A Partner-Centric Shift: Google Revamps Its Channel Program

The channel program update is the key to Google's transformation into a serious enterprise public cloud player.

Google Cloud Next 2017, which packed San Francisco's Moscone Center in March, was the largest event the internet giant has ever hosted — a three-day enterprise-focused
and, by Google's standards, surprisingly traditional conference.

But the most significant revelations for many partners in attendance came a day before Google cloud chief Diane Greene delivered the opening Next keynote.

[Related: Look Out AWS and Azure – Google Is Betting Big On The Enterprise Channel]

That's when she and other executives hosted a smaller confab to introduce partners to a sweeping set of changes to the company's channel program.

That day channel chief Bertrand Yansouni, on the job only since November, outlined a broad revamp across the partner program designed to start "the process of giving [partners] a more unified approach to Google cloud," he told CRN.

A central theme underpinning the many changes was a shift to a solution-oriented program geared to recognize and reward partners for selling the full Google cloud stack, not individual products.

Yansouni, vice president of global partner sales and strategic alliances for Google cloud, also rejigged a sales model that previously compensated Google's field sales reps on net bookings, which were less on channel deals after partners took their cut. "I didn't want that to be a distraction," he said of the previous lack of compensation neutrality.

That and many other changes advised by partners were the ones that could be quickly addressed and ready for rollout by the conference, he said, but more will come over the next year.

The channel program update is key to Greene's efforts to transform the tech behemoth with a deeply entrenched consumer culture and some previous enterprise mishaps into a serious enterprise player.

"Given their competitive position and momentum they are trying to achieve, they need to be as frictionless as possible, remove any and all barriers to adoption, and
this includes any points of potential conflict with partners," said Vanessa Simmons, director of business development at Pythian, a Google partner based in Ottawa.

Eliminating the financial incentive to take deals direct was just one component of a partner-centric orientation that started forming before he arrived at Google, Yansouni told CRN.

"We definitely believe that it makes sense to have partners involved in every possible deal," the channel chief said. Field agents should always think, "if there isn't
a partner, why not yet, and which partner would make sense given what the customer is trying to achieve?"

In the past, there were situations where Google's sales reps didn't know which partner to bring into a deal, or felt no partner had the right skill set, he said. New investments around technical enablement — a partner engineering team, specialization programs, revamped certifications—should remedy that.

The sales motion won't change overnight, he acknowledged. Google will continue sending cues, recognizing reps that adhere to those guidelines and reinforcing
their instincts to support resellers.

Partners told CRN they are eager to see the latest program changes manifest themselves.

Among them, Google is investing in helping partners build sustainable practices with a low-interest loan program for practice development, and by funding workshops, proofs of concept and deployments to reduce customer ramp times. Higher margins for entry-level Google Cloud Platform resellers and broader rebates for Premier tier partners are also part of the new structure.

Rajesh Abhyankar, CEO of MediaAgility, a Google partner based in Princeton, N.J., told CRN the program changes have convinced him to increase a demand-generation
budget for Google cloud by more than two-fold over the previous year, and ramp spending for training his engineers in new Google cloud technologies like the Spanner database and machine learning.

MediaAgility also will invest in packaging its unique solutions as APIs or Software-as-a-Service tools and listing them in a new Google partner directory, he said. "We are all in with the new partner program and collaboration with the Google sales, marketing and engineering teams in the countries we operate in,"
Abhyankar said.

The program incentives "reward us handsomely," said Tony Safoian, CEO of SADA Systems, a Google partner based in Los Angeles. They demonstrate Google is serious about investing in partner development, he said.

But the success of Google's channel will depend on field sales reps recognizing the value that VARs bring to the table, even on cutting-edge implementations.

"The orientation in the past was introducing partners introduces risk," Safoian said. "But the biggest barrier today to adopting cloud is [customers] cannot control their spending and get support when they need it the most. That is value that partners can add today."