Qualtrics, the experience management and CXM platform, has committed to new investment and expansion plans that would include the creation of new jobs in the nation’s capital, as well as the building of a new hub for product innovation in Virginia.
In creating the new jobs, Qualtrics plans to establish 400 additional tech positions during the next five years, hiring across various fields and functions, including sales, professional services, engineering, operations, customer success, and marketing, The jobs will have the effect of more than doubling the size of the current Qualtrics workforce in the Washington, D.C. area, the company said in a statement.
For the new hub, Qualtrics will build a massive office spanning 85,000 square feet in Reston Station, a rapidly growing area for top tech, defense, and service companies. The hub in Reston will serve as a center of excellence for product innovation, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), and is set to open in 3Q 2022. Reston is also home to Clarabridge, a recent Qualtrics acquisition that specializes in conversational analytics.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam welcomed the good news. “Virginia offers access to the highest concentration of tech talent in the United States,” he said. “The Commonwealth’s diverse tech ecosystem is driven by our stable business climate, competitive operating costs, and a world-class workforce.”
Zig Serafin, Qualtrics CEO, said the new investment will make the company a stronger player. “Organizations everywhere are undergoing an experience transformation, and Qualtrics has an incredible opportunity in front of us. With its strong talent pool, Virginia is a perfect place for us to grow,” Serafin said.
An American firm founded in 2002 and then acquired by German conglomerate SAP in 2018, Qualtrics currently has more than 4,200 employees and is co-headquartered in two locations—Seattle, Washington, and Provo, Utah.
In 2017, Qualtrics launched XM Platform, its product for organizations to design, manage, and improve the experience they provide to customers and to stakeholders like vendors, suppliers, and employees. Important metrics are collected in four different areas, including CX, employee experience, product experience, and brand experience. Recognizing the distinct competitive advantage and economic value that experiences can generate, organizations are now beginning to collect experience data, in addition to operational data. Experience platforms like those from Qualtrics provide capabilities to automate the process of identifying and improving experiences across an organization.
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Alex is responsible for writing about trends and changes that are impacting the customer experience market. He had served as Principal Editor at Village Intelligence, a Los Angeles-based consultancy on technology impacting healthcare and healthcare-related industries. Alex was also Associate Director for Content Management at Omdia and Informa Tech, where he produced white papers, executive summaries, market insights, blogs, and other key content assets. His areas of coverage spanned the sectors grouped under the technology vertical, including semiconductors, smart technologies, enterprise & IT, media, displays, mobile, power, healthcare, China research, industrial and IoT, automotive, and transformative technologies.
At IHS Markit, he was Managing Editor of the company’s flagship IHS Quarterly, covering aerospace & defense, economics & country risk, chemicals, oil & gas, and other IHS verticals. He was Principal Editor of analyst output at iSuppli Corp. and Managing Editor of Market Watch, a fortnightly newsletter highlighting significant analyst report findings for pitching to the media. He started his career in writing as an Editor-Reporter for The Associated Press.
