Some of Google Cloud’s largest systems integrators are witnessing upward of 75 percent annual growth in their Google business as well as a nearly 500 percent increase in annual deal volume, according to a new report by IDC.

Google Cloud’s worldwide ecosystem and channel leader, Kevin Ichhpurani, said channel partners are betting heavily on Google versus Microsoft and Amazon Web Services due to its partner strategy of not scaling an internal professional services organization, having an open vendor ecosystem, and Google’s overall partner-led approach around driving business transformation for customers.

“The reality is most customers want to be multi-cloud. We’re enabling them and embracing that as opposed to fighting it,” Ichhpurani said.

[Related: Google Cloud Next 2023 Preview: AI, GCP And Thomas Kurian]

“We’re also not trying to scale a services organization,” he added. “We want partners to take the lion’s share of all of the services opportunity. We do not want to scale a large services organization. So we don’t have the channel conflict that exists within other technology companies.”

IDC’s New Google Cloud Study

IT research firm IDC conducted a study on nine of Google Cloud’s major global systems integrators (GSIs) this year that was released Wednesday.

Some of the key findings inside IDC’s report showed that Google Cloud’s partner-led professional services approach has driven annual revenue growth rates of between 35 percent and 75 percent for these GSIs since 2019. In addition, these systems integrators shared that their growth in adding skilled resources to their Google Cloud practice over the last year has multiplied by 3X to 10X across the board.

“This is just really showing you how partners are doubling down on the Google Cloud practice because they see enormous potential and that we are where the puck is going,” said Ichhpurani, Google’s corporate vice president, global ecosystem and channels.

“That’s why they’re investing ahead of the curve. Because when you think about the kinds of services that you deliver with Google Cloud, you’re fundamentally driving business transformation as opposed to just lifting and shifting VMs [virtual machines],” he said.

In an interview with CRN, Ichhpurani talks about the results of IDC’s study as well why partners are investing in Google Cloud compared with cloud computing rivals such as Microsoft and AWS.

“My biggest message to [Google Cloud partners] is: We are the future and to invest ahead of the curve,” he said. “The most important thing is if you want to capture the opportunity is to invest ahead of the curve.”