Google Cloud Next 18: Channel Partner Recap With Google's Nina Harding

Google Cloud doubled down on its commitments to partners during its recent Google Next conference in San Francisco.CRNtv got a full recap of the announcements in an interview with Nina Harding, the company's chief of global partner strategy and programs.

’We’re focused on a 100 percent commitment to our partners and that’s not just a headline and it’s not just something we’re saying. It comes down to our everyday practices,’ said Harding. ’We are committing to a 100 percent partner attached to all sales deals, also a hundred percent attached to all professional engagements that we have. That means we are bringing partners along on site to our customers to work hand-in-hand with us to innovate with some of the strategic customers around the globe.’

Some of the enhancements include a co-selling program that matches Google Cloud Platform sales experts with SaaS partners to deliver Google Cloud Platform-run SaaS solutions to customers. There’s also a new program that connects Google’s Customer Reliability Engineering team with SaaS partners, plus a new way for partners to receive Marketing Development Funds based on the amount of cloud utilization driven by their SaaS product.

’We developed the ability to showcase your expertise – that’s done through customers and showcasing through customer references just where you’ve been successful,’ said Harding. ’The second area we really doubled down on is specializations.’

Google announced expanded specializations with 19 new partners in five new specialization areas, including security, cloud migration, location services, enterprise collaboration and education, expanding our program to nine total specializations.

’Once again this is a way for our experts, our PHDs, our blackbelts out there to demonstrate to the market where they are just best in class in machine learning or big data,’ said Harding.

For more of CRNtv’s interview with Harding, watch the video included in this article.