Back Office

Whitewater is located an hour from Madison or Milwaukee, and two hours from Chicago. Although the community had success in attracting manufacturing businesses, its economic development efforts had not yet focused on office businesses. This Back Office & Telecommunications-Based Economic Development Strategy identified several likely industries and laid out a strategy to make the community a desirable location for them.

The analysis determined that “Whitewater is a conveniently situated rural back office or call center location featuring a pocket of technical talent amid a skilled labor market, with an outstanding telecommunications infrastructure, and a competitive cost structure.”

Whitewater's niche is the pool of technically-advanced workers found in students and graduates of the University, along with the quality of its infrastructure, including telecommunications. The plan targets companies adopting the "rural" or "hub and spoke" location strategies, primarily focusing on those located in the Chicago and Milwaukee metropolitan areas, as well as those having ties to the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater.

Implementation measures are identified as short-term and long-term initiatives. These can be divided into marketing efforts intended to identify prospects for recruitment, and community development initiatives to enhance the City’s resources for business development. Examples include preparing redevelopment sites in the downtown, encouraging retail development to improve the local quality of life, and studying the feasibility of a technology incubator.