The Six Five “On The Road” at Google Cloud Next 2022. Hosts Daniel Newman and Patrick Moorhead are joined by Bronwyn Hastings, Google Cloud’s VP, Head of Global ISV Partnerships and Channels. Their conversation highlights the importance Google Cloud Partners play in delivering Google Cloud technologies and the value they add for customers across every product area and industry. They also touch upon Google Cloud’s continued expansion of resources, tools, and incentives for their channel partners and ISVs, resulting in additional partner investments in Google Cloud services & product integrations because of the continual increase in customer engagements.
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Transcript:
Patrick Moorhead: Hi, this is Pat Moorhead. We are live here at Google Cloud Next 2022, here at the beautiful new Google facility, Pier 57. I’m joined here by my co-host Daniel Newman. Daniel, great event. How are you doing?
Daniel Newman: Taking it all in, my friend. It’s beautiful here. Got to enjoy the scenic New York. It’s fall, so it’s still temperate. You can get out there and enjoy it. But this place is awesome. And it’s been a really informative and productive day, and if you’re a Googler, Google Cloud person, you’ve got to be pretty excited.
Patrick Moorhead: No, totally. A lot of great announcements here, but I’ll tell you what, nothing happens without partnerships here at Google Cloud, and I’m super excited to welcome our guest, Bron Hastings. She runs a software ISV ecosystem. Bron, how are you doing?
Bronwyn Hasting: I’m doing fantastic, and I’m really pleased that you’re enjoying this environment. So am I. Beautiful day, but look forward to the conversation today.
Patrick Moorhead: Kinda wanna makes you go into the office, maybe? Dare I say, beautiful-
Bronwyn Hasting: We’ll sit by the window, at least.
Patrick Moorhead: Yeah. Well, Daniel and I were debating whether it’s like, “Wait a second, are we going into a country club or are we going to work?” We walked by sushi bars, cappuccino. It’s just another way to say it’s beautiful here.
Bronwyn Hasting: It is.
Patrick Moorhead: Yeah.
Bronwyn Hasting: It is. Thank you for that.
Daniel Newman: Yeah, it is the Google experience, and so I would’ve expected no different, but new facility. And by the way, just everybody’s a little out of practice. So despite the fact that we’ve all gotten back to doing some live events, everyone’s at a various stage in the continuum of back to normal, so coming in here, crowded place, felt good, and then, of course, the keynote, all the announcements, page of press releases. And it really doesn’t matter if you’re a partner, if you’re end customer-facing, if you’re on the workspace security, or on the data side. There was stuff for everybody today. You, Bron, focus on the partners, so let’s start there. Company has put a ton of investment and dollars into the ISV and the partner ecosystem. Talk a little bit about how that investment’s panning out and how it’s all coming together here at Google Cloud Next.
Bronwyn Hasting: What I’d like to share first is, Google Cloud, you’ve seen the results. Our growth has been quite significant over the past few years, right?
Daniel Newman: Yes. Parabolic, yeah.
Bronwyn Hasting: And so with that growth, obviously, partners have become interested in what are the customers looking at, how can they participate in that. The second thing that we’ve actually shared is that we are saying a hundred percent of our engagements and interactions with customers include partners. So if you think about that statement-
Daniel Newman: A hundred percent?
Bronwyn Hasting: A hundred percent of our engagements with customers will include partners.
Patrick Moorhead: That’s big.
Bronwyn Hasting: That’s a big statement.
Patrick Moorhead: That seems like all of them.
Daniel Newman: I don’t know. Okay, you do more partners than I do.
Patrick Moorhead: Yeah.
Daniel Newman: No, I mean, it sounds like every engagement.
Patrick Moorhead: Yeah.
Bronwyn Hasting: Yes. I think that the partners are really interested in that growth journey. And as part of that growth journey, we’ve also come from a very small ecosystem four years ago to one that’s now 92,000 partners, so a very vibrant and comprehensive ecosystem. And so this is really a journey of growth. I’ll share a few different statistics as well. 130%, and I’ll just check that I don’t say this wrong, ISV co-sell growth in the first half of the year. 130%. So ISVs, their journey of growth.
The second part is we’re seeing that there’s been a threefold increase in customers that are spending more than a million dollars on the marketplace. So no matter which way we look at this business, it’s a growth story for partners. So that’s one thing I’d like to share on the reason why the partners are so excited about the journey with us.
One of the other things I’d like to share is, some of the major system integrators around the world are also investing in practices with Google. They’re seeing the customer demand, they’re actually investing in expertise, and they’re growing their practices significantly. So I think it’s not just one partner type, it’s across the board. And so some of them are actually multiplying their certifications by threefold, and that’s an indication of them specializing in the Google Cloud environment.
And the last comment I’d make is, we’re getting deeper with our ISVs and technology alignment, and they’re seeing that depth and technology alignment gives them the ability to differentiate where Google is strong.
Patrick Moorhead: Yeah. What I like about this… Actually, in a previous life, I did a stint in a global channel. I created a global channel network for the company I worked for, and part of it, they’re looking for the next big company who’s on parabolic growth that they know is going to be around for a long time. I think that’s a really good story.
Also, I’m really intrigued as an industry analyst of all the cross-education that they’re getting, right? I mean, listen, I talk to enterprises on a weekly basis and, more times than not, they’re already doing business with Google in one area. Typically, it’s analytics or AI. Probably not a surprise to you. But you offer a lot of different really exciting other services, whether it’s classic VMware, SAP, or your security portfolio is extraordinary, especially with the closure of Mandiant. So yeah, big opportunities. You talk a little bit about systems integrators and you had some pretty big announcements here, particularly with Accenture and HCL. Can you talk a little bit about those announcements here?
Bronwyn Hasting: I think I’d come back to where I started some of this conversation. We’ve said, and I’ll add a little bit to it, from a delivery point of view, it’s partner-delivered services. So we’re really looking at how do we deliver our services with and through partners, and that’s leading our service delivery.
Patrick Moorhead: Right.
Bronwyn Hasting: So if you think about that statement, partners like Accenture see that opportunity, the customer demand, the ability to transform companies by actually getting involved in specializing in the work that we do, and leading with some of the areas like AI, data, and all the things that you mentioned, so that’s where that excitement is coming from. And so some of the announcements we’ve made where they’re investing in doubling their capacity or certifying 15,000 individuals, and that will really deepen that specialization knowledge to support our customers’ needs, our joint customers’ needs and solutioning.
There were two or three other things that they announced. One of them is really having this innovation center in both Europe and North America, and that’s about building solutions and getting customers to value in the quickest possible time around Google Cloud and cloud acceleration. So that’s sort of one big bucket. And the second was around their center of engineering excellence, which is about joint innovation and joint solutioning and then taking that to customers and adjusting where they need to, but leading with things like Google Data Cloud, AI, and those sorts of key differentiators. So those are exciting things for us for bringing value to customers together.
Patrick Moorhead: Those sound like pretty big commitments.
Bronwyn Hasting: They are, and it’s that growth near the expansion of capability and capacity and making sure that we bring value to customers in the soonest possible time. Add another one, just as Accenture’s indicative. Another one I’d share is around HCL, where they’ve done similarly. They’ve said, “Where can we lead with Google Cloud?” Again, around data and analytics and industries, so maybe it’s in financial services or some of those sorts of industries that we are strong in. They’ve committed to 18,000 individuals specializing.
Patrick Moorhead: Right.
Bronwyn Hasting: And they’ve also said, well, they’ll take their Center of Excellence, their solution Center of Excellence, and three times the capacity in that, and actually have a cloud acceleration team that’s dedicated. So it’s just indicative of what the system integrators are seeing and what they think the opportunity is available to serve customers, bring that specialization and solutioning to them.
Daniel Newman: So we had the chance earlier, Bron, to sit down with Phil Venables, your CISO, and had a great conversation right here. Sat right there, actually.
Patrick Moorhead: Imagine that, I was sitting here and you were sitting there.
Bronwyn Hasting: Imagine sitting in the same place.
Patrick Moorhead: Yeah.
Daniel Newman: All day. And one of the things he brought up was something that’s probably particularly of interest to you. He brought up that there’s been a fairly large, I think it’s over 20 now, ISVs that have really turned their attention to digital sovereignty, and this is a huge deal right now as companies try to go global, as data has to migrate in and out of different regions that have different regulatory environments and compliance. You’ve got to be moving really quickly. But talk a little bit about how that’s proliferating and how it’s really setting Google Cloud up with a big opportunity to address a problem that every enterprise that does business, basically more than one country knows about.
Bronwyn Hasting: I think we all know sovereignty is a growing topic that customers are finding really important, especially as regulations expand maybe in Europe or some countries about both data sovereignty and the regulations that are required there. So we’ve been really positive or we’re excited, actually, about the interest that the ISVs are showing, their willingness to engage in this topic, and the importance that it is for all of us in the industry around this topic. And as we’ve spoken to them, they know it’s a journey, they know that this needs some agility to it, and they know that they need to be on this journey with us. So that’s the thing that’s most exciting, is as all of these countries expand their requirements, they’re working with us and coming on this journey to deliver the requirements sovereign cloud will need for customers and as customers go on this journey. So we’re happy about the initial interest, and I’m sure that’s just going to continue to grow from there.
Patrick Moorhead: So it’s interesting. In some ways, it’s so much easier to do business outside of whatever nation you started your business in, right? The tools are available where if you wanted to sell internationally, it’s there. But the hard part is is to be in compliance of all these different rules, and now, it’s literally down to, “Okay, this person who is in this province or a state in this country, this field of data is a no-no and it has to stay in a certain country and can never move around,” but you’re also trying to act in a positive way on behalf of that data, and it’s hard for me to imagine working with any company that doesn’t have a tremendous amount of scale, expertise, and, quite frankly, has a gigantic consumer business, too, to be able to pull that off. Because, I’ll call it the mothership, the consumer part of Google, they do that every single day for everything, right?
Bronwyn Hasting: Yes.
Patrick Moorhead: So for instance, I live in Texas, but I live in the United States, and we have certain things that Texas is talking about, but also, there are for the US. So that’s my long-winded way of saying that it makes sense for me that Google is a leader in this area and wants to and has the capability to share the wealth, not only with its end customers but also its partners.
Bronwyn Hasting: It’s certainly an exciting journey, I must say, on sovereignty.
Daniel Newman: Yeah. And I’m glad you mentioned that state-by-state. With different states now actually creating new complexities, it’s no longer countrywide.
Patrick Moorhead: Exactly.
Daniel Newman: Pretty soon, we’re going to have city ordinances for data. I’m not kidding.
Patrick Moorhead: I know, I know.
Daniel Newman: We really just feel like we’re heading in that direction. So before we close up, let me kind of throw you one over. It’s the end of our day. What is the big thing you want partners that spent the day here at Google Cloud Next, what’s one big on-message point you want them all to walk away with?
Bronwyn Hasting: The one thing… Or even maybe if I could have three?
Daniel Newman: 1.5. Three? I mean-
Patrick Moorhead: No, no, it’s-
Daniel Newman: Pat made the last people stick to it.
Patrick Moorhead: It’s a three-part answer.
Bronwyn Hasting: It’s always a three-part answer.
Daniel Newman: One thing, three parts. Go for it.
Bronwyn Hasting: There we go. I think it’s where I started, if I could reiterate? Number one is that we are in a growth trajectory of differentiation. If you think about the strength we bring with the data and analytics, with security, with the things that we are doing that are unique, that uniqueness allows them to bring that incremental value to their customers when we work together, and we put the customer at the center of that. So that’s what I would ask them to walk away with, is there is so much opportunity to differentiate and be that real voice to the customer as we grow together.
Daniel Newman: Well, Bron, I really appreciate you joining us here for The Six Five on the road at the beautiful Pier 57 here in New York City. I got to get a all-access pass to this country club.
Patrick Moorhead: I know. I heard about that. Yes.
Daniel Newman: It is nice here, but-
Bronwyn Hasting: I can’t lend you my Google badge.
Daniel Newman: I’d never get away with it. But thank you so much for joining us. It’s been a lot of fun. It was good to talk to you. We learned a lot, and for all those partners out there, I’m sure they did, too. For everyone out there that is tuning in, this is The Six Five on the road. We are at Google Cloud Next at Pier 57 in New York City, enjoying this Google Cloud Next day, which, by the way, had five events around the world. But we were so glad to be here. We appreciate you tuning in. We’ll talk to you all really soon.
Author Information
Daniel is the CEO of The Futurum Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise.
From the leading edge of AI to global technology policy, Daniel makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology investments. Daniel is a top 5 globally ranked industry analyst and his ideas are regularly cited or shared in television appearances by CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other sites around the world.
A 7x Best-Selling Author including his most recent book “Human/Machine.” Daniel is also a Forbes and MarketWatch (Dow Jones) contributor.
An MBA and Former Graduate Adjunct Faculty, Daniel is an Austin Texas transplant after 40 years in Chicago. His speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.
