Turk File

From Silicon Valley to Silicon Bayou

by Patrick Flanagan

This year has been a good one for Lafayette's IT sector, first with April's news of CGI's new technology center and then Monday's announcement from Silicon Valley-based Enquero that it will soon be opening its first Agile Delivery Center at LITE.

Photo by Amy Windsor / UL Lafayette

From left: Gov. Bobby Jindal, UL President Joe Savoie and Enquero's Hemant Asher

This year has been a good one for Lafayette's IT sector, first with April's news of CGI's new technology center and then Monday's announcement from Silicon Valley-based Enquero that it will soon be opening its first Agile Delivery Center at the Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise.

The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley in Milpitas, Calif., and is headed by Hemant Asher, Kabir Singh and Arvinder Pal Singh, who were on hand Monday, joined by Gov. Bobby Jindal and a number of local officials for the announcement at the Lafayette Economic Development Authority's offices.

"In evaluating various locations as potential homes to incubate Enquero's first Agile Delivery Center, we defined cultural fit, availability of relevant talent and infrastructure readiness as our major criteria," Asher says.

"Lafayette and the state of Louisiana far exceeded our expectations from all dimensions. We found Lafayette to be an extremely entrepreneurial community with strong alignment between its community stakeholders, such as the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, South Louisiana Community College, Lafayette Economic Development Authority and others," Asher continues. "The community leaders clearly understood Enquero's vision and its needs as a growth company. We are extremely honored to be joining this community, and we look forward to playing a role in its future growth."

The new technology center, which is set to open in August, will bring 350 direct jobs with an average salary of $64,000 before benefits, as well as another 354 indirect jobs.

Enquero, according to tech consultant Doug Menefee, is a rather different company from CGI, with both catering to unique clienteles.

For one, says Menefee, Enquero is more like a startup, whereas CGI is a well-established company.

"Enquero will focus on digital media, and large media campaign analytics and market segmentation," says Menefee. "And their business will be more focused on business solutions for mid-sized to enterprise-level companies, while CGI's focus is more on enterprise and government contracts."

The two companies will also attract different employees, says Menefee, with Enquero likely hiring more of UL Lafayette's informatics students and CGI going after more of the school's programmers.

As part of its selection of Lafayette, Enquero was offered an incentive package from Louisiana Economic Development, including LED's FastStart workforce development program, the state's Digital Interactive Media and Software Development Incentive tax credits, as well as the Quality Jobs program.