Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian On 10 Hot Topics: Deutsche Bank Technology Conference
When it comes to its go-to-market strategy, Google Cloud looks to leverage four “flavors” of partners, according to CEO Thomas Kurian.
“We look at partners in four ways: partners that can complement our solution offering; partners that can help us deliver jointly new solutions to customers; partners that bring implementation and change management expertise; and then partners that broaden our distribution reach,” Kurian said during Deutsche Bank’s 2021 Technology Conference that runs virtually through today.
Kurian touched on two of those partner “flavors” during a fireside chat with Brad Zelnick, Deutsche Bank’s head of software equity research, starting with partners that complement Google Cloud’s solution portfolio.
There are many technology areas, including security, where Google Cloud works with partners such as Palo Alto Networks, Cybereason and Splunk to offer a more holistic solution to customers, according to Kurian.
“Similarly, in analytics and data, we offer solutions with organizations like Informatica, with Tableau and others to offer customers a more complete solution,” he said. “With software vendors that build applications, we work closely with organizations — Workday, SAP and others that work across industries — so we can offer solutions to multiple industries.”
Google Cloud’s partnerships targeting specific industries include its telecommunications work with Ericsson to deliver joint solutions that provide customer Telecom Italia new capabilities for its 5G network.
Helping an organization adopt cloud is not just a question of “putting the solution in front of them, but making sure those solutions can be adopted,” Kurian said.
“Often that requires change management of people in the organization as well to adopt the technology, and we work very closely with a number of partners — Accenture...Deloitte, Infosys — and each of them have practices that they have built around our product portfolio,” Kurian said. “That helps us also bring clients to them jointly and to be able to deliver the promise of cloud to clients together.”
Click through to read about Kurian’s thoughts on Google Cloud’s differentiated platform offering, security, data analytics, profitability and multi-cloud and vertical market strategies, in addition to Google Workspace.
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