And the winners are… Announcing the first-ever Google Cloud Customer Awards

Today, on the eve of Next ‘21, we’re thrilled to announce the winners of our inaugural Google Cloud Customer Awards, recognizing the most innovative, technically advanced and transformative cloud deployments from around the globe built on our platform.

These awards come at a particularly challenging time for businesses. Consumers’ buying habits are shifting. Organizations are concerned about the resiliency of their supply chains and networks in the face of ransomware and other cyber attacks. New regulatory, privacy, and sovereignty legislation is impacting businesses’ future plans. And, of course, ensuring sustainable business practices to protect the environment continues to be a priority. Throughout it all, companies are leaning on IT departments to help them navigate these issues.

Judging by the nominations, Google Cloud customers are up for the challenge. Senior Google experts independently judged and scored hundreds of customers implementations from around the world against set criteria, including technical complexity, transformation, and innovation in the cloud—all represented as quantifiable metrics. 

Awards were given to the strongest nominations globally by industry (e.g., healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing, gaming, government, and others), and for social impact, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and cross-industry achievements. In every category, IT departments delivered real business value as they helped their organizations transform.

The Google Cloud Customer Awards are part of Google Cloud’s recognition program that includes the Google Cloud Partner Awards. We’ll showcase all the winners tomorrow as part of the Next ‘21 show opener.

Congratulations to the winners and to everyone who took part!

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion  

Pearson’s contributions to cloud technology solutions in the education industry have been outstanding in many ways this year, particularly in how it has leveraged AI and machine learning to transform its internal data and analytics capabilities. In addition, the company’s DEI programs have positively impacted employees’ personal and professional development. Pearson's Women in Technology program actively tackled issues people were struggling with while working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing a sense of connection, wellbeing, and fulfillment to Pearson employees. This included launching a new skills initiative with proven results.

Social Impact 

This diverse group of customers displayed some exciting examples of technical innovation and transformation related to social impact. From democratizing data, to driving more accessible healthcare, to creating people-powered news reporting, the common theme among these customers was using technology to create more openness and transparency.

Communications Service Providers

Communications service providers’ (CSPs) entries were largely focused on using technology to provide exceptional customer service. Contact Center AI and other Google Cloud solutions are helping CSPs deliver high-quality products, while achieving key business outcomes like reduced average call handle time. With tens of millions of conversations with customers each year, Google’s cloud technology is helping CSPs create a world-class experience every time.

Financial Services

A staggering 15 of our top 62 scorers were from financial services. This is a clear indicator that this sector excels at innovative thinking, technical execution, and transformation. Companies in this category used cloud technology to drive operational resilience, regulatory compliance, and better customer experiences, relying on an open cloud to support their customers worldwide.

Gaming

In the gaming industry, it’s all about record-breaking, era-defining, and constantly updating player experiences. Google Cloud is helping to empower ambitious game developers to deliver their games globally at-scale.

Healthcare and Life Sciences

In this highly regulated industry, customers are enabling essential services and continuous patient care, all in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Google Cloud is proud to partner with healthcare customers, who are leveraging the cloud to create agility during a trying year.

Manufacturing

The manufacturing sector is engaged in some very exciting transformations. In some cases, decades-old companies are moving away from traditional IT implementations, and reinventing themselves as purveyors of smart products with dynamic supply chains. They’re turning to Workspace, advanced analytics, and Google Cloud’s connected devices, products, and solutions to optimize their businesses—starting on the manufacturing floor.

Media and Entertainment

This year’s media and entertainment entries centered on audience engagement. Customers told us how they are using the cloud to reduce latency and unlock new experiences for their users. This includes using machine learning to run solutions such as Speech-to-Text, and engaging audiences with exciting breakthroughs in data analytics. Engagement within their own teams and organizations was also key to their success.

Retail

Google Cloud has always worked with retailers to solve their most challenging problems. But no one could have imagined more challenging problems than those retailers faced this year with the pandemic and multiple supply chain disruptions. Ecommerce revenue has become more vital than ever before, and brick-and-mortar retailers are making substantial investments in technology, training, and enablement to modernize their systems. Meanwhile, digital natives and many other retailers are becoming even more data-driven.

Government

Collaboration and communication in the cloud were clear themes for our public sector customers. From employment, to tourism, to health and vaccination efforts, these organizations strive to help citizens in all aspects of their lives through digital services. Working together to build user-facing apps, data solutions, and new online working environments at speed, government customers have led an inspiring effort during unprecedented times.

Education

In 2020 alone, more than 93,000 Americans died of drug overdoses. One of the biggest hurdles to solving this crisis is a data problem that hinders the work of those trying to bring life-saving resources to areas and individuals who need them. Google Cloud and partner Maven Wave enabled an interdisciplinary team of developers, UX designers, community organizations, and clinical and managerial partners at Dell Medical School and the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at The University of Texas at Austin to create a unique platform that is helping to save lives.

Cross-Industry

COVID-19 has been—and continues to be—one of the greatest challenges faced by all industries. The ability to make decisions faster, ensure stability and business continuity, and work effectively as teams, has never been more important. Customers in the cross-industry category continued to innovate, grow, and build future-proof solutions using the cloud. 

Google Cloud customers are doing amazing things, and we can’t wait to see what they do next! Register for Next to hear from some of our customers. To find out why many of the world’s leading companies are choosing Google Cloud to help them innovate faster, make smarter decisions, and collaborate from anywhere, visit our customer pages.