At Google Cloud, we built the Google Cloud Marketplace based on the core principles of delivering customer choice, innovation, and trust. Today, we are excited to introduce Marketplace Channel Private Offers, enabling channel partners to maintain their relationships with customers as partner of choice. This comprehensive program allows customers, ISV partners, and channel partners to efficiently transact private offers via channel-partner-initiated sales of third-party solutions listed on the Google Cloud Marketplace. This builds on the capabilities we introduced last year, allowing ISV partners on the Google Cloud Marketplace to extend discounts to select resellers.
Based on extensive feedback, Marketplace Channel Private Offers is delivering a suite of business model innovations that will benefit customers and partners. We aim to deliver efficient ways to help customers discover, transact, and deploy the right technologies from the right solution providers. Partners, meanwhile, can leverage the Google Cloud Marketplace as a route-to-market to deliver more products, reach new customers, and realize business opportunities faster.
Helping customers optimize cloud spend
Today, customers benefit from purchasing solutions through the Google Cloud Marketplace in several ways. First, organizations of all sizes can access a growing selection of industry-leading data, AI, DevOps, infrastructure, security, and business applications from our partner ecosystem that have been validated to run on Google Cloud. In fact, in the past two years, we have doubled the number of third-party listings on the Marketplace. We remain committed to delivering an open cloud that supports the freedom to choose the right solutions for the right use case, whether that be a Google Cloud or partner solution on our Marketplace.
Second, customers can optimize spend by drawing down on existing Google Cloud commitments through qualifying ISV partner solutions. And now with Marketplace Channel Private Offers, ISV solutions that are purchased through a channel partner of choice may also qualify to draw down on a customer’s Google Cloud commitment. Customers that have traditionally purchased their cloud solutions through a channel partner can now purchase ISV solutions via the Marketplace with the support of their preferred partner. The benefits of this approach include simplified procurement, and the ability to govern third-party solutions running in their Google Cloud environment.
ISV partners can scale through channel partners
ISV partners can expand and scale reach to more customers by bringing their channel partners of choice to the Google Cloud Marketplace. With Marketplace Channel Private Offers, ISV partners have a privileged environment through which to create private offer plans that can be transacted through channel partners, with the flexibility to establish discounting at the parent billing account, customer sub-billing account, and opportunity level that resell partners can readily review and proceed with making private offers to end-customers.
In addition, we are piloting streamlined onboarding processes for channel partners that ISVs bring to the Marketplace. As part of the pilot, partners who are new to Google Cloud can resell third-party products from the Marketplace without requiring a Partner Advantage Sell engagement model authorization or Google Cloud technical certifications for individuals within the partner organization. This initiative provides greater flexibility and choice, allowing ISVs to resell through their preferred partners, and customers to purchase through their preferred partner. What’s more, we don’t charge an incremental fee if an ISV transacts their listing on the Marketplace through a channel partner.
“Red Hat is firmly committed to collaborating across a skilled partner ecosystem to build enterprise-ready open source solutions on Google Cloud, helping customers migrate to and unlock the power of an open hybrid cloud. We are excited that the latest developments to Google Cloud Marketplace will enable us to further accelerate joint go-to-market solutions with not only Google Cloud, but partners across the ecosystem.” – Stefanie Chiras, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Partner Ecosystem Success, Red Hat
“Many customers need to be able to purchase our solutions through their preferred channel partner while still being able to run it on their cloud of choice. Marketplace Channel Private Offers enables us to deliver on this promise, reduce deal cycle times, and simplify the procurement process for customers.” – Munish Khetrapal, VP of Cloud Engagement, Palo Alto Networks
“Customers are trying to consolidate and simplify the vendors they are working with to solve critical business challenges while technology providers and channel partners are looking for relevance within our mutual customers. ISVs, partners and cloud providers need to work together to get a more holistic understanding of our customers’ challenges, and Marketplace Channel Private Offers can help by creating the connective tissue that enables us to collaborate and transact more efficiently on behalf of customers.” – Tom Henderson, Global VP, Channels and Alliances, Wiz
Channel partners maintain relationships with customers
We believe that Marketplace Channel Private Offers will serve as an enabling platform for channel partners — another route to market through which to generate business opportunities. As part of the program, channel partners can tap into a broad range of ISV products that have been validated to run on Google Cloud. They can easily review private offer plans from ISV partners, assess profitability via the Partner Sales Console, and create private offers to end-customers. Through combined cross-channel commit, channel partners can serve customers with Google Cloud commitments. What’s more, a channel partner maintains their status as chosen partner and is empowered to own billing, invoicing and revenue recognition.
“Enabling us to control the billing is crucial. This capability alone is a significant value-add for customers in industries such as the public sector where channel partners typically own the relationship with the end customer.” – Harjeet Khalsa, Sales Director for Google Public Sector, Carahsoft
“Marketplace Channel Private Offers opens up business opportunities for us to work with our software and technology partners through the Google Cloud Marketplace. As an early adopter of the program, Optiv is at the forefront of guiding Google Cloud Marketplace to optimize operational workflows and drive new ISV partnership adoption. This places Optiv in a great position to better serve our clients with a shared vision of mutual growth, success and cyber resiliency.” – John Hurley, Chief Revenue Officer, Optiv
“What is unique about Marketplace Channel Private Offers is that Google Cloud has enabled us to maintain our relationship as the partner of record with our clients and to continue to manage billing with customers. This is a major hurdle for us with other marketplace private offers.” – Josh Bushman, Cloud Marketplace, Global Lead, World Wide Technology
Extending Google Cloud Marketplace as an enabling platform for customers and partners
With Marketplace Channel Private Offers we continue to evolve the Google Cloud Marketplace as a platform that enables customers to discover the right solutions and for partners to transact and accelerate time-to-value for customers more efficiently.
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