At Slalom, we believe in the power of partnerships. Building strong, meaningful relationships with our partners is essential to Slalom’s approach and the success we co-create for customers. In 2019, we launched our first annual Partner Love survey, and over the years it’s become a guiding light for how we work with our technology allies.

We partner with more than 700 leading and emerging technology solution providers around the world—companies like Amazon Web Services, Adobe, Anaplan, Boomi, Databricks, Google Cloud, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Salesforce, Snowflake, Tableau, and Workday—so we can offer the most effective and efficient services to each customer engagement. When we get our relationships with our partners right, we deliver more value to our customers. 

So, what can a partner expect from the Partner Love survey? It’s a conversation starter, a chance for partners to tell us what makes our partnership special and how we can make it even better. Our survey focuses on assessing 10 core competencies that unlock insights that truly matter:

1. Creating and earning trust - Do we deliver consistently and earn our partners’ trust?
2. Communicating effectively - Are our communications with our partners inclusive, transparent, honest, and frequent?
3. Driving shared success - Are we aligned and working collaboratively to achieve our partners’ goals?
4. Aligning on values - Do we understand our partners’ core values and objectives?
5. Impact - Are we our partners’ most impactful partner?
6. Accessible engagement - Do our partners get what they need from us in a timely manner?
7. Hunters and gatherers - Are we bringing our partners the right solutions, research, innovation, and connections?
8. Knowledge base - Do we provide our partners with the right team possessing the necessary knowledge and experience?
9. Core competencies - Do we have the skills, competencies, and technical expertise to deliver outstanding outcomes for our partners?
10. Partner satisfaction - On a scale from 1 to 10, how satisfied are our partners with our partnership?

Our survey is not anonymous—we like to know who’s sharing their thoughts so we can have direct and personal conversations. This way, we get a real understanding of our partners’ experiences, thoughts, and expectations, helping us dig deeper than just the numbers to reveal our core strengths and areas of improvement.

The survey is distributed at the end of the year and open for about four weeks. To ensure a holistic approach to relationship management, the Partner Love Survey uses the same tools as our Customer Love Survey. The lessons we learn help us improve how we work with our partners and customers year after year.

At Slalom, love is more than a feeling—it's an action. Feedback from our Partner Love survey drives significant organizational changes, shaping our global strategies and improving our operations. “Initially, we only targeted our partner development and partner sales counterparts, but we soon saw the potential to shape our global partner strategies and improve operations by expanding our distribution to include sales, professional services, and other key stakeholders in our partner communities,” says Natalie Resteghene, managing director of partner sales at Slalom. 

Through this survey, we also get the chance to show our appreciation and recognize the incredible contributions of our team members. Partner feedback helps us celebrate those who exhibit our fiercely human approach. Here are some examples of what our partners are saying about our amazing team members:

Our Partner Love survey reflects the essence of how we partner differently. It showcases our dedication to understanding, responding to, and celebrating our partners while living our core values. As we chart the next generation of Slalom, this survey will remain a crucial tool in ensuring we stay true to who we are in our journey to building better tomorrows for all. We promise to continue listening, improving, and prioritizing partner love to strengthen our relationships—this year and in every year to come.