Google Cloud’s business in India is growing at a fast pace with the pandemic accelerating the adoption of cloud. The company is also set to open a new office later this year in India, one of its fastest-growing markets where it has two so-called cloud regions. End-user spending on public cloud services in India is forecast to grow 29.6% to $7.3 billion in 2022, according to research firm Gartner.
In an interview, Bikram Singh Bedi, managing director, Google Cloud India, who completed a year in office this month, spoke about the company’s growth trajectory, drivers of cloud adoption, and expansion plans. Edited excerpts:
How has the growth trajectory been for the cloud business in India in the last one year?
Globally, Google Cloud reported revenue of $5.5 billion in Q4 2021 and during the full year 2021, cloud revenue stands at $19.2 billion, which showcases our growth trajectory. Closer home, India continues to be one of the key and fastest-growth markets for Google Cloud. Our customers recognize the differentiated value we bring to them with our innovative solutions and exceptional service delivery. Our success is backed by our very-abled sales force and strong partner ecosystem which is helping us grow. Our global engineering teams continue to drive our leadership in innovation, launching more than 2,000 new products .
With Google Cloud to open a new office in India this year, what’s your hiring strategy?
We recently announced that Google is opening an office in Pune, and the first Googlers in the space will be in our Cloud Product Engineering, Technical Support, and Global Delivery Centre unit. This new location is expected to open in the second half of 2022 but our hiring starts now alongside our rapidly growing teams in Gurugram, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru. This planned expansion is the latest in a series of investments by Google Cloud to fuel our customer growth and valued offerings to organizations of all sizes. Additionally, we have two cloud regions in India— Mumbai and Delhi-NCR. Cloud regions are technical infrastructure that provide storage and services for Google Cloud customers, in response to strong customer and partner demand.
What factors are driving cloud adoption in India?
India’s cloud adoption has accelerated since the pandemic started and the double-digit growth in public cloud is expected to continue in the next year as well, according to analyst firms like Gartner. Over the last 18 months, we have seen education ministries embark on large-scale digital capacity building efforts to support teachers with the tools and resources for remote teaching; witnessed firsthand how covid-19 has supercharged the shift in retail to e-commerce as people moved some of their shopping online; and also seen a sharp increase in online banking and digital payment adoption rising to historic highs. In the last two years, we announced our valued collaboration with several major customers including Jio, Bharti Airtel, Rapido, RBL Bank, Cryptowire, Wipro, ShareChat, Groww, InMobi, Eros Now, Voot, Zeotap, STL, Roposo, Viacom18 Media, IIT Madras, GR Infrastructure etc.
What’s your strategy to compete with leaders such as AWS and Azure in this space?
Service providers are realizing what got them through the last 20 years of enterprise technology won’t get them through the next 10. One of the core differentiators of Google Cloud and why customers choose us is our infrastructure. Google was built in the cloud and we leveraged the same infrastructure when we built our cloud platform, which means we have over 20 years of experience operating planet-scale infrastructure. The next is flexibility and openness. We help customers avoid lock-in and have the strongest commitment to multi-cloud. The other reasons are insights from data, sustainability, ability to offer customized industry solutions, security, collaboration, and the power of Google.
