Dive Brief:

• Google Cloud is moving ahead with its multicloud approach to the IaaS market, looking to attract customers with industry-specific capabilities. Wendy's, General Mills, Siemens Energy and Deutsche Post DHL Group are the most recent additions to its customer roster, the company announced at Google Cloud Next Tuesday. 
• Wendy's will turn to Google Cloud's AI and ML capabilities to "create the smart restaurant of the future," according to the announcement. For General Mills, which selected Google Cloud as its preferred cloud partner, the vendor's technology will help add more predictive capabilities to customer experience.
• The provider is betting on its capabilities to compete, as multicloud spreads throughout the enterprise. Google has always "been a proponent of multicloud," said Sid Nag, research VP at Gartner. "I think they almost have to use that narrative to be a player, because you know some of the others [vendors] have dominated the market."

Dive Insight:

Multicloud approaches benefit Google, which continues to trail other hyperscale cloud providers in terms of market share. Tapping into new customers under a multicloud model brings in additional revenue, and broadens the company's industry-specific appeal.

Either through organic growth or acquisitions, most larger organizations end up relying on a multicloud approach, where more than one cloud vendor becomes a part of the technology stack.

With CEO Thomas Kurian at the helm, the company has sought to support enterprise customers with industry-specific offerings, leveraging Google's investments in AI and ML to compete. 

But, it has struggled to take away market share from other top providers in the fast-paced IaaS market, commanded by AWS with 40.8% of market share, according to Gartner statistics. Microsoft Azure, at 19.7%, and Alibaba, at 9.5%, are ahead of Google Cloud's 6.1% market share.

But in the high-demand cloud market, even a small percentage can mean sizable revenue gains. Google Cloud delivered more than $13 billion in revenue to its parent company in the last fiscal year, though it has struggled to reach profitability. In its Q2 2021 report, Google Cloud posted revenues of $4.6 billion, up by 54% year over year. The company also managed to cut losses down to just $591 million, down from $1.4 billion in the same quarter of last year.

In response to competition, Google turns to its features and capabilities to make its case, including AI and ML functionalities where "quite candidly, they've been leading the market," said Nag. 

Wells Fargo recently announced its multicloud strategy, with Google Cloud as part of its provider roster. Microsoft Azure will serve as its primary provider, but the bank picked Google Cloud for more advanced workloads, leveraging AI and data capabilities.

Despite Google Cloud's comparatively small slice of the IaaS market, the overall pie is growing. End-user spending on public cloud is expected to hit $403.7 billion in 2021, growing 22.1% next year to $492.9 billion, according to Gartner projections.

To expand its market share numbers, Google Cloud has to go beyond feature parity, working on partnerships and sales strategy, and must work to differentiate themselves from the rest of the provider field, said Nag. The other task at hand, with more tech buying decisions happening outside the IT silo, is to appeal to business users within the enterprise. 

"They need to be convincing the other buyer personas," said Nag.

Clarification: Sid Nag added additional context to clarify previous statements.