Google Partners Hail New Premier Badges As Google Cloud Cements ‘Seat At The Enterprise Table’

Google Cloud creates new Premier Partner badging for the first time ever. Here’s what every Google Cloud, Workspace and Chrome partner needs to know.

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Google Cloud is launching eight brand new Premier Partner badges as the $30 billion cloud company evolves its partner program to meet the high demand for Google solutions, partners told CRN.

“If you look at all the changes they’ve made over the last four months, it’s indicative of the growing maturity and traction with enterprise customers,” said Robbie Clews, senior director of Google’s Cloud Alliance for Kin + Carta, a London-based global Google partner. “The new Premier Partner badges is just emblematic of the fact that we’re seeing a lot more customer demand for validation around partner capability. In itself, that is a correlation with how much demand Google Cloud is seeing in the marketplace.”

Google Cloud generated revenue of $7.5 billion in first quarter 2023, representing 28 percent sales growth year over year, which outpaced rivals Amazon Web Services and Microsoft. Google Cloud—which ranks No. 3 in worldwide cloud market share—also generated net income of $191 million during the first quarter, marking the first time the cloud company has ever recorded a profit.

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[Related: Google Cloud Launches New Premier Partner Badges: 5 Big Things To Know]

“It’s been impressive to see how far the program has grown and evolved, and continues to add more maturity like with these new partner designations,” said Clews, who attended Google Cloud’s initiative partner forum about six years ago. “Google now has cemented their seat at the enterprise table.”

Google Cloud’s New Premier Partner Badges

On Tuesday, the Mountain View, Calif.-based cloud giant unveiled its new Premier Partner badging for Google Workspace, Chrome and Google Cloud.

There are a total of eight new Premier badges, which partners such as MSPs, ISVs and system integrators can obtain for these three Google products: Sell, Service and Build. (Chrome does not have a Premier badge for Build).

Each is targeting a specific sales, services or solutions building engagement model. The eight new badges are:

“This is the first time we’ve enabled partners to badge themselves in market,” Bronwyn Hastings, vice president of ISV Ecosystem and Channels at Google Cloud, told CRN. “The need for validated deep expertise, capacity and service excellence is becoming a core element of feedback from the customers.”

Partner: Why New Premier Badges Are Important

Asif Hasan is co-founder of Google partner Quantiphi and a member of Google’s Partner Advisory Council. He said the new badging is part of the “evolution” of Google Cloud’s Partner Advantage Program.

“Google is receiving feedback from customers that there is a greater degree of expertise that is required,” said Hasan. “Right now, the tiering structure is such that, it’s not as fine-grained as it needs to be on the expertise level. … This sort of creates another expertise level or credentialing where the customers can be certain to expect a certain level of competence. That’s essentially what’s happening with these Premium badges.”

Hasan’s Marlborough, Mass.-based company expects to achieve all three Premium badges for Google Cloud: Sell, Service and Build.

“That’s a stamp of approval that says, ‘This partner in this domain knows what they’re doing. And you can expect a high level of competence,” he said.

Premier Badging Incentives And Benefits

Google Cloud is increasing the funding and incentives for partners who achieve Premier status, rewarding partners on both the product level and customer value fronts.

“We’re also increasing investments in areas such as deal sourcing and in acceleration of value to customers,” said Google Cloud’s Hastings. “Think about sourcing, selling, and servicing, and accelerating the value to the customer is how we will invest in the partners engaging with us. … The funding overall is increasing for partners.”

For the Service Premium badge, for example, Google will make Premier-badged partners more visible to external customers as well as inside Google’s internal sales motions. “This allows service partners to participate even if it’s sold by us, in some instances, or sold somewhere else,” Hastings said. They can actually triangulate with someone in that motion.”

Google Partners ‘A Lot More’ Competitive Now With AWS, Microsoft

Beginning Aug. 1, 2023, Google Cloud’s new Premier badges will take effect within the company’s Google Cloud Partner Advantage program.

Robbie Clews of Google partner Kin + Carta expects his company to achieve the Premium badges for Google Cloud when it officially kicks off next month. “It’s just a great way to recognize and give visibility to partners who have a proven track record of delivery, and the proven ability to execute,” he said.

Overall, Google channel strategy and maturity has taken off this year with the launch of several new programs, including the Rapid assessment Migration Program (RaMP).

“To me, it’s emblematic of the fact that Google partners are finding themselves in a lot more competitive situations with AWS and Microsoft for traditional workloads. And certainly, they’re winning a lot more across all segments as well,” said Clews. “The next decade is going to be dominated by data. This is ultimately where Google shines. It’s quite an exciting time to be in the cloud space. So I’m quite bullish on where Google is going.”