An international consulting firm with sales of about $1.5 billion a year, more than 7,500 employees and offices in more than 30 cities around the globe has opened an office in White Plains to expand its operations in Westchester and southern Connecticut.
The company says its clients include more than half of the Fortune 100 companies, about one-third of the Fortune 500 companies and numerous startups and nonprofit organizations. It says it can provide expertise in every field from retail to life sciences.
The company is Slalom and is headquartered in Seattle. It provides consulting services focused on business strategy, technology and business transformation.
Marc Raderman, a Dobbs Ferry resident, is the company”™s general manager for Westchester and southern Connecticut.
Raderman told the Business Journal that while the company opened its office at 44 S. Broadway in White Plains on Jan. 2, that space is temporary and it plans a move this summer.
“We”™re coming down to the home stretch on negotiating a lease where we”™ll start off with 8,000 square feet and then, over time, look to expand from there,” he said.
Raderman said the move will be to Class A office space in a downtown White Plains building. He said eventually the company plans to have about 300 employees assigned to the White Plains office, but the company won”™t necessarily need space to house all of them at once.
“Generally speaking, we do the work on our customers”™ premises. We don”™t do the work out of our office, so the office doesn”™t have to support 300 people because it”™s rare, if ever, that 300 people will be at our office together,” Raderman said.
Raderman said Slalom is viewing Westchester and southern Connecticut as one market.
“We”™re currently engaged in the market in industries such as health care, manufacturing, media and financial services,” he said. “Our model is a local model so the consultants we hire into White Plains will be working in Westchester County and southern Connecticut.”
Raderman pointed out that the area is home to major businesses and financial institutions in addition to hosting biotech startups and incubator programs.
“We”™re helping companies understand how they can use technology to improve the experience that their customers are having and we do that by helping move them to modern data platforms. We help them move to cloud platforms and we help them adopt frameworks so they can be lean and accelerate how they move internally to deliver better outcomes and experiences to their customers,” Raderman explained.
For example, Slalom partnered with DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse and Google Cloud to build a loyalty platform serving 26 million of DSW”™s customers. Slalom also helped prepare for the brand launch of AllianceRx Walgreens Prime, a specialty and home delivery pharmacy. Slalom worked with Hyatt to create the World of Hyatt app.
“Where we excel is with modern cloud platforms, modern solution platforms, in areas like program and project management,” Raderman said. “In a lot of cases we will build early-stage products in the cloud and work hand in hand with clients to deliver and launch their first digital product. We”™ve done a lot of work with customers that have an idea for a product, but they”™re not exactly sure what it will be and how it will look in the marketplace.”
Raderman said Slalom often will engage in what are called design sprints in which ideas can be quickly brought to life as operating websites or smartphone programming.
“We”™ll help a company formulate what the idea is and actually build a working prototype that they can take into the field and field test and get customers excited and intrigued about where they may belong as a digital company and then follow up with actual production and implementation of a project,” he said.
Slalom”™s new office for Westchester and southern Connecticut opened with 15 on staff.
“They”™re all people with longstanding roots in Westchester County and southern Connecticut,” Raderman said. “We”™ve got experience in this market working with biotechs and taking the journey with them from biotech startup to getting drug approvals and becoming pharmaceutical companies. We”™ve done a fair amount of work in that space. Helping those companies modernize their systems, put the appropriate systems and controls in place, is something that we”™re very much involved with.”
