory requirements for derivative transactions, including foreign currency and interest rate hedging transactions. The Dodd-Frank Act requires the Commodities Futures and Trading Commission to promulgate rules relating to the Dodd-Frank Act. Until the rules relating to the Dodd-Frank Act are established, we cannot know how these regulations will affect us. The rules adopted by the Commodities Futures and Trading Commission may in the future impact our flexibility to execute strategic hedges to reduce foreign exchange and interest rate uncertainty and thus protect cash flows. In addition, the banks and other derivatives dealers who are our contractual counterparties will be required to comply with the Dodd-Frank Act’s new requirements. It is possible that the costs of such compliance will be passed on to customers such as us.

Risks Related to Our International Operations

Our international operations and expansion involve various risks.

We intend to continue to pursue growth opportunities in markets outside the United States. At December 31, 2015,2016, our international operations were conducted from 3134 customer contact managementengagement centers located in Sweden, Finland, Germany, Egypt, Scotland, Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Romania, The Philippines, the People’s Republic of China, India and Australia. Revenues from these international operations for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015, and 2014, and 2013, were 36.8%, 40.5%, 39.9%, and 38.7%39.9% of consolidated revenues, respectively. We also conduct business from 14 customer contact managementengagement centers located in Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico and Brazil. International operations are subject to certain risks common to international activities, such as changes in foreign

governmental regulations, tariffs and taxes, import/export license requirements, the imposition of trade barriers, difficulties in staffing and managing international operations, political uncertainties, longer payment cycles, possible greater difficulties in accounts receivable collection, economic instability as well as political and country-specific risks.

Additionally, we have been granted tax holidays in The Philippines, Colombia, Costa Rica and El Salvador which expire at varying dates from 20162019 through 2028. In some cases, the tax holidays expire without possibility of renewal. In other cases, we expect to renew these tax holidays, but there are no assurances from the respective foreign governments that they will renew them. This could potentially result in adverse tax consequences, the impact of which is not practicable to estimate due to the inherent complexity of estimating critical variables such as long-term future profitability, tax regulations and rates in the multi-national tax environment in which we operate. Any one or more of these factors could have an adverse effect on our international operations and, consequently, on our business, financial condition and results of operations. The tax holidays decreased the provision for income taxes by $3.3 million, $4.0 million $2.7 million and $4.7$2.7 million for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, and 2013, respectively.

As of December 31, 2015,2016, we had cash balances of approximately $221.7$243.8 million held in international operations, most of which would be subject to additional taxes if repatriated to the United States. Determination of any unrecognized deferred tax liability related to investments in foreign subsidiaries is not practicable due to the inherent complexity of the multi-national tax environment in which we operate.

We conduct business in various foreign currencies and are therefore exposed to market risk from changes in foreign currency exchange rates and interest rates, which could impact our results of operations and financial condition. We are also subject to certain exposures arising from the translation and consolidation of the financial results of our foreign subsidiaries. We enter into foreign currency forward and option contracts to hedge against the effect of certain foreign currency exchange exposures. However, there can be no assurance that we can take actions to mitigate such exposure in the future, and if taken, that such actions will be successful or that future changes in currency exchange rates will not have a material adverse impact on our future operating results. A significant change in the value of the U.S. Dollar against the currency of one or more countries where we operate may have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, our hedging exposure to counterparty credit risks is not secured by any collateral. Although each of the counterparty financial institutions with which we place hedging contracts are investment grade rated by the national rating agencies as of the time of the placement, we can provide no assurances as to the financial stability of any of our counterparties. If a counterparty to one or more of our hedge transactions were to become insolvent, we would be an unsecured creditor and our exposure at the time would depend on foreign exchange rate movements relative to the contracted foreign exchange rate and whether any gains result that are not realized due to a counterparty default.

The fundamental shift in our industry toward global service delivery markets presents various risks to our business.

Clients continue to require blended delivery models using a combination of onshore and offshore support. Our offshore delivery locations include The Philippines, the People’s Republic of China, India, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, and while we have operated in global delivery markets since 1996, there can be no assurance that we will be able to successfully conduct and expand such operations, and a failure to do so could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations. The success of our offshore operations will be subject to numerous factors, some of which are beyond our control, including general and regional economic conditions, prices for our services, competition, changes in regulation and other risks. In addition, as with all of our operations outside of the United States, we are subject to various additional political, economic and market uncertainties (see “Our international operations and expansion involve various risks”). Additionally, a change in the political environment in the United States or the adoption and enforcement of legislation and regulations curbing the use of offshore customer contact managementengagement solutions and services could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our global operations expose us to numerous legal and regulatory requirements.

We provide services to our clients’ customers in 20 countries around the world. Accordingly, we are subject to numerous legal regimes on matters such as taxation, government sanctions, content requirements, licensing, tariffs, government affairs, data privacy and immigration as well as internal and disclosure control obligations. In the U.S., as well as several of the other countries in which we operate, some of our services must comply with various laws and regulations regarding the method and timing of placing outbound telephone calls. Violations of these various

laws and regulations could result in liability for monetary damages, fines and/or criminal prosecution and unfavorable publicity. Changes in U.S. federal, state and international laws and regulations, specifically those relating to the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries as well as recently enacted statutory and regulatory requirements related to derivative transactions, may adversely affect our ability to perform our services at our overseas facilities or could result in additional taxes on such services, or impact our flexibility to execute strategic hedges, thereby threatening or limiting our ability or the financial benefit to continue to serve certain markets at offshore locations, or the risks associated therewith.

Risks Related to Our Employees

Our operations are substantially dependent on our senior management.

Our success is largely dependent upon the efforts, direction and guidance of our senior management. Our growth and success also depend in part on our ability to attract and retain skilled employees and managers and on the ability of our executive officers and key employees to manage our operations successfully. We have entered into

employment and non-competition agreements with our executive officers. The loss of any of our senior management or key personnel, or the inability to attract, retain or replace key management personnel in the future, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our inability to attract and retain experienced personnel may adversely impact our business.

Our business is labor intensive and places significant importance on our ability to recruit, train, and retain qualified technical and consultative professional personnel. We generally experience high turnover of our personnel and are continuously required to recruit and train replacement personnel as a result of a changing and expanding work force. Additionally, demand for qualified technical professionals conversant in multiple languages, including English, and/or certain technologies may exceed supply, as new and additional skills are required to keep pace with evolving computer technology. Our ability to locate and train employees is critical to achieving our growth objective. Our inability to attract and retain qualified personnel or an increase in wages or other costs of attracting, training, or retaining qualified personnel could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Health epidemics could disrupt our business and adversely affect our financial results.

Our customer contactengagement centers typically seat hundreds of employees in one location. Accordingly, an outbreak of a contagious infection in one or more of the markets in which we do business may result in significant worker absenteeism, lower asset utilization rates, voluntary or mandatory closure of our offices and delivery centers, travel restrictions on our employees, and other disruptions to our business. Any prolonged or widespread health epidemic could severely disrupt our business operations and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Risks Related to Our Business Strategy

Our strategy of growing through selective acquisitions and mergers involves potential risks.

We evaluate opportunities to expand the scope of our services through acquisitions and mergers. We may be unable to identify companies that complement our strategies, and even if we identify a company that complements our strategies, we may be unable to acquire or merge with the company. Also, a decrease in the price of our common stock could hinder our growth strategy by limiting growth through acquisitions funded with SYKES’ stock.

The actual integration of the company may result in additional and unforeseen expenses, and the full amount of anticipated benefits of the integration plan may not be realized. If we are not able to adequately address these challenges, we may be unable to fully integrate the acquired operations into our own, or to realize the full amount of anticipated benefits of the integration of the companies.

Our acquisition strategy involves other potential risks. These risks include:

We may incur significant cash and non-cash costs in connection with the continued rationalization of assets resulting from acquisitions.

We may incur a number of non-recurring cash and non-cash costs associated with the continued rationalization of assets resulting from acquisitions relating to the closing of facilities and disposition of assets.

If our goodwill or amortizable intangible assets become impaired, we could be required to record a significant charge to earnings.

We recorded substantial goodwill and amortizable intangible assets as a result of the ICT, Alpine, Qelp and QelpClearlink acquisitions. We review our goodwill and amortizable intangible assets for impairment when events or changes in circumstances indicate the carrying value may not be recoverable. We assess whether there has been an impairment in the value of goodwill at least annually. Factors that may be considered a change in circumstances indicating that the carrying value of our goodwill or amortizable intangible assets may not be recoverable include declines in stock price, market capitalization or cash flows and slower growth rates in our industry. We could be required to record a significant charge to earnings in our financial statements during the period in which any impairment of our goodwill or amortizable intangible assets were determined, negatively impacting our results of operations.

Risks Related to Our Common Stock

Our organizational documents contain provisions that could impede a change in control.

Our Board of Directors is divided into three classes serving staggered three-year terms. The staggered Board of Directors and the anti-takeover effects of certain provisions contained in the Florida Business Corporation Act and in our Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws, including the ability of the Board of Directors to issue shares of preferred stock and to fix the rights and preferences of those shares without shareholder approval, may have the effect of delaying, deferring or preventing an unsolicited change in control. This may adversely affect the market price of our common stock or the ability of shareholders to participate in a transaction in which they might otherwise receive a premium for their shares.

The volatility of our stock price may result in loss of investment.

The trading price of our common stock has been and may continue to be subject to wide fluctuations over short and long periods of time. We believe that market prices of outsourced customer contact managementengagement services stocks in general have experienced volatility, which could affect the market price of our common stock regardless of our financial results or performance. We further believe that various factors such as general economic conditions, changes or volatility in the financial markets, changing market conditions in the outsourced customer contact managementengagement services industry, quarterly variations in our financial results, the announcement of acquisitions, strategic partnerships, or new product offerings, and changes in financial estimates and recommendations by securities analysts could cause the market price of our common stock to fluctuate substantially in the future.

Failure to adhere to laws, rules and regulations applicable to public companies operating in the U.S. may have an adverse effect on our stock price.

Because we are a publicly-traded company, we are subject to certain evolving and extensive federal, state and other rules and regulations relating to, among other things, assessment and maintenance of internal controls and corporate governance. Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, together with rules and regulations issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) require us to furnish, on an annual basis, a report by our management (included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K) regarding the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. The report includes, among other things, an assessment of the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting as of the end of our fiscal year and a statement as to whether or not our internal controls over financial reporting are effective. We must include a disclosure of any material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting identified by management during the annual assessment. We have in the past discovered, and may potentially in the future discover, areas of internal control over financial reporting which may require improvement. If at any time we are unable to assert that our internal controls over financial reporting are effective, or if our auditors are unable to express an opinion on the effectiveness of our internal controls, our investors could lose confidence in the accuracy and/or completeness of our financial reports, which could have an adverse effect on our stock price.

Additionally, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act enacted in 2010 subjects us to significant additional executive compensation and corporate governance requirements and disclosures, some of which have yet to be implemented by the SEC. Compliance with these requirements may be costly and adversely affect our business.

Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments

There are no material unresolved written comments that were received from the SEC staff 180 days or more before the year ended December 31, 20152016 relating to our periodic or current reports filed under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

Item 2. Properties

Our principal executive offices are located in Tampa, Florida, which consistsconsist of approximately 68,000 square feet of leased office space. This facility currently serves as the headquarters for senior management and the financial, information technology and administrative departments. In addition to our headquarters and the customer contact managementengagement centers (“centers”) used by our Americas and EMEA segments discussed below, we also have offices in several countries around the world which support our Americas and EMEA segments.

As of December 31, 2015,2016, excluding centers we have exited, we operated 68 centers that are classified as follows:

As of December 31, 2015, our74 multi-client centers. Our multi-client centers were located in the following countries:

We believe our existing facilities are suitable and adequate to meet current requirements, and that suitable additional or substitute space will be available as needed to accommodate any physical expansion or any space required due to expiring leases not renewed. We operate from time to time in temporary facilities to accommodate growth before new centers are available. At December 31, 2015,2016, our centers, taken as a whole, were utilized at average capacities of approximately 79%75% and were capable of supporting a higher level of market demand.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings

From time to time, we are involved in legal actions arising in the ordinary course of business. With respect to these matters, we believe that we have adequate legal defenses and/or when possible and appropriate, have provided adequate accruals related to those matters such that the ultimate outcome will not have a material adverse effect on our future financial position or results of operations.

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures

Not Applicable.

PART II

Item 5. Market for the Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Shareholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

Our common stock is quoted on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol SYKE. The following table sets forth, for the periods indicated, certain information as to the high and low intraday sale prices per share of our common stock as quoted on the NASDAQ Global Select Market.

Holders of our common stock are entitled to receive dividends out of the funds legally available when and if declared by the Board of Directors. We have not declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock in the past and do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future.

As of February 10, 2016,1, 2017, there were approximately 840 holders of record of theour common stock. Westock and we estimate there were approximately 11,3009,600 beneficial owners of our common stock.owners.

Below is a summary of stock repurchases for the quarter ended December 31, 20152016 (in thousands, except average price per share).

Five-Year Stock Performance Graph

The following graph presents a comparison of the cumulative shareholder return on the common stock with the cumulative total return on the NASDAQ Computer and Data Processing Services Index, the NASDAQ Telecommunications Index, the Russell 2000 Index, the S&P Small Cap 600 and the SYKES Peer Group (as defined below). The SYKES Peer Group is comprised of publicly traded companies that derive a substantial portion of their revenues from call center,engagement centers, customer care business,businesses, have similar business models to SYKES, and are those most commonly compared to SYKES by industry analysts following SYKES. This graph assumes that $100 was invested on December 31, 20102011 in SYKES common stock, the NASDAQ Computer and Data Processing Services Index, the NASDAQ Telecommunications Index, the Russell 2000 Index, the S&P Small Cap 600 and SYKES Peer Group, including reinvestment of dividends.

Comparison of Five-Year Cumulative Total Return (in dollars)

There can be no assurance that SYKES’ stock performance will continue into the future with the same or similar trends depicted in the graph above. SYKES does not make or endorse any predictions as to the future stock performance.

The information contained in the Stock Performance Graph section shall not be deemed to be “soliciting material” or “filed” or incorporated by reference in future filings with the SEC, or subject to the liabilities of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, except to the extent that we specifically incorporate it by reference into a document filed under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

Item 6. Selected Financial Data

Selected Financial Data

The following selected financial data has been derived from our consolidated financial statements.

We sold our operations in Spain during 2012. Accordingly, we have reclassified the selected financial data for all periods presented to reflect these results as discontinued operations in accordance with Accounting Standards Codification 205-20 “Discontinued Operations”.

The information below should be read in conjunction with “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” and the accompanying Consolidated Financial Statements and related notes thereto.

Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

This discussion should be read in conjunction with the accompanying Consolidated Financial Statements and the notes thereto that appear elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The following discussion and analysis compares the year ended December 31, 2016 (“2016”) to the year ended December 31, 2015 (“2015”), and 2015 to the year ended December 31, 2014 (“2014”), and 2014 to the year ended December 31, 2013 (“2013”).

The following discussion and analysis and other sections of this document contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Words such as “may,” “expects,” “projects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “seeks,” “estimates,” variations of such words, and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Similarly, statements that describe our future plans, objectives, or goals also are forward-looking statements. Future events and actual results could differ materially from the results reflected in these forward-looking statements, as a result of certain of the factors set forth below and elsewhere in this analysis and in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 20152016 in Item 1.A., “Risk Factors.”

Executive Summary

We provide comprehensive inbound customer contact managementengagement solutions and services to a wide range of clients including Global 2000 companies medium-sized businesses and public institutions around the world, primarily in the communications, financial services, technology/consumer, transportation and leisure, healthcare, retail and healthcareother industries. We serve our clients through two geographic operating regions: the Americas (United States, Canada, Latin America, Australia and the Asia Pacific Rim) and EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa). Our Americas and EMEA groups primarily provide customer contact managementengagement services (with an emphasis on inbound technical support, digital marketing and demand generation, and customer service), which include customer assistance, healthcare and roadside assistance, technical support, and product and service sales to our clients’ customers. These services, which represented 98.1%99.2% of consolidated revenues in 2015,2016, are delivered through multiple communication channels encompassing phone, e-mail, social media, text messaging, chat and digital self-service. We also provide various enterprise support services in the United States (“U.S.”) that include services for our clients’ internal support operations, from technical staffing services to outsourced corporate help desk services. In Europe, we also provide fulfillment services, which includes order processing, via the Internet and phone,payment processing, inventory control, product delivery, and product returns handling. Our complete service offering helps our clients acquire, retain and increase the lifetime value of their customer relationships. We have developed an extensive global reach with customer contact managementengagement centers throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Latin America, Australia, the Asia Pacific Rim and Africa.

Revenues from these services is recognized as the services are performed, which is based on either a per minute, per hour, per call, per transaction or per time and material basis, under a fully executed contractual agreement, and we record reductions to revenues for contractual penalties and holdbacks for a failure to meet specified minimum service levels and other performance based contingencies. Revenue recognition is limited to the amount that is not contingent upon delivery of any future product or service or meeting other specified performance conditions. Product sales, accounted for within our fulfillment services, are recognized upon shipment to the customer and satisfaction of all obligations.

Direct salaries and related costs include direct personnel compensation, severance, statutory and other benefits associated with such personnel and other direct costs associated with providing services to customers.

General and administrative costs include administrative, sales and marketing, occupancy and other costs.

Depreciation, net represents depreciation on property and equipment, net of the amortization of deferred property grants.

Amortization of intangibles represents amortization of finite-lived intangible assets.

The net gain (loss) on disposal of property and equipment represents the difference between the amount of proceeds received, if any, and the carrying value of the asset.

Interest income primarily relates to interest earned on cash and cash equivalents.

Interest (expense) includes interest on outstanding borrowings, commitment fees charged on the unused portion of our revolving credit facility and contingent consideration, as more fully described in this Item 7, under “Liquidity and Capital Resources.”

Other (expense) includes gains and losses on foreign currency derivative instruments not designated as hedges, foreign currency transaction gains and losses, gains and losses on the liquidation of foreign subsidiaries and other miscellaneous income (expense).

Our effective tax rate for the periods presented includes the effects of state income taxes, net of federal tax benefit, tax holidays, valuation allowance changes, foreign rate differentials, foreign withholding and other taxes, and permanent differences.

Acquisition of Clearlink

In April 2016, we completed the acquisition of Clear Link Holdings, LLC (“Clearlink”), to expand our suite of service offerings while creating differentiation in the marketplace, broadening our addressable market opportunity and extending executive level reach within our existing clients’ organization. We refer to such acquisition herein as the “Clearlink acquisition.”

The total purchase price of $207.9 million was funded by borrowings under our existing credit facility.

The results of operations of Clearlink have been reflected in the accompanying Consolidated Statement of Operations since April 1, 2016.

Acquisition of Qelp B.V.

In July 2015, the Companywe completed the acquisition of Qelp B.V. and its subsidiary (together, known as “Qelp”), pursuant to definitive Share Salefurther broaden and Purchase Agreement, dated July 2, 2015. strengthen our service portfolio around digital self-service customer support and extend our reach into adjacent, but complementary, markets. We refer to such acquisition herein as the “Qelp acquisition.”

The total purchase price of $15.8 million was funded by $9.8 million in cash on hand netand contingent consideration with a fair value of working capital adjustments, and $6.0 million as of contingent consideration. July 2, 2015.

The results of operations of Qelp have been reflected in the accompanying Consolidated StatementStatements of Operations for the period fromsince July 2, 2015 to December 31, 2015.

Results of Operations

The following table sets forth, for the years indicated, the amounts reflected in the accompanying Consolidated Statements of Operations as well as the changes between the respective years:

The following table sets forth, for the years indicated, the amounts presented in the accompanying Consolidated Statements of Operations as a percentage of revenues:

2016 Compared to 2015

Revenues