Partner Advantage Changes: Life Cycle Compensation

Look for significant changes to Google Cloud’s Partner Advantage program, starting in July. The biggest headline here is the company’s shift to the much-discussed life cycle compensation approach. That means partners can choose their level of involvement in an engagement, throughout its life span, and earn corresponding compensation.

“Partners can participate in some or all of the incentives,” Ichhpurani told Channel Futures.

And that has garnered interest.

“We’ve gotten very positive feedback from partners,” Ichhpurani told Channel Futures. “They see this as the future and they like the flexibility.”

More vendors are indeed shifting to a life cycle compensation motion as they think bigger about the entities comprising the channel. VMware and Nutanix were among the first companies to enact life cycle compensation within the channel. There’s no particular reason why Google Cloud is following suit in 2023 rather than earlier, Ichhpurani told us.

“We saw this as where the industry is headed, saw this as what will enable a new category of partner that’s really important, these deep services solutions partners that in many cases want to provide their unique domain expertise,” he said.