West Des Moines Offers Businesses Room to Grow

One of West Des Moines’ long-standing businesses, ITA Group saw 500% growth and was bursting at the seams in its current location. The City worked with ITA Group to help it find another property in West Des Moines that was suitable for the vision of its executive leadership. The company made it clear it wanted to stay in West Des Moines. Find out more about business incentives on this website. Here’s the rest of the story:

ITA Group, amid more than 500% growth, plans move to bigger office in West Des Moines

Source: Des Moines Register

West Des Moines will always be the home base for ITA Group, according to its president and CEO Brent Vander Waal, but the Iowa-based company continues to expand its international footprint.

In April, ITA announced its acquisition of Performance Initiatives in Sydney, Australia, and Cooleaf, an Atlanta-based software company and technology platform. The company announced acquisition of HTK Limited in January, an Ipswich, England-based SaaS (software as a service) provider for customer loyalty and engagement.

ITA in 2022 also acquired London-based NKD, an employee engagement and experimental learning company, and expanded its Asia-Pacific operations through a strategic partnership with PRM Marketing Services in Singapore.

Since 2022, ITA Group global expansions have resulted in a 556% increase in the number of participants served. Amid that growth, ITA also is moving its West Des Moines office to a bigger, better space.

The company, which boasts 1,000 employees, with half located in the Des Moines area, serves its clients through event planning, incentive programs, recognition programs, research, educational programs, and marketing services. Vander Waal predicts ITA Group will eventually get to 1,000 employees just in the Des Moines office.

One of the keys to ITA’s success is customer satisfaction from clients like Des Moines-based EMC Insurance.

“ITA has been a great long-term partner in helping us keep insurance human for our team members and agents, and creating special experiences that bring people together,” said Jessica Hendricks, vice president of agency development of EMC Insurance.

For Vander Waal and ITA Group, customer satisfaction is a prime ingredient to success and is carefully measured by the company.

“Our client satisfaction, we track it every year, we’re consistently above 90%. I think right now we’re at 96%. When you have satisfied clients, they hold on to you and you stay with them. We hold on to 98% of our clients. We have very, very little client churn,” Vander Waal said.

Another important factor in ITA’s success is its structure as an ESOP or Employee Stock Ownership Plan, which gives all its employees an ownership stake in the business.

“It creates a unique culture for us and with that culture, it’s one of teamwork and collaboration. We’re kind of all in this together. And again, I do think it creates a sense of pride about where our home is as well, which is Des Moines,” Vander Waal said.

Vander Waal said the ESOP structure is important not only in achieving customer satisfaction for clients, but also retaining those employees who create that customer satisfaction.

“Everybody has a stake, there’s a financial benefit and there’s a cultural benefit. And when we take good care of our team members, we hold on to our team members. Right now, we’re at 97% employee retention,” Vander Waal said.

Now in its seventh decade, ITA has seen tremendous growth and evolution from its humble beginnings as International Travel Agency started by the husband-and-wife team of Rudy and Jerry Berg in the early 1960s. The company in its infancy provided travel services to companies in Des Moines.

ITA still provides travel services to local companies even though it is a very small segment of the company’s business.

“We still have that division of our company. So, we still do have a travel agency and there’s probably 15 people that do that primarily for Des Moines-based companies,” Vander Waal said.

Having now expanded its global reach from London to Australia, ITA is eyeing its next big move much closer to home.

ITA is currently headquartered at 4600 Westown Parkway but will moving to the Arcadia Building at 7000 Vista Drive, about two miles to the west. The move will expand office space available to the company from 95,000 square feet now to 150,000 square feet after the move.

The move is being made to accommodate growth — projected to be 70% over the next three years — but also to improve the workspace and offer more amenities for employees, Vander Waal said.

“We did listen to our team members, and we listened to a couple things they wanted. One was a variety of workspaces and so with our new space, we’re trying to create more amenities and this variety of workspaces for them,” Vander Waal said.

One of the unique designs to their new office was the removal of 4 acres of concrete parking space to create a 1-mile walking path connecting to two ponds and naturally shaded seating with outside Wi-Fi access so people can work outside.

Vander Waal said ITA has always focused on employee wellness, both physical and mental. In addition to the outdoor amenities, there will be an indoor fitness center.

The workspace improvements that can be achieved through the move helps the company build on its culture and what experience that ITA is trying to create for its team members, Vander Waal said.

“I want to make it easy for people to come in and work, create the office more like a residence and make it that easy to come in and do their best work,” Vander Waal said.

One other important feature to the new office space will be child care.

“We’ve got a relatively young team and so child care is a big need, not only for our team, but from what I know it’s a big need around the state and so to be able to offer onsite child care is wonderful,” Vander Waal said.