Google Cloud is making changes that could help its growing network of partners make more money when closing new customer deals.
Specifically, starting on January 5th, Google Cloud will increase its Google Cloud Platform discount for Premier-level partners to 12%, according to an email to members of its Partner Advantage program viewed by Business Insider. That's up from the existing discount of 10%, one Google Cloud partner told Business Insider.
"We are making updates to Partner Advantage that account for the rapidly changing conditions that continue to define our world today," the email said. Google Cloud declined to comment for this story.
Google Cloud has said that expanding its partner network is a major priority, with a goal of having partners involved in 100% of its new deals.
Google Cloud relies on the Partner Advantage program to bolster its sales efforts for Google Cloud Platform as it takes on leading cloud platforms Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Partners resell Google Cloud services to their own customers and often do the dirty work of actually setting them up, in a relationship that helps both parties book more business.
That discount accounts for a partners' margin on reselling Google Cloud services. The deeper the discount, the more of each cloud deal a partner can keep for themselves. Boosting that discount for new business encourages partners to sign up fresh clients, which in turn helps Google Cloud grow its customer base. It could also prove to be a windfall for Google Cloud partners, who are already helping customers modernize their IT for the pandemic era.
The email also lays out changes to Google Cloud's skill certification program, which lets partners earn credentials in specific products and services, establishing themselves as experts to customers.
Google Cloud is introducing new certification and credential programs for Google for Education and the Chrome web browser starting on January 5th, per the email. It is also introducing an expiration date for its certifications: Effective starting in 2022, partners will have needed to have earned their credential within the last two years for it to be valid.
Under CEO Thomas Kurian's tenure, Google Cloud has made moves to bring partners deeper into the fold.
In January, Google Cloud invited partners to its internal sales conference for the first time. In August, Google Cloud released a report from analyst firm IDC which predicted that partner revenue will more than triple by 2025. It also said that partners are growing their Google Cloud businesses at a rate of 35% year-over-year, while one in five of them are even growing at over 75% year-over-year.
Even so, Google Cloud Platform is considered a third-place player in the cloud market behind Amazon and Microsoft, both of which have strong partner programs of their own. Microsoft enjoys a decades-old network of resellers and consultants, while AWS has used its head start as the first major cloud provider to the market to build its own foundation of partners.
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