A Sacramento-based information technology services company will open the doors to its new Ann Arbor location within the next month and company officials say they’re looking to hire.
In opening its new support center in the Ann Arbor area, Systems in Motion — a company that provides IT systems support to outside organizations — will create 1,085 jobs over the next five years for area residents and college graduates.
Debashish Sinha, SIM’s chief marketing officer, explained the company’s goal is to create a cost-efficient “in-shore” IT model that “can compete effectively with any Global IT Services Model.”
Sinha said SIM concentrated on large public university towns as potential sites for the new service center because of the advantage such locations present.
“We looked at the availability of resources, total population and how many people were coming out of school with what kinds of degrees,” Sinha said.
Additionally, SIM considered the availability of state and local resources necessary to get the new center up and running. He said Ohio and Texas were also discussed as sites, but the Ann Arbor area better met the company’s needs.
“It had the right values of what we needed in terms of support,” Sinha said.
However, Sinha emphasized that Ohio and Texas may be considered for future expansions.
“Once we’ve established a significant presence in the Ann Arbor area, we’ll begin to leverage the resources available in other college towns as well,” Sinha said.
Elizabeth Parkinson, the marketing and public relations director for Ann Arbor SPARK — a local organization focused on attracting and retaining innovative, outside businesses in the Ann Arbor region — said her organization played a major role in attracting SIM to Ann Arbor.
“We were one of the first organizations that SIM connected with,” Parkinson said. “So we pulled in our own resources and started working with SIM to understand the infrastructure they would need, the site they’re looking for and the hires they would be making.”
SPARK tapped into state, regional and local organizations and educational institutions to develop a plan that would attract SIM to Ann Arbor.
This collective group designed an incentive package for SIM, which included $1.5 million in workforce development funding, according to a press release on SPARK’s website.
Stella Wixon, director of the University’s Business Engagement Center, said the Business Engagement Center also helped pitch the University as a “business attraction” to SIM — pointing out the possibilities for student recruitment.
Sinha said, while SIM is currently looking for more experienced hires to build and lead the new center, it is also considering the many openings that may be filled by college students.
“The reason we wanted to set up in college towns is because of the infrastructure available for training and development at the University,” Sinha said.
To that end, SIM is designing a training program at Eastern Michigan University that will drive fresh graduates toward entry-level careers at the new center.
Sinha said that each type of service SIM provides requires a mix of fresh graduates with zero to three years of experience, managed by more experienced employees with five to 10 years experience.
“The kind of work that they do will be … developing and managing technology that supports business,” Sinha said.
University students will have the same opportunities for SIM training and employment, Sinha said, though they may need to go through EMU’s training program.
“It’s not like we’re focused on EMU,” he said. “U of M offers a significant amount of work in training college kids to be really effective and productive employees for companies like Systems In Motion.”