California's Silicon Valley has been famous for years as one of the nation's leading tech industry hubs. But as tech companies continue to grow and expand, they're looking elsewhere for more affordable office space, new talent pools and other successful business stories.
Indiana has become home to many of the tech industry's newest and most cutting-edge businesses, meeting all the needs of a growing company.
Talented workforce pool
The tech executives, IT directors and software developers of tomorrow can be found in colleges across the nation, and businesses everywhere compete to recruit the most accomplished graduates. Indianapolis presents a unique location with its close proximity to a number of venerable institutions from which businesses can pull new talent.
"Many of the positions at the Kronos Indy office are filled by recent college graduates and people starting their technology/cloud/professional services/consultation careers," Kronos Rep Domenic Locapo told Forbes. "Therefore, one main reason the company chose to pursue an Indy office was to tap into the local pipeline of exceptional tech talent throughout Indiana."
Colleges close to Indianapolis include Butler, Marian University, IUPUI, Indiana University and the University of Indianapolis. Drive a little farther north, and you'll run across Purdue and Notre Dame.
Affordable cost of living
Silicon Valley's cost of living and doing business is prohibitively high, to say the least. A Forbes list ranking states based on a number of economic factors placed Indiana at No. 4 for Quality of Life and No. 13 for Business Costs. In the same two categories, California came in at 34th for Quality of Life and 43rd for Business Costs.
Put another way, Indiana is 4 percent below the national average cost of living, according to careertrends.com, compared to California where the cost of living is 15 percent above the national average. Major areas that contribute to this discrepancy are California's high housing cost (California is 45 percent above, Indiana is 15 percent below) and its high taxes (California is 26 percent above, Indiana is 7 percent below).
Successful business scene
Indianapolis' successful business scene grows every year. Top tech companies with offices in the area include Angie's List, ExactTarget (now called Salesforce.com), Interactive Intelligence and Schneider Corp.
"We have a spectacularly supportive state and city government that incents innovation and creates a highly attractive business environment," Angie’s List CEO Scott Durchslag told Forbes, adding that, in his experience, companies in the Indy area tend to have lower attrition rates than other comparable areas.
Schneider Corp, a national e-government software powerhouse that provides services in surveying, civil engineering, GIS and technology, ascribes its success to the quality of nearby universities (its founder, Vincent Schneider, attended Purdue, and his son and grandchildren attended University of Notre Dame). Additionally, the company is in the Midwestern culture that prides itself on a sense of community and loyalty.
Schneider is changing the way people interact with their local government; currently serving clients in 26 states across the US from Key West, FL to Honolulu, HI. Its popular Beacon solution served over a half a billion requests for information last year. With 24/7 site access and operating at minimum wage, Beacon results in both time and money savings for the community.
It also received the Corporate Innovator of the Year Award in 2016, an award which recognizes tech companies that have had significant, measurable impact on their communities and the tech industry each year.
To find out more about Schneider Corp. and the services it provides, visit its website or one of its locations in Indianapolis or West Lafayette.
