Slalom and AWS Announce Launch Centers to Help Enterprises Accelerate Business Transformation and Modernize IT Services
SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Dec. 4, 2019– Today, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ:AMZN), and Slalom, announced a new multi-year, global, strategic collaboration relationship, to build joint AWS | Slalom Launch Centers (Launch Centers) that will accelerate customers’ migration to the cloud and help them modernize their IT services. As part of the relationship, three Launch Centers will initially open in Seattle, Chicago, and Atlanta with plans to open more centers around the world within in the next three years. The Launch Centers will help customers to accelerate their IT modernization and migration strategies to achieve fully optimized, cloud based operating models.
As enterprises embark on a journey to become cloud-native and derive the business benefits from moving to the cloud, they must transform not only their workforce, processes, and operating model, but also modernize critical applications in their portfolios while retiring technical debt. Migrating and moving workloads to the cloud from legacy data centers can be complex and time intensive, as enterprises typically do not have the required technical resources or expertise to handle the transition, and they need to focus their resources on driving their core businesses. To help solve this, the Launch Centers uniquely combine AWS Professional Services, a global team of AWS experts who help customers reach their desired outcomes with the cloud, with Slalom business transformation, software engineering, and analytics capabilities to address these customer transformations. Mutual AWS and Slalom customers can temporarily relocate their IT teams to work from designated Launch Centers, to reap the benefits of working directly with experts in a secure, immersive, collaborative environment that enables a culture of innovation and learning.
The Launch Centers will provide a variety of offerings, including expediting customers’ initial digital launches to the AWS Cloud, and a customized approach to scale their competencies and processes for the future on AWS. The AWS and Slalom multi-disciplinary experts can deliver a comprehensive path to the cloud, taking customers through a series of steps, from defining their business strategies and building their cloud migration roadmaps, to optimizing their move to the cloud and implementing a modernized approach for ongoing operational excellence. They will also guide customers through business rationalization and organizational change management, as well as help them to overcome technical readiness concerns, by providing training on how to manage their infrastructure.
“For more than a decade, we’ve been collaborating with AWS and have supported their vision, betting the future of Slalom on the cloud,” said Mike Cowden, President of Slalom Build. “Our expanded relationship with AWS is a differentiated approach to building and operating solutions on the cloud, helping our customers experience the value of modern technology first-hand while accelerating business outcomes.”
“Enterprises are looking to achieve their target business outcomes faster by transitioning to a modern, optimized, cloud-based model,” said Todd Weatherby AWS VP of Professional Services. “The AWS | Slalom Launch Centers (Launch Centers) will help enterprises around the world to transition their organizations, processes, applications, and infrastructure quickly, using best practices and a unique, immersive experience. The Launch Centers offer enterprises the tools to make the transition to the cloud, with the confidence of having Slalom’s proven consulting and technical skills and AWS’s leading cloud services and migration experience supporting them.”
LG Electronics Inc. is a global innovator in technology and manufacturing with operations in 140 locations and a workforce of over 70,000 around the world. “Slalom is a great partner with deep expertise building cloud native systems on AWS,” said Sang Yeob Park, LG CNS Build Center Leader. “Working together with Slalom in their immersive model helps businesses leverage the cloud to realize and accelerate a digital first strategy.”
Avis Budget Group is a leading global provider of mobility solutions, operating three of the most recognized brands in the industry through Avis, Budget, and Zipcar, the world’s leading car-sharing network. “Once you get both feet into this kind of an offering, you feel, for the first time, like you are limitless,” says Christopher Cerruto, Vice President of Global Architecture, Analytics and BI at Avis Budget Group, “Business is driving the decisions and technology is helping us get there quickly. The Slalom team was instrumental in helping us build on AWS.”
About Slalom
Slalom is a modern consulting firm focused on strategy, technology, and business transformation. In cities across the US, UK, and Canada, Slalom’s teams have the autonomy to move fast and do what’s right. They’re backed by nine regional innovation hubs, a global culture of collaboration, and partnerships with the world’s top technology providers. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Seattle, Slalom has organically grown to 7,500 employees. Slalom was named one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2019 and is regularly recognized by employees as a best place to work. Learn more at slalom.com.
About Amazon Web Services
For 13 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. AWS offers over 175 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management from 69 Availability Zones (AZs) within 22 geographic regions, with announced plans for 13 more Availability Zones and four more AWS Regions in Indonesia, Italy, South Africa, and Spain. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
