01732 759725 14 Pax8 aims to keep disrupting distribution with intelligent use of data. James Goulding reports demand learning, instructor-led courses, peer groups and coaching delivered via the Pax8 Academy (launched in EMEA earlier this year). Morgan argues that Pax8’s new Data phase builds on advances made in these earlier stages by creating an intelligent, data-driven marketplace that uses insights from customers and the broader Pax8 community to help MSPs generate additional revenue and maximise crossselling opportunities. “Today, marketplaces are nothing other than a series of vendor catalogues where you can go and buy products, and until recently our marketplace too was just a catalogue. What we've learned over the last two years, particularly during the pandemic, is that that is no longer fit for purpose. We need a new marketplace, with lots of insights and lots of data, not just a catalogue of vendors and not just education and enablement. At Beyond, we launched a way for a partner to look at the whole of their ecosystem from a data perspective.” Data syncing The foundation of this new approach is the ability, from this autumn, for MSPs to sync data from their on-premises and cloud ecosystems, via their PSA, to the Pax8 platform where it can be processed and made use of through a variety of new instruments. At the time of going to press, Pax8 had integrations with Kaseya, Syncro, ConnectWise, Autotask and RepairShopr, and it will be looking to add other PSAs to enable more MSPs to benefit from new capabilities within its marketplace. These include: n Opportunity Explorer. Product mapping will identify gaps in customers’ services adoption, with benchmarking against peers, highlighting sales opportunities for MSPs; and n Security Insights. MSPs will be able to see the security posture of every customer in their platform (e.g. who's got global admin rights, who's not got MFA switched on etc.) and give them a global security score that, again, could drive additional sales. Morgan says that opportunities highlighted by Opportunity Explorer and Security Insights will enable the Pax8 marketplace to give recommendations very much in the style of Amazon – i.e. ‘people who bought this also bought this’ – allowing MSPs to be more proactive in their customer engagements. “We are going to deliver a way for MSPs to have a guided conversation with their customers by recommending different products or services within the ecosystem that they could be selling to their customers. Instead of having a bottom-up catalogue approach, we are starting with a technology and solutions requirement and finishing with our offering, effectively reversing the customer journey within the Pax8 marketplace,” he said. n Solutions Centre. In support of this more solutions-led approach, Pax8 is planning to supplement its choice of SaaS software-as-a-service (SaaS) products with a Solutions Centre featuring an e-tailize catalogue and fully integrated Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) experience that will enable MSPs to produce quotes for solutions encompassing cloud, hardware and services from within the Pax8 platform (with the hardware element going through a third party). Quotes can be delivered via the customer’s preferred delivery method or platform, one of which could be a customer storefront. n Customer storefront. The option of white-labelled, fully automated storefronts will enable an MSP to provide each customer with a bespoke, pre-approved line card of services that conform to the customer’s security requirements and On June 11-13, cloud marketplace Pax8 capped a successful decade of disruption by holding its first ever partner conference at the Gaylord Rockies Resort in Denver, Colorado. Bringing together 1,200 MSPs, vendors and analysts for the purposes of community-building, networking, education and training, Pax8 Beyond provided a launchpad for a raft of enhancements to the company’s marketplace – features that Phylip Morgan, Chief Revenue Office for Pax8 EMEA, believes add up to a third, data-centric phase in Pax8’s evolution. This follows an initial Disrupt stage, when Pax8 launched its cloud marketplace to fix the perceived failings of a traditional, box-shifting distribution model in a world moving towards subscriptions and cloud services, and a subsequent Community phase, when it invested in multiple initiatives to help MSPs grow their business. These range from new partner briefings, boot camps for CIOs/CTOs and, most recently, Pax8 Beyond to extensive educational opportunities including onData-driven, automated, partner-curated: the future of the Pax8 marketplace CLOUD MARKETPLACE Phylip Morgan
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