Report: Google unifying business teams for Android, hardware, other products to simplify deals

Alphabet on Monday reported disappointing Q1 2019 earnings due to declining ad growth. Google is now working to increase profits from its various products by expanding its Global Partnerships division to strike deals on behalf of the hardware, Assistant, and gaming teams.

Forbes today reported on an internal reorganization and expansion of Google’s Global Partnerships org. Before this move, product groups like Android, Assistant, and hardware all maintained individual business developments teams responsible for striking partnerships, advertising, and integrations.

While having autonomous business development teams could allow different product areas to experiment and move fast, the lack of coordination had started to outweigh the benefits. This change is meant to provide simplified negotiations for partners and a more compelling value proposition for Google.

Global Partnerships will now be responsible for deals related to healthcare, gaming, Made by Google, Android, and other products. This gives outside companies that want to work with Google the ability to just have one contact for partnerships that could span across several products. That team previously only worked on advertising deals, while YouTube and Google Cloud partnerships will not be included in this reorganization.

For example, a big company that wants to run a traditional advertising campaign using Google Ads could at the same time run a similar promotion in Assistant.

According to head Don Harrison in a memo, “the new structure will improve our ability to present a coordinated face to partners and allow us to contribute to business and product strategies that span across Google.” It addresses one complaint that Google’s offerings are too sprawling and hard to keep track of, even for large partners.

Forbes speculates that this could result in more third-party product integrations, or sponsored content in the Play Store and Assistant. The latter is currently under-monetized despite the promising potential for advertising on voice platforms.