HOUSTON (March 8, 2010)—Sysco Corporation has purchased the former Hewlett-Packard call center at 24500 Hwy. 290 in Cypress to create a shared services facility for its North American distribution centers.
Mark Palmer, vice president of corporate communications, said the facility will house a customer service call center and handle some administrative activities, such as accounting and financial functions.
The company does not plan to occupy the building until the end of this year. Starting with a small staff of about 50 people, Palmer said Sysco is undergoing a five-year “business transformation” that will centralize and standardize some business processes. The Cypress location could eventually employ as many 1,500 to 1,800 people with a mixture of transfers and new hires.
Founded in 1969 and headquartered in Houston’s Energy Corridor, Sysco distributes food and other products and services to any location where food is prepared, including hospitals, restaurants, hotels, nursing homes, sports parks, summer camps and schools. The Cypress facility will provide supplemental services to Sysco distribution centers, consolidating services to a single point of contact.
“We have a lot of distribution facilities around North America in both Canada and the U.S., and we’re going to provide service to those warehouses and distribution facilities from the location in Cypress,” Palmer said. “That’s different from what we do now. We buy a lot of food and then distribute that food to our customers, so paying our bills might happen at this facility, or a customer with a question about their invoice would contact the facility’s call center.”
While the new center is still in the planning stages, Palmer said the development would benefit the community.
“It’s great new for Cypress and great news for Texas,” he said. “The more success we have, the more people we can hire.”
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