Bucking downward trends in the economy, a contact center company based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa announced today that it’s establishing an additional facility about 75 miles away.

 

Officials at Thomas L. Cardella & Associates, or “TLCA,” say a new contact center in Marshalltown, Iowa will bring about 200 jobs and $4 million in annual payroll to the city.

 

Marshalltown Mayor Gene Beach said he heard from Thomas L. Cardella himself, the company’s president and chief executive officer, that 185 entry-level and 15 managerial jobs would have “good wages with benefits.”

“In the current economic climate, this is very important,” Beach said.

 

Officials at TLCA say that they use an Avaya (News - Alert) VoIP system for inbound calls, and also that their company leverages technology, particularly flexible architectures and design philosophies, to build custom solutions. The company diagrams its inbound and outbound call center solutions’ technology on the right.

 

The news out of the Hawkeye State comes as researchers call for positive economic developments in two other IT markets.

 

Though today’s economic conditions present a short-term challenge for digital signage, the market already has grown 34 percent in 2008 and is expected to continue its upward trend after next year, IT research firm MultiMedia Intelligence is reporting today.

 

Officials at the Scottsdale, Arizona-based firm say that the market has consumed 1.1 million digital signage displays this year, and is expected to consume nearly 2.3 million displays by 2012.

 

Also, despite an economic downturn that is affecting subscription rates, mobile operators are expected to continue to invest in innovation and infrastructure to meet rising demand for communications services, ABI Research (News - Alert) is reporting today.

 

The firm’s new report, titled “Mobile Operator Capital Expenditures Analysis,” says that global capital expenditure by carriers stood at $131 billion last year, and will jump 8.3 percent, to $142 billion, this year.

 

Currently, TLCA employs 710 at three contact center locations in Iowa, in Cedar Rapids, Coralville, and Keokuk. The Marshalltown contact center will bring total employment to 910, company officials say.

 

Cardella said he was “excited” to be conducting business in Marshalltown, where he had launched a center 10 years ago as head of Access Direct, a company he sold in 2000 to InterActiveCorp, the parent company of Ticketmaster, Expedia (News - Alert).com, LendingTree, Match.com and the Home Shopping Network.

 

“Even more exciting, is the exposure our Fortune 500 clients will have to this stable, hardworking community,” Cardella said.