Addressing a key need identified by some enterprises, Google LLC said Monday ahead of the formal opening of its Cloud Next conference that it’s working with partners such as Salesforce.com Inc., Box Inc. and MongoDB Inc. to make it easier for customers to run their software-as-a-service applications on its cloud.

To do so, the company is announcing a range of new partner programs designed to encourage them to run their SaaS apps on Google Cloud Platform.

The new programs include a new co-selling initiative that will see Google will help its partners to pitch the idea of Google-managed SaaS applications. In a second program, Google will provide a customer reliability team to help partners to run their products on its cloud. To this end, Google is setting up an online community for its partners where they can share best practices with each other and get updates from the company.

Google will also reward its partners through financial incentives from a new fund it set up especially for this purpose, Nan Boden, Google Cloud’s senior director of global technology partnerships, and Nina Harding, channel chief of global partner strategy and programs, wrote in a blog post.

Google is also planning to announce a number of new integrations with existing partners and its cloud platform at Next. One plan is an expanded collaboration with the consultancy firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. in which the two companies will offer new services to help run SAP SE applications on Google’s cloud.

Another new partnership involves the blockchain companies Digital Asset Holdings LLP, in order to offer companies a new way to use the technology on GCP.

The company is also teaming up with Intel Corp. and Appsbroker Consulting Ltd. on a new center of excellence that offers resources, tips and best practices to help customers migrate high-performance cloud computing workloads onto GCP, using “tailored, customer-specific guidance,” it said.

Google and Cisco Systems Inc. will also be expanding their partnership during Next, promising “exciting news” around artificial intelligence and collaboration.

Google’s new partner initiatives come at a time when its cloud business is already seeing steady growth. Although Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. didn’t disclose its cloud revenue in precise terms during its latest earnings call Monday, Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said earlier this year that it has grown to become a billion-dollar-a-quarter business. Even so, the company still has much work to do, as recent data from Synergy Research Group shows a market share of just 6 percent, far below Amazon Web Services Inc.’s 33 percent share and Microsoft Corp.’s 13 percent.

The company’s partner ecosystem will be key to fostering further growth, since it plays an indispensable role in onboarding enterprises to its cloud, Boden and Harding said.

The executives noted Google has entered into new or expanded relationships with significant partners including Deloitte, Accenture Plc and KPMG International Cooperative in the last year, saying these have already had a positive impact, helping to provide migration support and additional services to its enterprise customers.

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