Smartsheet Launches Expanded Partner Program, Eyes Global Expansion Via The Channel

The “intelligent work management” software developer, which held its Engage conference and partner summit this week, also announced a Strategic Collaboration Agreement with AWS that includes joint sales and go-to-market efforts and steps to simplify Smartsheet procurement through the AWS Marketplace.

Work management platform developer Smartsheet is significantly enhancing its channel partner program as the company looks to recruit global systems integrators to its partner lineup and expand the reach of its channel to include Asia and Europe.

The additions to the Smartsheet Aligned partner program, unveiled this week at the company’s Engage conference and Global Partner Summit, include enhanced partner incentives, an upgraded track for systems integrators, and a new price quoting tool for partners.

Smartsheet also said it has signed a three-year strategic collaboration agreement (SCA) with cloud giant Amazon Web Services, building on a long-standing development agreement between the two companies to now include sales and go-to-market collaboration.

“We are making a foundational commitment to our partner ecosystem, recognizing the importance of their role in the global delivery of intelligent work management,” said Eva Schönleitner (pictured), vice president of global partnerships, in an interview with CRN.

The channel program expansion and AWS SCA are the latest developments at Smartsheet, a developer of project and portfolio management software that has been redefining its offerings as an “intelligent work management” platform for managing projects and automating workflows.

Smartsheet, headquartered in Bellevue, Wash., was acquired and taken private by private equity giants Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners for $8.4 billion in a deal announced in September 2024 and completed in January. That, in turn, has led to a number of changes among the company’s leadership including hiring former Concur and Accolade executive Rajeev Singh as CEO last month, replacing Mark Mader who retired in September after leading the company for 20 years.

This week at Engage Smartsheet unveiled the latest evolution of its flagship product with a slew of new enterprise-grade features, including scenario planning and portfolio reporting capabilities, and a number of generative and agentic AI features including a new Smart Assist AI companion and digital gateway tool.

Smartsheet already works with about 800 channel partners with about one quarter of the company’s business coming through the channel, said Schönleitner, who joined the company in January. (Schönleitner was previously CEO at Crate.io. Prior to that she was group VP of digital partnerships at ABB and earlier spent 11 years at Microsoft in global and regional sales, channel and product roles.)

While those partners are located across 30 countries, Smartsheet’s channel operations have been very U.S.-focused and Schönleitner said the company is now “leaning very heavily into Asia and Europe” for channel growth.

While Schönleitner said the company’s base of reseller and solution provider partners are “super experienced” in the Smartsheet product, they were—prior to this year—mostly smaller companies with limited geographic reach. The goal going forward is to expand the company’s global footprint by partnering with more distributors, large-scale resellers, and regional and global systems integrators, the channel chief said.

Smartsheet today works with Carahsoft, a leading provider of IT products and services to the U.S. government and the public sector, and Climb Global Solutions, a specialty IT distributor focused on emerging and cloud-based technologies.

In the U.S., Smartsheet has begun working with large resellers Zones and SHI. In May, Smartsheet signed a multi-year reseller partnership with CDW, which will resell Smartsheet software to new and existing customers, starting in North America, and provide professional services to accelerate Smartsheet adoption.

Schönleitner said the plan is to replicate those efforts in other countries. In June Smartsheet announced a strategic collaboration with professional services provider PwC UK, which will offer Smartsheet to its clients to help streamline complex business transformation initiatives. The software company also has a relationship with NTT in Japan.

“With 42 percent of CEOs saying their business won’t be viable in 10 years without transformation, it’s clear that change at scale is essential,” said Michael Cooch, a partner at PwC UK, in a statement. “We’re excited about the potential of bringing together PwC’s sector-led transformation expertise with Smartsheet’s secure, scalable platform. Smartsheet’s direction of travel, and innovation-at-the-core approach, aligns strongly with how we help clients deliver more effectively and anchor around real return on investment.”

Smartsheet says the revamped Aligned partner program is designed to “reward deep expertise and drive partner profitability,” according to a company news release detailing the changes. Key updates include the introduction of new incentives, global-focused partner tracks and badges, and comprehensive enablement tools and technical resources.

The program enhancements, scheduled to go live in February 2026, “will reduce quote-to-close time, expand multinational delivery, and strengthen AI-safe governance for enterprise customers,” according to the company.

A major component of the revamped partner program is an upgraded system integrator track to improve collaboration between the Smartsheet account teams and global systems integrators (GSIs).

A key aspect of the track is that it makes it easier for partners to engage with Smartsheet’s professional services operations on joint customer opportunities. It spells out a reciprocal sub-contracting model for when SIs can sub-contract work to Smartsheet’s in-house subject matter experts or, in turn, when Smartsheet can sub-contract specialized customer implementation work to GSIs.

Schönleitner said this eliminates the need to negotiate such arrangements for every individual customer engagement. “This is a great advancement because it takes out a lot of steps and, especially, cuts down on the deal-cycle timeline.”

Enhanced partner incentives include improved deal registration margins for new customer enrollment, emerging market discounts to better support partner investments, and increased market development funds to support partner demand generation efforts.

The program will offer a new Global Partner Badge that recognizes and validates partners with the extensive footprint and scale needed to support Smartsheet customers across all major regions. To qualify partners must provide round-the-clock support services, multilingual support, and in-region delivery resources.

Also new is a quoting tool, part of the vendor’s partner management system, that gives partners the ability to independently generate quotes and finalize and submit deal proposals. The tool, according to the company, empowers partners to provide pricing information to customers faster than before and accelerate deal cycles.

And partners with a Customer Success Manager certification will be able to access customer data in Smartsheet’s Gainsight system, allowing them to see information about customer usage, potential issues and contract limits. The goal, according to Schönleitner, is to better enable partners to drive customer adoption, renewals and retention.

“Our entire partner base will immediately benefit from these structural changes by simplifying engagement, rewarding platform expertise and enhancing profitability on a global scale,” Schönleitner said. “Our success is linked to our partners’ success, and these updates ensure we are mutually aligned to accelerate enterprise adoption worldwide.”

Smartsheet also plans to expand its sales footprint through online marketplaces and began using the AWS Marketplace last year.

Smartsheet has had a long-standing development relationship with AWS, including utilizing Amazon Neptune and Amazon Bedrock services to enhance the Smartsheet functionality. That led to this week’s announcement of the new SCA that expands the alliance with new sales and go-to-market initiatives.

Smartsheet and AWS are launching a co-sell motion, with dedicated coverage in North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific and Japan, through which the companies’ two sales teams will work to jointly sell and implement the Smartsheet product. The two companies are also streamlining the procurement, billing and management of Smartsheet through the AWS Marketplace, a move Smartsheet said will assist partner-led demand generation.

Schönleitner said the AWS SCA provides a model for how Smartsheet plans to work with hyperscalers and technology partners going forward.

“You will see more of these announcements coming in the future where we are gearing up our technology partners in terms of integrations, connectivity to other systems, and then interoperability—not just on the technology side, but also taking advantage of that In the market in terms of sales,” she said.