While Google Cloud Platform has shown some momentum over the past year, it remains a distant third behind Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud infrastructure market. But Google got some good news from Canalys today when the company reported that GCP is the number one cloud platform provider for retailers.
Canalys did not provide specific numbers, but established overall market positions in the retail sector with Microsoft in second place, Amazon third, followed by Alibaba and IBM in fourth and fifth respectively.
It's probably not a coincidence that Google has been looking for retail. Many resellers don't want to put their cloud presence on AWS, as Amazon.com competes directly with these resellers. Brent Leary, founder and principal analyst of CRM Essentials, says that as such, the news doesn't really surprise him.
"Retailers have to compete with Amazon, and I guess the last thing they want to do is use AWS and help Amazon fund all of their new ventures and experiments that will in some cases be used against them," Leary told ProWellTech. Furthermore, he said that many retailers would also prefer to keep their customer data out of Amazon's services.
Canalys senior director Alex Smith says this Amazon effect combined with the pandemic and other technological factors has worked in Google's favor, at least in the retail sector. "Now more than ever, retailers need a digital strategy to win in an omnichannel world, especially with Amazon's online domain. Digital is applied everywhere, from customer experience to cost optimization, and technology capability. overall a retailer is what will define its success, "he said.
COVID-19 has forced many retailers to close stores for extended periods of time, and when you combine this with people more reluctant to walk into stores when they open, retailers have had to go through a crash course in e-commerce if they didn't. they already have a significant online presence.
Canalys points out that Google has attracted customers with its advertising and search capabilities beyond simple infrastructure offerings, leveraging its other strengths to grow the market segment.
Recognizing this, Google has made a major retail push, including a major partnership with Salesforce and specific products announced at Google Cloud Next last year. As we wrote at the time of the retail offer,
The company offers eCommerce hosting, designed specifically for online retailers, and offers a special premium program, so that retailers get "white glove treatment with technical architecture reviews and peak season operations support ..." according to the company. In other words, it wants to help these companies avoid disastrous and money-wasting results when a site fails due to demand.
Additionally, Canalys reports that Google Cloud has also aggressively hired and partnered with large systems integrators to help grow the retail business. Retail clients include Home Depot, Kohl's, Costco, and Best Buy.
