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Vince Menzione - Technology Industry Sales and Partner Executive
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296 – Why the Obsolete MSP Model is Dying and How to Join the MIP Elite
40 minutes Posted Apr 21, 2026 at 9:16 pm.
] Oguo Atuanya: I, I mean, the ultimate goal is to get that MIP channel as intelligent or even more intelligent and agile than any enterprise IT department.
] Vince Menzione: We just finished Ultimate Partners Winter Retreat here in beautiful Boca to a sold out crowd. Today I’m joined by Dexter Hardy, the founder of Integral for a compelling discussion, a guo. Welcome back,
] Oguo Atuanya: Vince
] Vince Menzione: to the welcome back to the podcast, my friend. So good to see you.
] Oguo Atuanya: Good to see you, my friend. It’s been about, what, two years?
] Vince Menzione: It has been two years, almost two years. Almost two years ago now. And uh, man, this
] Oguo Atuanya: thing is just picking up steam.
] Vince Menzione: It is. We’re having a blast. We were having so much fun. It was
] Oguo Atuanya: awesome.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: Really awesome.
] Vince Menzione: And you were for context, for people watching and, and listening. Uh, we were here in Boca yesterday for the Ultimate Partner Executive Retreat.
] Yep. It was this awesome event and great to have you involved in it. Uh, pat, thank you so much. So, uh, last time you were here
] Oguo Atuanya: Yes.
] Vince Menzione: Uh, you were representing Microsoft where you spent 22 years.
] Oguo Atuanya: 22
] Vince Menzione: years.
] Oguo Atuanya: Two years, right. Outta outta Junior Heart.
] Vince Menzione: Amazing. And, uh, tell us, tell us about your journey so far. Uh, almost two years, a year and a half at Pax.
] Eight. About a
] Oguo Atuanya: year and a half.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah,
] Oguo Atuanya: a year and a half.
] Vince Menzione: And tell, tell for our viewers and listeners, uh, your role at Pax eight.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: Which is a preeminent company in this space. We used to use the term disty. I’ll let you describe them. Uh, officially
] Oguo Atuanya: No,
] Vince Menzione: because they don’t, you don’t use that term.
] Oguo Atuanya: We’re not, we’re not a distributor.
] Vince Menzione: Yes.
] Oguo Atuanya: Scott Cha would kill me.
] Vince Menzione: That’s right. No, I know, I know. I remember the, uh,
] Oguo Atuanya: the New
] Vince Menzione: York, was it the New York Times article? Yes. Yes.
] Oguo Atuanya: Was kind of a,
] Vince Menzione: that was a launching point coming out. Yeah, yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: No, we, we, we see ourselves as, um, um, the pre, uh, permanent marketplace. For SMB.
] Vince Menzione: Nice.
] Oguo Atuanya: Right. So you think about the SaaS and the cloud.
] Yeah. You know, solutions that you need. In SMB, we work with vendors to bring it, um, you know, to the SMB market through, uh, MSPs. And we also, uh, see ourselves as the premier
] Vince Menzione: Yes.
] Oguo Atuanya: Um, AI commerce platform for SMB.
] Vince Menzione: Very interesting.
] Oguo Atuanya: Right. And as we go through the discussion, uh, this afternoon, you’ll see why.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: That differentiation is
] Vince Menzione: key. I, I love, I love to dive in. I love to dive in. I will say this, I, I think you’ve gotten a lot of people very interested in the community. I mean, certainly your events are becoming bigger and bigger. You’re beyond conference.
] Oguo Atuanya: Next one’s coming up in Salt Lake City
] in
] Vince Menzione: June.
] I plan on being there, salt Lake City in June.
] Oguo Atuanya: I must have you there.
] Vince Menzione: I will be there and you will, and you will be at our event in May.
] Oguo Atuanya: Absolutely.
] Vince Menzione: Talking about beyond, but also talking about this community. Uh, I’ve also woken up over the last year or so as well and learned a lot about this SMB community and ms, what we call MSBs.
] You’ve re you’ve re-categorized them, uh, but this community is palpable. The opportunity is huge.
] Oguo Atuanya: It’s huge.
] Vince Menzione: And, um, I would say that, uh, yeah, we can talk, we’ll talk, we’ll just talk through it. ’cause it is huge. Yeah. There’s a lot of things that need to be done.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: And I think, I think PAX eight is, uh, at the forefront in driving a lot of this.
] The hyperscalers, like Microsoft are, are paying attention now more in a big, in a bigger way than before
] Oguo Atuanya: being great partners.
] Vince Menzione: Been great, great partners. Yeah. We’ll talk about your role with Microsoft in that regard.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: But talk, let’s talk about this evolution too. Let’s, uh, so for those who are listening, who are used to maybe us talking about a SaaS software company Yep.
] Or an ISV or an SDC, uh, we’re talking about MSPs, managed service providers, which is the common term that people use. These are, these have been traditionally the companies, the smaller companies, they used to call em mom and pop shops back. The old VARs that became managed service, the past
] Oguo Atuanya: provider in, in the past, they’re getting bigger.
] Vince Menzione: And then Yes. One of the big
] Oguo Atuanya: ones, y say
] Vince Menzione: Nexus Tech. We had Yes.
] Oguo Atuanya: Partners of ours.
] Vince Menzione: Nexus Techs, new Charter.
] Oguo Atuanya: Charter, Michelle
] Vince Menzione: Evergreen, I could Ira Lyra. Yeah. They’re, they’re becoming bigger and bigger. Private equity is getting involved. What’s important, what’s important to note too is that the customer is driving this because customers are requiring more and it’s no longer about, and my my point of view is it’s no longer about loading up software and just letting it go.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: You need to be hands-on all the time.
] Oguo Atuanya: Abs. Absolutely. And, and
] Vince Menzione: yeah,
] Oguo Atuanya: kind of skating towards that park of, um. MIP?
] Vince Menzione: Yes. Let’s talk about MIP
] Oguo Atuanya: managed intelligence providers.
] Vince Menzione: So last year, year Beyond conference, I believe you launched this like new in I, we’ll call the new nomenclature or the new name, or this new thing.
] And evolved. And evolved, yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: So talk about the managed intelligence provider for us.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. Wow. When it happened In Beyond Or at? Beyond, I should say. Um. We thought it’d catch on because it’s apt. I mean, it’s, it’s sort of indicative of what’s happening now and what will happen over the next 24 months, but, uh, the sort of migration towards this and the marketplace has been immense.
] I mean, you, and you, you know, hit on what the difference is. Yes. Earlier on, um, today. What’s driving this shift is that most MSPs have been really good at being tools and technology infrastructure providers.
] Vince Menzione: Yep.
] Oguo Atuanya: Right.
] Vince Menzione: They would hook up your network and your printer. In the old days, they fix your, fix your computers.
] Yes. Or replace re-image, all those things. Right? Yes. That was the old days. And,
] Oguo Atuanya: and, and also provide some very manual services delivery, which will now play. In this new era that we are actually, I shouldn’t say going into, it’s taking all,
] Vince Menzione: we’re, we’re there,
] Oguo Atuanya: we’re there right now. So, um, you know, they, they, I guess the transformation from MSP to MIP others partners that would actually become managed intelligence providers.
] That means really, you know, integrating intelligence into workflow that matters for the SMBs. Right. So you
] Vince Menzione: so double click on that for,
] Oguo Atuanya: for
] Vince Menzione: our
] Oguo Atuanya: viewers. Yeah. So all really means is that you’re moving from being that, you know
] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: Technology, infrastructure, tools, provider to, you know, becoming an, an orchestrator and a and a and a business consultant.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: Right. For you. SMB. Right. So important. ’cause you have to now get into, uh, very secure, streamlined automated AI driven workflows to help them.
] Vince Menzione: All driven in the cloud. Everything’s in the cloud now, as opposed to the old days. Right. On premise.
] Oguo Atuanya: All gone. None. That’s happening. It’s all gone. All gone. Yeah.
] So you, you’ve got this automated platform right now. You should as, um, an MIP, um, we actually gonna be in a position to design, um, agent tech organizations for your, uh, SMBs who wanna scale. ’cause as we talked about yesterday, yeah. SMBs have opportunities they wanna grow, but not have the wherewithal to go hire a hundred people.
] Instead of doing that, you go hire a hundred agents. Yeah, but you’re gonna need that MIP to architect, the organization, launch it for you, manage it, get you, you know, automated, you know, workflows that you’d leverage to run your company, and then they have to manage and optimize the technology. Um, as necessary.
] So, so, huge shift.
] Vince Menzione: Huge shift.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: And it was interesting for me being at the, where you talked about the write of Boom conference that you, were you, your organization was there? Yeah, I was there as well and I was in the room with some of the Microsoft folks and we had some of those larger partners we talked about
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: That were in the room as well. And just, uh, different perspectives too. Like I hadn’t heard it firsthand. It was interesting for Microsoft too, to get that feedback from. From some of them as well. Um, I think, I think the ones that are progressive are already on board with you. I’ve, I’ve already talked to some of those organizations, like, oh, we’re a hundred percent Pax eight, that’s it.
] But then some of the others I think are still, there are still people out there that are stuck in the past. Would you agree? Like this community is in the, is in a transition right now to this new model?
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: Tell
] Oguo Atuanya: us
] Vince Menzione: about that.
] Oguo Atuanya: There are, I mean, listen, I, I don’t, you know, wanna put a number. You know what we’re seeing.
] But I’d say that about eventually, let’s say we’re gonna have about 30% of folks that really get it and move.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: Right. The others we’re gonna have to,
] Vince Menzione: there’ll be the laggards that’ll
] Oguo Atuanya: take longer and let me just, you know, sort of rephrase that state. Most of them understand, you know, what the opportunity is with this whole Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: You
] Oguo Atuanya: know. They’re still struggling with being able to, you know, articulate this story, um, from a value prop perspective, right? You know, go in, talk to the SMBs, help the SMBs understand how, you know, they can be more productive, more efficient, and um, ultimately more profitable and scale, um, with an agent, you know, framework.
] They still struggle. Yeah. And, and that’s kind of where we come in, where we helping these SMB or sorry, MSPs and to be ips.
] Vince Menzione: So tell us, understand that. Tell us what you’re doing. I believe you, you stood up like academies and things like that, right? You’re doing some outreach, some enablement for the community?
] Is that what it is?
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah, we we’re heavy, we’re heavy in, um, enablement. Um, because, you know, everyone realizes that. To be successful with this whole campaign. It’s not just about putting agents up in an agent store, real, SMB, you know, native, um, vertical aware agents that actually, you know, when you deploy it in an SMB business, right, they drive value right away,
] Vince Menzione: right?
] Oguo Atuanya: Right. So, but we also realize that it’s not just about, you know, landing the agents in the marketplace, but enablement is a huge factor. That’s why when you go back to things, you know, like academy, uh, the MIP playbook, uh, some of the, uh, inculcation integrations we we’re doing with, um, partners, really critical to have that enablement layer.
] Vince Menzione: Interesting.
] Oguo Atuanya: Along with providing the agents and the, in the agents store.
] Vince Menzione: Who’s developing these agents in the agent store? Are they providers for the MSP community? Are they organizations like Take, take us through that model.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. So they, they, they, because
] Vince Menzione: you, you manage all the vendors.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah, I do. Right?
] Vince Menzione: I do. So tell us more about that.
] Oguo Atuanya: I do. So it’s, it’s multifold, right? Um, one fold is you have prebuilt solutions that you know vendors.
] Vince Menzione: Yep.
] Oguo Atuanya: Built for, you know, SMBs and they’re directed towards SMBs. Then you also have a second category, uh, sorry, category of solutions that are more tools that MSBs use.
] Right? But there’s also a third, um, prompt to this where we are orchestrating an integration of, um, um, IP between
] Vince Menzione: interesting the
] Oguo Atuanya: vendor department, uh, into providing, you know, solutions. That we can land in the, in the agent store.
] Vince Menzione: That’s fascinating. So, yeah. So you have, so you have a standalone product or a standalone solution or agent.
] You have the orchestration and then you have the customer tools and the tool. And the tools.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yes.
] Vince Menzione: Yes. That’s fascinating.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. It’s um, it’s sort of a three flying approach that, um, the market needs, right? Yeah. And that, that’s key. By the way, Vince, when you know, um. You’re developing these agents and these solutions.
] Yeah. Because they’re not, they’re not just tools anymore, right. Essentially it could be somebody’s, uh, FTE.
] Vince Menzione: Yes.
] Oguo Atuanya: Right. So they have to address a specific outcome. They have to be, you know, uh, valuable. You have to show the ROI and for these SMBs. Don’t have a lot of wiggle room.
] Vince Menzione: So you, that they’re smaller companies, right?
] Yeah. So anything you do is gonna be super impactful. Yeah. It’s not something they can absorb necessarily, or, you know, lose time and money.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: Uh, you’ve gotta be very sensitive to that in this, in this market, this size market. And even the MSPs are, even though there are some that are much larger, there’s still a lot of smaller MSPs out there.
] Oguo Atuanya: And, and coming to the MIP playbook, um, what partners don’t need anymore. Um, it’s hype.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: They need an almost curriculum driven approach, right. To landing this initiative and infrastructure and also managing it long term. Yeah. So that’s what the MIP playbook does.
] Vince Menzione: So you were an executive at Microsoft.
] You managed the channel partner. I, I would call the resellers and the disti. In fact, for the America’s business, I believe was your role.
] Oguo Atuanya: I I did manage the large resellers. At
] Vince Menzione: large resellers. So at one point, and you also had the Disti at one time?
] Oguo Atuanya: At one point I had the Disti, the telco, the domain providers.
] Vince Menzione: Yes. The large resellers. I remember when we first met, yes. I think that was when,
] Oguo Atuanya: yes.
] Vince Menzione: Yes. And so when you came, PAX eight is a very strong Microsoft partner. You were, again, I mentioned you were the launch partner or one of the launch partners for the marketplace.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: But talk about the role and the relationship with Microsoft and the value that PAX eight provides for this market, uh, kind of layering between, uh, the Microsoft components and, and the SMB market.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. Does that
] Vince Menzione: make sense?
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. So, so Microsoft has always been. Um, keen on the SMB segment, um, you know, Jose Gomez and Company in the Americas, and folks like, um, Alison West Hughes from a core perspective that, yeah, they’re very serious about this SMB segment. And, um, I’d say the key difference with Microsoft is Microsoft realized early.
] Probably based on the fact that Microsoft’s always been a very strong channel friendly,
] Vince Menzione: yes.
] Oguo Atuanya: Oriented company. I realized earlier that you really can’t scale cost efficiently by having a direct SMB business, right? Right. You have to go through the channel.
] Vince Menzione: They’re what, 160,000 MSPs or ips?
] Oguo Atuanya: Um, for us at pax,
] Vince Menzione: I think for the world.
] Oguo Atuanya: Uh, yes.
] Vince Menzione: Somewhere the world around there. The world, yeah. You would have to reach all those companies individually, which Yeah, you’d
] Oguo Atuanya: have to, well, I mean, even then the, there’s the Ians of SMBs
] Vince Menzione: Yes. In worldwide. Yes. That’s right. Right. At at the customer level. The pyramid is huge. You can’t,
] Oguo Atuanya: you can’t really scale.
] No, you can’t. You can only do that through the channel.
] Vince Menzione: Yes.
] Oguo Atuanya: And, um, I think, I think the relationship between Microsoft and PAX has just. Strengthened over time because Microsoft sees, if we go back to that definition of a, you know, distributor versus a marketplace and a platform provider stuff. So we’re seeing the difference.
] Yes. And the value add and, you know, the services led approach that packs it, you know, brings to, um, um, driving the SMB business. Yes. Um, you know, just that we have, we think PAX eight, we have a very strong relationship. And a very strong MSP ecosystem, which is critical when you sort of, you know, uh, look at that difference between just a regular reseller and an MSP.
] Vince Menzione: Absolutely.
] Oguo Atuanya: Right. Um, you just can’t, what we talked about earlier, just transact a solution and then walk away. It’s, it’s, uh, it’s, um, it, it’s, it’s really a sustainable end-to-end, you know, customer life cycle management approach. When you’re dealing with them.
] Vince Menzione: I think it’s important here too, and, and again for the maturity model of our listeners and viewers, it might be at different levels of understanding about the, about the model.
] But if you think about the model and the evolution, right, being the, from the old model of being, uh, hardware centric and maybe software centric, uh, the old days of what was a disti, which are not at disti anymore, but, um, the distis were there to provide credit. Availability of product.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: And And delivery, basically.
] Right? Yeah. That was it.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: And that’s how that they were intermediaries on some of that.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: But PAX eight evolved at a later time.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: More modern time, I would say in the cloud. Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: PAX eight. So one in the cloud, if you will.
] Vince Menzione: And I think that’s maybe a differentiation and this new model that it also feels to like this MSP community has been coming along.
] And I, I, I believe a lot of thought leadership from the PAX eight side. I’m speak, I’m speaking for you here, but in terms of some bold moves that the organization is doing.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. Listen. Um, as you know, I dealt or engaged with PAX eight for a while before joining PAX eight.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: I’d engaged with p fact fact pxi, funnily enough was the first meeting I had, um, when I came back from the uk.
] Vince Menzione: Is that
] Oguo Atuanya: right? Yeah. During my stint running, um. Um, devices, uh, sales organization for Microsoft. The first meeting I had coming back into the Americas was so P Aid and Nick Hedy and, uh, Ryan Walsh and, oh, that’s so funny. Joke about it. By the way, Ryan Walsh all has a prep, uh, notes study, you know, he got ready for the media.
] Vince Menzione: Oh, that is hilarious. I met Ryan. Uh, we were on stage together at a channel partners a couple years ago.
] Can’t
] Oguo Atuanya: miss his energy.
] Vince Menzione: He can’t
] Oguo Atuanya: miss his energy.
] Vince Menzione: Such great energy.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. But, but listen, I think if I could just sum it in a, you know, in a, um, a framework or a box. The key difference between PAC sales is we look at engaging with MSPs in SMB, um, from a customer lifecycle management.
] So we start from, Hey, how do we help you with customer acquisition? When you do acquire the customers and you make that first licensing transaction, it doesn’t go away. That’s when we actually start, you know, thinking about how do we help, um, you ensure that your SMBs realize, um, value from what you sold them.
] You know, if you need to expand, but, um, beyond one, you know, skew in the stack, that’s what you do because you understand the needs of USMB that helps drive consumption, you know? Nurture that through all, we start, you know, looking at, is it time for re sorry, renewal. There’s a team minus approach to renewal.
] ’cause we also keep our eyes on churn. You can, you know, gain as much business as you can, but if you churn, it does nobody any good. Yeah. So we look at things end to end from our position to churn. And that really is embedded in the platform that sits underneath the marketplace.
] Vince Menzione: And you act as the, well see, we’re gonna use technical terms here.
] CSP. You’re the first layer of CSP and then they, they also, in many cases, sometimes they’re not, but in many cases they are the CSP to the customer. They’re providing the, the licenses to the customer.
] Oguo Atuanya: Well, we, so we, we are the first tier of that, you know, two tier
] Vince Menzione: Exactly.
] Oguo Atuanya: Model. So we, we,
] Vince Menzione: you’re tier one
] Oguo Atuanya: Microsoft.
] Vince Menzione: Yep.
] Oguo Atuanya: Right. We, you know, as an existing might press on an example, it could be one of our other vendors, like, you know, um, any of the 150 vendors we have. We engage with them, we enable the um, MSP, who’s the resell, who’s really in the traditional sense, the reseller layer, much more valuable in terms of what they do.
] Vince Menzione: That’s right.
] Oguo Atuanya: And then. The MSP engages with, uh, the end customer. So that’s kind of what the flow is.
] Vince Menzione: Yep. Yeah. And that’s one component of what they do for the customer. The transaction is a one one and done sort of.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: But then it’s all the managed services and layering Oh, provide on top of it. And then all the other solutions say 150 platforms.
] Oguo Atuanya: Uh, 150 vendors.
] Vince Menzione: Vendors, yeah. So hundreds of platforms that are available to the customer for
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: Through taxane.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. But, but lemme just emphasize that especially. We are going actually where we are. Right. Um, again, it starts, it starts way to the left of the continuum than just driving the transaction.
] Vince Menzione: So take us through the continuum then.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah, that’s what I said earlier, the continuum is, you know, helping this, helping with
] Vince Menzione: acquisition, customer acquisition,
] Oguo Atuanya: even, you know, prior to that it’s, it’s helped. We’re getting to a point now where we’re helping these MSPs and they should all be able to do that during the MIP era.
] Vince Menzione: Yep.
] Oguo Atuanya: Understand the market they’re playing it. Yeah. Understand, you know, the market, their SMBs are in, understand their verticals or their scenarios so that you can actually build, you know, this precision, outcome driven, you know, solutions.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: Right. That, that’s the beginning and then you sell and acquire.
] Right. And then once you acquire that business, uh, it’s always on, you know, situation. You’re helping realize value. ’cause if you don’t. You’re not expanding beyond the stock. Yes. And um, you’re not driving consumption. And if you don’t drive consumption,
] Vince Menzione: you’re not making any money. You’re really not making,
] Oguo Atuanya: it’s not churn.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: Right. And then they have to keep an eye on, when renewals come about, there has to be a healthy T minus period. Right. Um, so ensure that you renew during renewals. Um, that’s actually when we then look at, Hey, what’s your stack look like? Right. Especially with the agent era, right? Do you have everything you need?
] Do you have the processes? Is there governance? Is there enough security for your, um, SMB, right? So that’s kind of the tune up time before we renew, and then we help you renew and then retain so that it’s, it’s a, it’s a sort of lifecycle approach, not just transactional.
] Vince Menzione: Oh, I, I hear. Talk and, you know, I talk to different people in the industry about the SMBs, the MSPs in the SM B market, uh, that some of these organizations are very much, they’re very technical.
] Yeah. Like they’re technical folks. Sometimes they’re not sales folks or they’re not consulting type folks. Yes. So how do you help them overcome some of those challenges or those gaps? I mean, I know some of it’s through the academy.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: Do you help them also with selecting like, how do they think about their organizational structure to have the right people in the right seats and those types of
] Oguo Atuanya: things and that, that’s, that’s,
] Vince Menzione: yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: All what the MIP playbook, that’s, and the process is all about Nice. It’s, it’s, Hey, how do we expand your horizon, you know, beyond just providing the technical aspect things, how do you understand the business? How do you go about conversations to discover, right, your, uh, SMB, right? And once you discover, how do you go about architecting, you know, a value framework that includes, you know, maybe looking at the organization and suggesting agents and then, you know, when you land them, right?
] What’s the, um, optimization, you know, process beyond just landing them. So it’s, it’s helping them.
] Vince Menzione: Make transit, become business
] Oguo Atuanya: consultants.
] Vince Menzione: Right, exactly. Which is what they need to do.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. The, in this era, you really need to understand what your SMB is doing because, you know, think about it for the longest, this sort sub, you know, consultative approaches were only sort of reserved for enterprise.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah, that’s right.
] Oguo Atuanya: But when you look at how, you know, the solutions that we sell, I change, they’re really enterprise solutions now that are in SMB. Right. You have to sell that way. You have to engage that way. Right? So that, that’s, that’s a key differentiator between being an MSP and an MIP, bringing that intelligence into you applying, you know, an intelligent workflow to the way your SMB conduct that, sorry, conducts their business.
] Vince Menzione: So tell, take me through, uh, what the ideal MMSP or MIP looks like to you. Like what is the. The, the top of the top and to the right. And then where do you see the challenges? Why do some organizations or, or, ’cause I’m sure there are some that struggle, whether it’s 10%, 20%.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: Because it’s, it’s, it’s a continuum.
] It’s a, it’s a cycle to get from, from point A to point B for a lot of these organizations. Right?
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. So
] Vince Menzione: what do you see from the challenges they need to overcome and, yeah, so, so the,
] Oguo Atuanya: the, the optimal MSP looks like what we just described, right? Yeah. Right. You have an organization that thinks through the process that way, set up.
] Right.
] Vince Menzione: And they become an ongoing consultant. They help them through the process. They understand ai. Right. This is another thing too, right? Organizations, I mean, are struggling right now with their
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah, absolutely.
] Vince Menzione: Their people.
] Oguo Atuanya: It’s gotta be the baseline.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: You know, these days, understanding ai, understanding the agent, you know, journey.
] Uh, what works well is, um, you know, you, um, you know, you, you. You have to be able to design, um, land a scalable, secure, uh, environment, um,
] Vince Menzione: secure.
] Oguo Atuanya: So, so security is key here,
] Vince Menzione: right? I keep thinking about Claude, what’s happened just in the last several weeks. Yeah. In our industry with people putting things up on, through, through open browsers.
] Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: To Claude and to. Different tools.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: And if you’re an SM B and you’re trying to lock down your environment’s, don’t want, that’s, you don’t want your data exposed.
] Oguo Atuanya: That’s why security is
] Vince Menzione: huge,
] Oguo Atuanya: is key. But, you know, one of the things we recommend is start very specific. Uh, it could be a bundle that includes, you know, could be co-pilot, could be some other AI pillar.
] Uh, and then it has to be, you know, a security layer.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: Uh, to that. Then there has to be an enablement, you know, services layer to that as well, right? So, um, you build secure, um, you land, uh, and then skills develop key, right? And then monetization. You have to be able to hit those levels, uh, to be able to survive in this world.
] You’re no longer just selling. Tools.
] Vince Menzione: Yes. At margins,
] Oguo Atuanya: flat margins. So the tool, the tool sprawl, um, is what takes a lot of margins away.
] Vince Menzione: Yes.
] Oguo Atuanya: From the equation.
] Vince Menzione: Right? Tell, tell us about that. ’cause I, I, I remember even back in my Microsoft days, yeah, we would go in and, and have partners that were successful that would say.
] In fact, the ones that are most successful would basically tell the customer, you already own it. Like you have a, you have an enterprise agreement and it has all the capabilities you need to run your enterprise, and you’re buying all these other one-off solutions and trying to patch them into your, into your portfolio of your, your solution set.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. Nobody, nobody, especially in SB, nobody wants any more tools.
] Vince Menzione: No, I can
] Oguo Atuanya: imagine. Um, you, you’ve gotta sort of assemble this thing into a platform that works.
] Vince Menzione: Yep.
] Oguo Atuanya: Right. And it’s gotta be repeatable. If it’s not repeatable, then you’re not driving the frequency. Right. It’s gotta be scalable. Um, ’cause if it’s scalable, then you’re going into, um, that kind of sprawl where people start thinking they need to replace gaps with more tools.
] Yeah. Nobody needs. Right.
] Vince Menzione: And that creates more vulnerability by putting
] Oguo Atuanya: Absolutely.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s
] Vince Menzione: fascinating. So
] Oguo Atuanya: it’s, it’s a different, um. Sort of engagement and I, I’m refraining from saying it to different kind of sell because the connotation of sell is you transact and you’re gone. It’s a full lifecycle engagement model.
] Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: I think what you’re doing is you’re enabling the evolution of this market.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah,
] Vince Menzione: that’s the way I would say it.
] Oguo Atuanya: Well, that, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do with, um, the shift from MSP to MIP is. Um, we’re driving the transformation in SMB.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: I, I mean, the ultimate goal is to get that MIP channel as intelligent or even more intelligent and agile than any enterprise IT department.
] Yes. ’cause they are the,
] Vince Menzione: they are ones, the enterprise IT department
] Oguo Atuanya: for that customer. Yeah. The, the word trusted advisor is gonna take a very, you know, it’s
] Vince Menzione: fascinating,
] Oguo Atuanya: more serious connotation in this space. Because the SMBs are dependent on you as the MMIP for that.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Let’s talk, we, we had a session on marketplace yesterday.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: Um, you have been a great driver now through, especially through this new program, the new unified marketplace.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: Uh, PAX eight is stood, stood above and beyond and doubled sales, I think is what I thought I heard. Take, take us through some of the,
] Oguo Atuanya: well, I mean, uh, uh, a marketplace. Uh, marketplace sales has grown exponentially,
] Vince Menzione: exponentially,
] Oguo Atuanya: right?
] Um, um, this partnership with Microsoft is really all about for the first time, um, integrating, you know, both the, uh, Microsoft, uh, marketplace and the P State marketplace into the MSP delivery, you know, system. Right? What does that mean for the MSP? It means that for the first time, the MSP is gonna have an ability to, um, you know, uh, bundle seamlessly or package seamlessly.
] I know from a Microsoft Yeah. Package seamlessly. Um, you know, so Microsoft, uh, solutions and third party solutions that are complimentary again, to driving the outcomes that, you know, uh, the SMB needs. It’s really all about provisioning. Um, and, um, you know, building those solutions intelligently and, and dynamically, right?
] Where it’s very scalable, right? So that, that’s sort of what the intelligence and the, the dexterity of our marketplace, uh, does. Right? So, so it’s, it’s, it’s creating, you know, um, provisioning, building, uh, transacting. Then really managing in a very automated fashion. Right. So that’s what the MSP gets. Yes.
] The vendor, like Microsoft and other vendors remove the guesswork from, is this actually gonna hit the mark for, uh, SMBs? ’cause we do that curation through the discovery when we, you know, integrate marketplaces. Make sure that those solutions, those agents that land in the marketplace are SMB applicable.
] ’cause the other thing we, we, we see in the marketplace, and I’m using the general marketplace is, um, a lot of companies will tell you that they have SMB solutions or agents. Yes, in the marketplace. And then you go into the marketplace and these are really enterprise, enterprise
] Vince Menzione: solutions. Solutions that are
] Oguo Atuanya: being forced down into SMB.
] Well, you can’t do that these days ’cause you have to hit that, you know, customer, um, precision when you’re driving, you know, outcome based solutions. You have to be precise.
] Vince Menzione: What is, what is the curation process for? Um, I’m an SMB customer. I come to the MSP. And you help at your marketplace level, it sounds like you help design what the right solution is.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: So what, tell, take us through that process real quick.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. So, um, you know, we have a set of folks internally. Along with our PXI labs people.
] Vince Menzione: Okay.
] Oguo Atuanya: When we’re actually intaking, you know? So
] Vince Menzione: you’re using AI as well on that side of Yeah. We use AI Doing your discovery process for the customers. Yes.
] Using
] Oguo Atuanya: AI as well. It, it uses ai, the rules that are being written into it, you know,
] Vince Menzione: it
] Oguo Atuanya: processes, Hey, it’s gotta be applicable from an SMB perspective. Right. This
] Vince Menzione: is very cool.
] Oguo Atuanya: Right. So, um, you know, we, we do that, we ensure that it’s, um. It’s applicable. There’s no guesswork. Right. Then we put it on the, um, on the agent store.
] Right. And then, um, you know, we help the, uh, uh, MSPs, um, architect and fit solutions around the agents, you know, for very specific outcomes. That’s, uh, so it’s,
] Vince Menzione: this is fascinating.
] Oguo Atuanya: It’s a very curated process.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So for, um, the market, the MSP market or MIP market that are watching and listening today, and maybe they’re not with PAX eight yet.
] Like what would, what would be the, the, I mean you’ve already described what the differentiation Yeah. Just, I’m just thinking out loud here. Like what would you say to them today, especially as this market is changing, not your market, but the, just the technology sector, the, the shifts are happening so fast right now.
] What would be the. I guess the one piece of advice you would give to this community of technology companies out there that they should think about for 10 26.
] Oguo Atuanya: It’s, it’s really refrain from Yeah. Selling just tools and infrastructure. Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: Which is the way a lot of them have been structured. That’s right.
] They’ve done right.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. Think about
] Vince Menzione: they’ve gone down a road with a vendor because they got great margins for some reason.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. So understand your customer, the space they’re playing and how you can build, you know, solutions, uh, for them. Be specific vis-a-vis the solutions that you’re building. Right.
] Again, um. I was having a conversation yesterday with Nina Hard, and we’re talking about the high heat of, uh, traffic verticals, right? Yeah. Uh, you know, things like healthcare, uh, things like financial services, right? Be very specific in the solutions that you’re building, right? Don’t experiment too much land on what an applicable solution is.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Predictable
] Oguo Atuanya: solution. Make it repeatable, make it. Scalable. Emphasize on the upscale and enablement right, and focus on the monetization. Understand exactly how you’re gonna articulate the value add and the ROI. To
] Vince Menzione: To the customer.
] Oguo Atuanya: The SMB.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: Because that’s where a lot of folks struggle, right. They still cannot do all that,
] Vince Menzione: and they get stuck on the cost to the customer.
] They get hung up, I guess, is what I would say. Right. They don’t, they don’t articulate the value enough.
] Oguo Atuanya: Well, they’re not selling outcomes.
] Vince Menzione: They’re not selling outcomes. They’re selling,
] Oguo Atuanya: they’re trying to piece together tools.
] Vince Menzione: Hot
] Oguo Atuanya: and hot
] Vince Menzione: tools,
] Oguo Atuanya: spot applications.
] Vince Menzione: Tools, tools is the best way to
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: To describe it
] Oguo Atuanya: to
] Vince Menzione: the
] Oguo Atuanya: company and all else spills come to Pax it.
] Yes. Teach you how to do it.
] Vince Menzione: Well, I, I’m fascinated to join you in June at Beyond.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: Um, same
] Oguo Atuanya: here.
] Vince Menzione: So dates again.
] Oguo Atuanya: Vincent, you put me, I think it’s, uh, June 7th to the ninth.
] Vince Menzione: June 7th to the ninth.
] Oguo Atuanya: And this is, uh, in Salt Lake City. In Salt Lake City
] Vince Menzione: this
] Oguo Atuanya: year.
] Vince Menzione: Salt
] Oguo Atuanya: Lake
] Vince Menzione: year. Yeah. You had it, you had it in a different in Colorado last year
] Oguo Atuanya: we had it in Denver.
] So this is actually, this is actually, um, this is
] Vince Menzione: your hometown,
] Oguo Atuanya: the company. Yeah. This is, this is the mainstream. Beyond. So
] Vince Menzione: I love
] Oguo Atuanya: it. This is a big event.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: Right. ’cause we also have regional events.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Like four or 5,000 people. I think last year
] Oguo Atuanya: it was right around three to 4,000. Three to 4,000 last year.
] I think we’re gonna get, you know, more than that. Yeah. In, in, uh, salt Lake City. Then of course we have, um, a regional beyond. We just had the Em me version in, um, Berlin. Um. Netherlands,
] Vince Menzione: Netherlands
] Oguo Atuanya: after that.
] Vince Menzione: But you did Berlin last year? We
] Oguo Atuanya: did Berlin. Berlin last I knew years ago. Next year we’ll be in, uh, uh, Copenhagen.
] Vince Menzione: Okay.
] Oguo Atuanya: And then we’ll also have, um, uh, Asia version. Nice. Uh, in 27
] Vince Menzione: Milano. Maybe the year after would be good.
] Oguo Atuanya: We, we, we need to arrange, I’ll work with, um, uh, you know, uh, MCEO. Harold.
] Vince Menzione: I love it. I love it.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
] Vince Menzione: Um. I would, uh, so I have one question. I might’ve asked you this question before, but I would love to just ask you now.
] ’cause times have changed. Our lives change, but this is my favorite question. I ask all my guests, especially all my good friends like you, you’re hosting a dinner party and you can host a dinner party anywhere in the world. It might be here, it might be in Houston, it might be in Kenya, it might be anywhere.
] We maybe, maybe it’s in EMEA or AsiaPac. Um. You can invite any three guests from the present or the past to this amazing dinner, whom would you invite? A guo and why?
] Oguo Atuanya: So this one always gets me because
] Vince Menzione: I love that.
] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. So, you know, you and I have talked before, right? So there’s a standing, uh, invitation for my mom, you know, who know?
] Love that. Yes. Swear a while ago.
] Vince Menzione: Yes. Yes.
] Oguo Atuanya: And then, you know, my sister also who
] Vince Menzione: passed
] Oguo Atuanya: away, passed away in May
] Vince Menzione: last year.
] Oguo Atuanya: So I’d love to have this tea because, you know.
] Vince Menzione: Some great conversations. We’ll see how
] Oguo Atuanya: he’s doing and, you know, and check
] Vince Menzione: in with
] Oguo Atuanya: how, how, how things, um, are going and now Wow. This third one,
] Vince Menzione: who’s the third one?
] Oguo Atuanya: This third
] Vince Menzione: one is, he talked about your son a little bit the last couple of days. Yeah. Days. But I don’t think,
] Oguo Atuanya: I don’t think he’s, he wants to be bored.
] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
] Oguo Atuanya: Having, having, um, a dinner with you
] Vince Menzione: and you’ll be there. So now we need to ask add one more
] Oguo Atuanya: person. Yeah. We need to add one more person. I’m thinking about that.
] MSB. Who’s become an MIPI
] Vince Menzione: love it.
] Oguo Atuanya: I
] Vince Menzione: would
] Oguo Atuanya: love to have him at the, or her at the table.
] Vince Menzione: Yes.
] Oguo Atuanya: And, and talk about what that journey was like.
] Vince Menzione: I love it. I love it. Well, that’ll be a fun dinner and I might come by and bring dessert or something.
] Oguo Atuanya: You,
] Vince Menzione: you, you,
] Oguo Atuanya: you’re
] Vince Menzione: always maybe just stop by and say,
] Oguo Atuanya: you’re always welcome.
] Vince Menzione: I’d love to meet your mom and your sister. So
] Oguo Atuanya: thank you Vince.
] Vince Menzione: Um, you are a great friend. I’m so excited to have you here in the room. Your organization is doing incredible things and we love having you as part of ultimate partner in our community. So, so great to see you again, my friend.
] Oguo Atuanya: Appreciate it, Vince.
] It’s always a, a pleasure being here with you and seeing you and, uh, I can’t wait to see you beyond.
] Vince Menzione: I love
] Oguo Atuanya: it folks out there. It’s selling out. So
] Vince Menzione: babe,
] Oguo Atuanya: get our,
] Vince Menzione: get your tickets
] Oguo Atuanya: soon. June 7th to ninth. It’s, uh, the biggest show in the MSU
] Vince Menzione: world. It’s the biggest show. And then we, uh, is also gonna participate, I believe, at our, at our Bellevue event, Bellview Forum, which will be an incredible event.
] Yeah. And May 13th, May 11th, through the 13th. I want to thank you for watching. I wanna thank you for listening to this episode of The Ultimate Eye, to partnering and following our YouTube channel, ultimate Partner, and for being part of our community at Ultimate Partner. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
] Thank you. Don’t forget, ultimate Partner Live is coming soon, may 11 through the 13th in beautiful Bellevue, Washington. I hope to see you there.
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Mastering the shift from MSP to MIP.
Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/
In this insightful episode, Oguo Atuanya, CVP of Vendor Experience at Pax8, joins us to discuss the pivotal evolution in the IT channel: the transition from Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to Managed Intelligence Providers (MIPs). We explore how the marketplace is moving beyond traditional infrastructure support toward a future defined by AI-driven orchestration, business consultancy, and scalable agent-tech organizations. Oguo details how Pax8 is leading this transformation by curating solutions that allow partners to move from transactional service models to life-cycle management that prioritizes measurable ROI for the Small and Medium Business (SMB) market.
Key Takeaways
Pax8 is redefining the role of the distributor by acting as an AI commerce platform for the SMB market.
The shift from Managed Service Provider (MSP) to Managed Intelligence Provider (MIP) is critical for scaling in the modern tech era.
Successful MSPs must evolve into business consultants who integrate AI-driven workflows rather than just selling infrastructure.
Security and automation are foundational elements that every modern MIP must prioritize to ensure scalability for customers.
The “MIP Playbook” provides the curriculum-driven enablement partners need to successfully pivot their business models.
Building strong, end-to-end customer lifecycle management is the key to minimizing churn and maximizing long-term value.
https://youtu.be/c8uCnMJd9bg
If you’re ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins.
Key Tags
Pax8, Managed Intelligence Providers, MIP, AI commerce platform, SMB technology, MSP evolution, AI-driven workflows, agent-first strategy, digital transformation, channel partner strategy, cloud solutions, customer lifecycle management, IT channel innovation, scalable automation, business consultancy, technology architecture, agent store, managed service providers.
Transcript
Oguo Atuanya Audio Episode
[00:00:00] Oguo Atuanya: I, I mean, the ultimate goal is to get that MIP channel as intelligent or even more intelligent and agile than any enterprise IT department.
[00:00:13] Vince Menzione: We just finished Ultimate Partners Winter Retreat here in beautiful Boca to a sold out crowd. Today I’m joined by Dexter Hardy, the founder of Integral for a compelling discussion, a guo. Welcome back,
[00:00:29] Oguo Atuanya: Vince
[00:00:29] Vince Menzione: to the welcome back to the podcast, my friend. So good to see you.
[00:00:33] Oguo Atuanya: Good to see you, my friend. It’s been about, what, two years?
[00:00:35] Vince Menzione: It has been two years, almost two years. Almost two years ago now. And uh, man, this
[00:00:40] Oguo Atuanya: thing is just picking up steam.
[00:00:41] Vince Menzione: It is. We’re having a blast. We were having so much fun. It was
[00:00:44] Oguo Atuanya: awesome.
[00:00:44] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
[00:00:44] Oguo Atuanya: Really awesome.
[00:00:45] Vince Menzione: And you were for context, for people watching and, and listening. Uh, we were here in Boca yesterday for the Ultimate Partner Executive Retreat.
[
[00:01:00] Oguo Atuanya: Yes.
[00:01:01] Vince Menzione: Uh, you were representing Microsoft where you spent 22 years.
[00:01:05] Oguo Atuanya: 22
[00:01:06] Vince Menzione: years.
[00:01:06] Oguo Atuanya: Two years, right. Outta outta Junior Heart.
[00:01:07] Vince Menzione: Amazing. And, uh, tell us, tell us about your journey so far. Uh, almost two years, a year and a half at Pax.
[
[00:01:15] Oguo Atuanya: year and a half.
[00:01:15] Vince Menzione: Yeah,
[00:01:16] Oguo Atuanya: a year and a half.
[00:01:17] Vince Menzione: And tell, tell for our viewers and listeners, uh, your role at Pax eight.
[00:01:21] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:01:22] Vince Menzione: Which is a preeminent company in this space. We used to use the term disty. I’ll let you describe them. Uh, officially
[00:01:29] Oguo Atuanya: No,
[00:01:30] Vince Menzione: because they don’t, you don’t use that term.
[00:01:31] Oguo Atuanya: We’re not, we’re not a distributor.
[00:01:33] Vince Menzione: Yes.
[00:01:33] Oguo Atuanya: Scott Cha would kill me.
[00:01:35] Vince Menzione: That’s right. No, I know, I know. I remember the, uh,
[00:01:38] Oguo Atuanya: the New
[00:01:38] Vince Menzione: York, was it the New York Times article? Yes. Yes.
[00:01:41] Oguo Atuanya: Was kind of a,
[00:01:42] Vince Menzione: that was a launching point coming out. Yeah, yeah.
[00:01:44] Oguo Atuanya: No, we, we, we see ourselves as, um, um, the pre, uh, permanent marketplace. For SMB.
[00:01:52] Vince Menzione: Nice.
[00:01:53] Oguo Atuanya: Right. So you think about the SaaS and the cloud.
[
[00:02:08] Vince Menzione: Yes.
[00:02:08] Oguo Atuanya: Um, AI commerce platform for SMB.
[00:02:13] Vince Menzione: Very interesting.
[00:02:14] Oguo Atuanya: Right. And as we go through the discussion, uh, this afternoon, you’ll see why.
[00:02:20] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
[00:02:21] Oguo Atuanya: That differentiation is
[00:02:23] Vince Menzione: key. I, I love, I love to dive in. I love to dive in. I will say this, I, I think you’ve gotten a lot of people very interested in the community. I mean, certainly your events are becoming bigger and bigger. You’re beyond conference.
[00:02:36] Oguo Atuanya: Next one’s coming up in Salt Lake City
[
[00:02:38] Vince Menzione: June.
[
[00:02:41] Oguo Atuanya: I must have you there.
[00:02:42] Vince Menzione: I will be there and you will, and you will be at our event in May.
[00:02:45] Oguo Atuanya: Absolutely.
[00:02:46] Vince Menzione: Talking about beyond, but also talking about this community. Uh, I’ve also woken up over the last year or so as well and learned a lot about this SMB community and ms, what we call MSBs.
[
[00:03:04] Oguo Atuanya: It’s huge.
[00:03:05] Vince Menzione: And, um, I would say that, uh, yeah, we can talk, we’ll talk, we’ll just talk through it. ’cause it is huge. Yeah. There’s a lot of things that need to be done.
[00:03:12] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:03:13] Vince Menzione: And I think, I think PAX eight is, uh, at the forefront in driving a lot of this.
[
[00:03:23] Oguo Atuanya: being great partners.
[00:03:24] Vince Menzione: Been great, great partners. Yeah. We’ll talk about your role with Microsoft in that regard.
[00:03:28] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:03:28] Vince Menzione: But talk, let’s talk about this evolution too. Let’s, uh, so for those who are listening, who are used to maybe us talking about a SaaS software company Yep.
[
[00:03:53] Oguo Atuanya: provider in, in the past, they’re getting bigger.
[00:03:54] Vince Menzione: And then Yes. One of the big
[00:03:55] Oguo Atuanya: ones, y say
[00:03:56] Vince Menzione: Nexus Tech. We had Yes.
[00:03:57] Oguo Atuanya: Partners of ours.
[00:03:58] Vince Menzione: Nexus Techs, new Charter.
[00:04:01] Oguo Atuanya: Charter, Michelle
[00:04:02] Vince Menzione: Evergreen, I could Ira Lyra. Yeah. They’re, they’re becoming bigger and bigger. Private equity is getting involved. What’s important, what’s important to note too is that the customer is driving this because customers are requiring more and it’s no longer about, and my my point of view is it’s no longer about loading up software and just letting it go.
[00:04:22] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:04:23] Vince Menzione: You need to be hands-on all the time.
[00:04:24] Oguo Atuanya: Abs. Absolutely. And, and
[00:04:26] Vince Menzione: yeah,
[00:04:26] Oguo Atuanya: kind of skating towards that park of, um. MIP?
[00:04:31] Vince Menzione: Yes. Let’s talk about MIP
[00:04:33] Oguo Atuanya: managed intelligence providers.
[00:04:35] Vince Menzione: So last year, year Beyond conference, I believe you launched this like new in I, we’ll call the new nomenclature or the new name, or this new thing.
[
[00:04:48] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:04:49] Vince Menzione: So talk about the managed intelligence provider for us.
[00:04:52] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. Wow. When it happened In Beyond Or at? Beyond, I should say. Um. We thought it’d catch on because it’s apt. I mean, it’s, it’s sort of indicative of what’s happening now and what will happen over the next 24 months, but, uh, the sort of migration towards this and the marketplace has been immense.
[
[00:05:36] Vince Menzione: Yep.
[00:05:36] Oguo Atuanya: Right.
[00:05:37] Vince Menzione: They would hook up your network and your printer. In the old days, they fix your, fix your computers.
[
[00:05:46] Oguo Atuanya: and, and also provide some very manual services delivery, which will now play. In this new era that we are actually, I shouldn’t say going into, it’s taking all,
[00:06:00] Vince Menzione: we’re, we’re there,
[00:06:00] Oguo Atuanya: we’re there right now. So, um, you know, they, they, I guess the transformation from MSP to MIP others partners that would actually become managed intelligence providers.
[
[00:06:23] Vince Menzione: so double click on that for,
[00:06:25] Oguo Atuanya: for
[00:06:25] Vince Menzione: our
[00:06:26] Oguo Atuanya: viewers. Yeah. So all really means is that you’re moving from being that, you know
[00:06:29] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
[00:06:30] Oguo Atuanya: Technology, infrastructure, tools, provider to, you know, becoming an, an orchestrator and a and a and a business consultant.
[00:06:38] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
[00:06:38] Oguo Atuanya: Right. For you. SMB. Right. So important. ’cause you have to now get into, uh, very secure, streamlined automated AI driven workflows to help them.
[00:06:52] Vince Menzione: All driven in the cloud. Everything’s in the cloud now, as opposed to the old days. Right. On premise.
[00:06:58] Oguo Atuanya: All gone. None. That’s happening. It’s all gone. All gone. Yeah.
[
[
[
[00:07:50] Vince Menzione: Huge shift.
[00:07:51] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:07:52] Vince Menzione: And it was interesting for me being at the, where you talked about the write of Boom conference that you, were you, your organization was there? Yeah, I was there as well and I was in the room with some of the Microsoft folks and we had some of those larger partners we talked about
[00:08:07] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:08:08] Vince Menzione: That were in the room as well. And just, uh, different perspectives too. Like I hadn’t heard it firsthand. It was interesting for Microsoft too, to get that feedback from. From some of them as well. Um, I think, I think the ones that are progressive are already on board with you. I’ve, I’ve already talked to some of those organizations, like, oh, we’re a hundred percent Pax eight, that’s it.
[
[00:08:38] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:08:39] Vince Menzione: Tell
[00:08:39] Oguo Atuanya: us
[00:08:39] Vince Menzione: about that.
[00:08:40] Oguo Atuanya: There are, I mean, listen, I, I don’t, you know, wanna put a number. You know what we’re seeing.
[
[00:08:56] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
[00:08:56] Oguo Atuanya: Right. The others we’re gonna have to,
[00:08:59] Vince Menzione: there’ll be the laggards that’ll
[00:09:00] Oguo Atuanya: take longer and let me just, you know, sort of rephrase that state. Most of them understand, you know, what the opportunity is with this whole Yeah.
[00:09:14] Vince Menzione: You
[00:09:15] Oguo Atuanya: know. They’re still struggling with being able to, you know, articulate this story, um, from a value prop perspective, right? You know, go in, talk to the SMBs, help the SMBs understand how, you know, they can be more productive, more efficient, and um, ultimately more profitable and scale, um, with an agent, you know, framework.
[
[00:09:54] Vince Menzione: So tell us, understand that. Tell us what you’re doing. I believe you, you stood up like academies and things like that, right? You’re doing some outreach, some enablement for the community?
[
[00:10:03] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah, we we’re heavy, we’re heavy in, um, enablement. Um, because, you know, everyone realizes that. To be successful with this whole campaign. It’s not just about putting agents up in an agent store, real, SMB, you know, native, um, vertical aware agents that actually, you know, when you deploy it in an SMB business, right, they drive value right away,
[00:10:37] Vince Menzione: right?
[00:10:38] Oguo Atuanya: Right. So, but we also realize that it’s not just about, you know, landing the agents in the marketplace, but enablement is a huge factor. That’s why when you go back to things, you know, like academy, uh, the MIP playbook, uh, some of the, uh, inculcation integrations we we’re doing with, um, partners, really critical to have that enablement layer.
[00:11:04] Vince Menzione: Interesting.
[00:11:04] Oguo Atuanya: Along with providing the agents and the, in the agents store.
[00:11:07] Vince Menzione: Who’s developing these agents in the agent store? Are they providers for the MSP community? Are they organizations like Take, take us through that model.
[00:11:17] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. So they, they, they, because
[00:11:18] Vince Menzione: you, you manage all the vendors.
[00:11:20] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah, I do. Right?
[00:11:21] Vince Menzione: I do. So tell us more about that.
[00:11:22] Oguo Atuanya: I do. So it’s, it’s multifold, right? Um, one fold is you have prebuilt solutions that you know vendors.
[00:11:30] Vince Menzione: Yep.
[00:11:30] Oguo Atuanya: Built for, you know, SMBs and they’re directed towards SMBs. Then you also have a second category, uh, sorry, category of solutions that are more tools that MSBs use.
[
[00:11:54] Vince Menzione: interesting the
[00:11:55] Oguo Atuanya: vendor department, uh, into providing, you know, solutions. That we can land in the, in the agent store.
[00:12:03] Vince Menzione: That’s fascinating. So, yeah. So you have, so you have a standalone product or a standalone solution or agent.
[
[00:12:14] Oguo Atuanya: Yes.
[00:12:15] Vince Menzione: Yes. That’s fascinating.
[00:12:17] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. It’s um, it’s sort of a three flying approach that, um, the market needs, right? Yeah. And that, that’s key. By the way, Vince, when you know, um. You’re developing these agents and these solutions.
[
[00:12:38] Vince Menzione: Yes.
[00:12:38] Oguo Atuanya: Right. So they have to address a specific outcome. They have to be, you know, uh, valuable. You have to show the ROI and for these SMBs. Don’t have a lot of wiggle room.
[00:12:53] Vince Menzione: So you, that they’re smaller companies, right?
[
[00:13:03] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:13:03] Vince Menzione: Uh, you’ve gotta be very sensitive to that in this, in this market, this size market. And even the MSPs are, even though there are some that are much larger, there’s still a lot of smaller MSPs out there.
[00:13:14] Oguo Atuanya: And, and coming to the MIP playbook, um, what partners don’t need anymore. Um, it’s hype.
[00:13:23] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
[00:13:24] Oguo Atuanya: They need an almost curriculum driven approach, right. To landing this initiative and infrastructure and also managing it long term. Yeah. So that’s what the MIP playbook does.
[00:13:39] Vince Menzione: So you were an executive at Microsoft.
[
[00:13:49] Oguo Atuanya: I I did manage the large resellers. At
[00:13:51] Vince Menzione: large resellers. So at one point, and you also had the Disti at one time?
[00:13:54] Oguo Atuanya: At one point I had the Disti, the telco, the domain providers.
[00:13:58] Vince Menzione: Yes. The large resellers. I remember when we first met, yes. I think that was when,
[00:14:00] Oguo Atuanya: yes.
[00:14:00] Vince Menzione: Yes. And so when you came, PAX eight is a very strong Microsoft partner. You were, again, I mentioned you were the launch partner or one of the launch partners for the marketplace.
[00:14:09] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:14:09] Vince Menzione: But talk about the role and the relationship with Microsoft and the value that PAX eight provides for this market, uh, kind of layering between, uh, the Microsoft components and, and the SMB market.
[00:14:24] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. Does that
[00:14:24] Vince Menzione: make sense?
[00:14:25] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. So, so Microsoft has always been. Um, keen on the SMB segment, um, you know, Jose Gomez and Company in the Americas, and folks like, um, Alison West Hughes from a core perspective that, yeah, they’re very serious about this SMB segment. And, um, I’d say the key difference with Microsoft is Microsoft realized early.
[
[00:15:01] Vince Menzione: yes.
[00:15:01] Oguo Atuanya: Oriented company. I realized earlier that you really can’t scale cost efficiently by having a direct SMB business, right? Right. You have to go through the channel.
[00:15:14] Vince Menzione: They’re what, 160,000 MSPs or ips?
[00:15:19] Oguo Atuanya: Um, for us at pax,
[00:15:21] Vince Menzione: I think for the world.
[00:15:22] Oguo Atuanya: Uh, yes.
[00:15:22] Vince Menzione: Somewhere the world around there. The world, yeah. You would have to reach all those companies individually, which Yeah, you’d
[00:15:27] Oguo Atuanya: have to, well, I mean, even then the, there’s the Ians of SMBs
[00:15:31] Vince Menzione: Yes. In worldwide. Yes. That’s right. Right. At at the customer level. The pyramid is huge. You can’t,
[00:15:35] Oguo Atuanya: you can’t really scale.
[
[00:15:38] Vince Menzione: Yes.
[00:15:39] Oguo Atuanya: And, um, I think, I think the relationship between Microsoft and PAX has just. Strengthened over time because Microsoft sees, if we go back to that definition of a, you know, distributor versus a marketplace and a platform provider stuff. So we’re seeing the difference.
[
[00:16:26] Vince Menzione: Absolutely.
[00:16:26] Oguo Atuanya: Right. Um, you just can’t, what we talked about earlier, just transact a solution and then walk away. It’s, it’s, uh, it’s, um, it, it’s, it’s really a sustainable end-to-end, you know, customer life cycle management approach. When you’re dealing with them.
[00:16:44] Vince Menzione: I think it’s important here too, and, and again for the maturity model of our listeners and viewers, it might be at different levels of understanding about the, about the model.
[
[00:17:12] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:17:12] Vince Menzione: And And delivery, basically.
[
[00:17:15] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:17:16] Vince Menzione: And that’s how that they were intermediaries on some of that.
[00:17:19] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:17:20] Vince Menzione: But PAX eight evolved at a later time.
[00:17:22] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:17:23] Vince Menzione: More modern time, I would say in the cloud. Yeah.
[00:17:25] Oguo Atuanya: PAX eight. So one in the cloud, if you will.
[00:17:28] Vince Menzione: And I think that’s maybe a differentiation and this new model that it also feels to like this MSP community has been coming along.
[
[00:17:46] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. Listen. Um, as you know, I dealt or engaged with PAX eight for a while before joining PAX eight.
[00:17:54] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
[00:17:55] Oguo Atuanya: I’d engaged with p fact fact pxi, funnily enough was the first meeting I had, um, when I came back from the uk.
[00:18:02] Vince Menzione: Is that
[00:18:02] Oguo Atuanya: right? Yeah. During my stint running, um. Um, devices, uh, sales organization for Microsoft. The first meeting I had coming back into the Americas was so P Aid and Nick Hedy and, uh, Ryan Walsh and, oh, that’s so funny. Joke about it. By the way, Ryan Walsh all has a prep, uh, notes study, you know, he got ready for the media.
[00:18:26] Vince Menzione: Oh, that is hilarious. I met Ryan. Uh, we were on stage together at a channel partners a couple years ago.
[
[00:18:32] Oguo Atuanya: miss his energy.
[00:18:33] Vince Menzione: He can’t
[00:18:33] Oguo Atuanya: miss his energy.
[00:18:34] Vince Menzione: Such great energy.
[00:18:35] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. But, but listen, I think if I could just sum it in a, you know, in a, um, a framework or a box. The key difference between PAC sales is we look at engaging with MSPs in SMB, um, from a customer lifecycle management.
[
[
[
[00:19:53] Vince Menzione: And you act as the, well see, we’re gonna use technical terms here.
[
[00:20:10] Oguo Atuanya: Well, we, so we, we are the first tier of that, you know, two tier
[00:20:14] Vince Menzione: Exactly.
[00:20:15] Oguo Atuanya: Model. So we, we,
[00:20:16] Vince Menzione: you’re tier one
[00:20:17] Oguo Atuanya: Microsoft.
[00:20:18] Vince Menzione: Yep.
[00:20:19] Oguo Atuanya: Right. We, you know, as an existing might press on an example, it could be one of our other vendors, like, you know, um, any of the 150 vendors we have. We engage with them, we enable the um, MSP, who’s the resell, who’s really in the traditional sense, the reseller layer, much more valuable in terms of what they do.
[00:20:41] Vince Menzione: That’s right.
[00:20:41] Oguo Atuanya: And then. The MSP engages with, uh, the end customer. So that’s kind of what the flow is.
[00:20:47] Vince Menzione: Yep. Yeah. And that’s one component of what they do for the customer. The transaction is a one one and done sort of.
[00:20:53] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:20:53] Vince Menzione: But then it’s all the managed services and layering Oh, provide on top of it. And then all the other solutions say 150 platforms.
[00:21:00] Oguo Atuanya: Uh, 150 vendors.
[00:21:01] Vince Menzione: Vendors, yeah. So hundreds of platforms that are available to the customer for
[00:21:07] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:21:07] Vince Menzione: Through taxane.
[00:21:08] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. But, but lemme just emphasize that especially. We are going actually where we are. Right. Um, again, it starts, it starts way to the left of the continuum than just driving the transaction.
[00:21:23] Vince Menzione: So take us through the continuum then.
[00:21:25] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah, that’s what I said earlier, the continuum is, you know, helping this, helping with
[00:21:28] Vince Menzione: acquisition, customer acquisition,
[00:21:30] Oguo Atuanya: even, you know, prior to that it’s, it’s helped. We’re getting to a point now where we’re helping these MSPs and they should all be able to do that during the MIP era.
[00:21:38] Vince Menzione: Yep.
[00:21:39] Oguo Atuanya: Understand the market they’re playing it. Yeah. Understand, you know, the market, their SMBs are in, understand their verticals or their scenarios so that you can actually build, you know, this precision, outcome driven, you know, solutions.
[00:21:52] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
[00:21:52] Oguo Atuanya: Right. That, that’s the beginning and then you sell and acquire.
[
[00:22:14] Vince Menzione: you’re not making any money. You’re really not making,
[00:22:16] Oguo Atuanya: it’s not churn.
[00:22:16] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
[00:22:17] Oguo Atuanya: Right. And then they have to keep an eye on, when renewals come about, there has to be a healthy T minus period. Right. Um, so ensure that you renew during renewals. Um, that’s actually when we then look at, Hey, what’s your stack look like? Right. Especially with the agent era, right? Do you have everything you need?
[
[00:22:55] Vince Menzione: Oh, I, I hear. Talk and, you know, I talk to different people in the industry about the SMBs, the MSPs in the SM B market, uh, that some of these organizations are very much, they’re very technical.
[
[00:23:19] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:23:19] Vince Menzione: Do you help them also with selecting like, how do they think about their organizational structure to have the right people in the right seats and those types of
[00:23:26] Oguo Atuanya: things and that, that’s, that’s,
[00:23:27] Vince Menzione: yeah.
[00:23:27] Oguo Atuanya: All what the MIP playbook, that’s, and the process is all about Nice. It’s, it’s, Hey, how do we expand your horizon, you know, beyond just providing the technical aspect things, how do you understand the business? How do you go about conversations to discover, right, your, uh, SMB, right? And once you discover, how do you go about architecting, you know, a value framework that includes, you know, maybe looking at the organization and suggesting agents and then, you know, when you land them, right?
[
[00:24:08] Vince Menzione: Make transit, become business
[00:24:09] Oguo Atuanya: consultants.
[00:24:09] Vince Menzione: Right, exactly. Which is what they need to do.
[00:24:11] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. The, in this era, you really need to understand what your SMB is doing because, you know, think about it for the longest, this sort sub, you know, consultative approaches were only sort of reserved for enterprise.
[00:24:26] Vince Menzione: Yeah, that’s right.
[00:24:27] Oguo Atuanya: But when you look at how, you know, the solutions that we sell, I change, they’re really enterprise solutions now that are in SMB. Right. You have to sell that way. You have to engage that way. Right? So that, that’s, that’s a key differentiator between being an MSP and an MIP, bringing that intelligence into you applying, you know, an intelligent workflow to the way your SMB conduct that, sorry, conducts their business.
[00:24:56] Vince Menzione: So tell, take me through, uh, what the ideal MMSP or MIP looks like to you. Like what is the. The, the top of the top and to the right. And then where do you see the challenges? Why do some organizations or, or, ’cause I’m sure there are some that struggle, whether it’s 10%, 20%.
[00:25:14] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:25:15] Vince Menzione: Because it’s, it’s, it’s a continuum.
[
[00:25:21] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. So
[00:25:21] Vince Menzione: what do you see from the challenges they need to overcome and, yeah, so, so the,
[00:25:25] Oguo Atuanya: the, the optimal MSP looks like what we just described, right? Yeah. Right. You have an organization that thinks through the process that way, set up.
[
[00:25:34] Vince Menzione: And they become an ongoing consultant. They help them through the process. They understand ai. Right. This is another thing too, right? Organizations, I mean, are struggling right now with their
[00:25:43] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:25:44] Vince Menzione: Their people.
[00:25:45] Oguo Atuanya: It’s gotta be the baseline.
[00:25:47] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
[00:25:47] Oguo Atuanya: You know, these days, understanding ai, understanding the agent, you know, journey.
[
[00:26:13] Vince Menzione: secure.
[00:26:16] Oguo Atuanya: So, so security is key here,
[00:26:20] Vince Menzione: right? I keep thinking about Claude, what’s happened just in the last several weeks. Yeah. In our industry with people putting things up on, through, through open browsers.
[
[00:26:29] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:26:29] Vince Menzione: To Claude and to. Different tools.
[00:26:31] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:26:32] Vince Menzione: And if you’re an SM B and you’re trying to lock down your environment’s, don’t want, that’s, you don’t want your data exposed.
[00:26:37] Oguo Atuanya: That’s why security is
[00:26:38] Vince Menzione: huge,
[00:26:39] Oguo Atuanya: is key. But, you know, one of the things we recommend is start very specific. Uh, it could be a bundle that includes, you know, could be co-pilot, could be some other AI pillar.
[
[00:26:57] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
[00:26:58] Oguo Atuanya: Uh, to that. Then there has to be an enablement, you know, services layer to that as well, right? So, um, you build secure, um, you land, uh, and then skills develop key, right? And then monetization. You have to be able to hit those levels, uh, to be able to survive in this world.
[
[00:27:27] Vince Menzione: Yes. At margins,
[00:27:30] Oguo Atuanya: flat margins. So the tool, the tool sprawl, um, is what takes a lot of margins away.
[00:27:37] Vince Menzione: Yes.
[00:27:37] Oguo Atuanya: From the equation.
[00:27:38] Vince Menzione: Right? Tell, tell us about that. ’cause I, I, I remember even back in my Microsoft days, yeah, we would go in and, and have partners that were successful that would say.
[
[00:28:04] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. Nobody, nobody, especially in SB, nobody wants any more tools.
[00:28:08] Vince Menzione: No, I can
[00:28:09] Oguo Atuanya: imagine. Um, you, you’ve gotta sort of assemble this thing into a platform that works.
[00:28:14] Vince Menzione: Yep.
[00:28:15] Oguo Atuanya: Right. And it’s gotta be repeatable. If it’s not repeatable, then you’re not driving the frequency. Right. It’s gotta be scalable. Um, ’cause if it’s scalable, then you’re going into, um, that kind of sprawl where people start thinking they need to replace gaps with more tools.
[
[00:28:34] Vince Menzione: And that creates more vulnerability by putting
[00:28:36] Oguo Atuanya: Absolutely.
[00:28:37] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
[00:28:37] Oguo Atuanya: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s
[00:28:39] Vince Menzione: fascinating. So
[00:28:40] Oguo Atuanya: it’s, it’s a different, um. Sort of engagement and I, I’m refraining from saying it to different kind of sell because the connotation of sell is you transact and you’re gone. It’s a full lifecycle engagement model.
[
[00:28:56] Vince Menzione: I think what you’re doing is you’re enabling the evolution of this market.
[00:29:01] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah,
[00:29:01] Vince Menzione: that’s the way I would say it.
[00:29:02] Oguo Atuanya: Well, that, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do with, um, the shift from MSP to MIP is. Um, we’re driving the transformation in SMB.
[00:29:12] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
[00:29:13] Oguo Atuanya: I, I mean, the ultimate goal is to get that MIP channel as intelligent or even more intelligent and agile than any enterprise IT department.
[
[00:29:24] Vince Menzione: they are ones, the enterprise IT department
[00:29:26] Oguo Atuanya: for that customer. Yeah. The, the word trusted advisor is gonna take a very, you know, it’s
[00:29:31] Vince Menzione: fascinating,
[00:29:31] Oguo Atuanya: more serious connotation in this space. Because the SMBs are dependent on you as the MMIP for that.
[00:29:39] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Let’s talk, we, we had a session on marketplace yesterday.
[00:29:42] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:29:43] Vince Menzione: Um, you have been a great driver now through, especially through this new program, the new unified marketplace.
[00:29:50] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:29:50] Vince Menzione: Uh, PAX eight is stood, stood above and beyond and doubled sales, I think is what I thought I heard. Take, take us through some of the,
[00:29:58] Oguo Atuanya: well, I mean, uh, uh, a marketplace. Uh, marketplace sales has grown exponentially,
[00:30:04] Vince Menzione: exponentially,
[00:30:04] Oguo Atuanya: right?
[
[
[
[
[
[00:32:14] Vince Menzione: solutions. Solutions that are
[00:32:15] Oguo Atuanya: being forced down into SMB.
[
[00:32:29] Vince Menzione: What is, what is the curation process for? Um, I’m an SMB customer. I come to the MSP. And you help at your marketplace level, it sounds like you help design what the right solution is.
[00:32:42] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:32:42] Vince Menzione: So what, tell, take us through that process real quick.
[00:32:45] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. So, um, you know, we have a set of folks internally. Along with our PXI labs people.
[00:32:52] Vince Menzione: Okay.
[00:32:53] Oguo Atuanya: When we’re actually intaking, you know? So
[00:32:56] Vince Menzione: you’re using AI as well on that side of Yeah. We use AI Doing your discovery process for the customers. Yes.
[
[00:33:02] Oguo Atuanya: AI as well. It, it uses ai, the rules that are being written into it, you know,
[00:33:06] Vince Menzione: it
[00:33:06] Oguo Atuanya: processes, Hey, it’s gotta be applicable from an SMB perspective. Right. This
[00:33:10] Vince Menzione: is very cool.
[00:33:11] Oguo Atuanya: Right. So, um, you know, we, we do that, we ensure that it’s, um. It’s applicable. There’s no guesswork. Right. Then we put it on the, um, on the agent store.
[
[00:33:36] Vince Menzione: this is fascinating.
[00:33:37] Oguo Atuanya: It’s a very curated process.
[00:33:39] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So for, um, the market, the MSP market or MIP market that are watching and listening today, and maybe they’re not with PAX eight yet.
[
[
[00:34:18] Oguo Atuanya: It’s, it’s really refrain from Yeah. Selling just tools and infrastructure. Yeah.
[00:34:30] Vince Menzione: Which is the way a lot of them have been structured. That’s right.
[
[00:34:33] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. Think about
[00:34:34] Vince Menzione: they’ve gone down a road with a vendor because they got great margins for some reason.
[00:34:37] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. So understand your customer, the space they’re playing and how you can build, you know, solutions, uh, for them. Be specific vis-a-vis the solutions that you’re building. Right.
[
[00:35:18] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Predictable
[00:35:18] Oguo Atuanya: solution. Make it repeatable, make it. Scalable. Emphasize on the upscale and enablement right, and focus on the monetization. Understand exactly how you’re gonna articulate the value add and the ROI. To
[00:35:40] Vince Menzione: To the customer.
[00:35:41] Oguo Atuanya: The SMB.
[00:35:41] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
[00:35:42] Oguo Atuanya: Because that’s where a lot of folks struggle, right. They still cannot do all that,
[00:35:47] Vince Menzione: and they get stuck on the cost to the customer.
[
[00:35:55] Oguo Atuanya: Well, they’re not selling outcomes.
[00:35:57] Vince Menzione: They’re not selling outcomes. They’re selling,
[00:35:58] Oguo Atuanya: they’re trying to piece together tools.
[00:36:00] Vince Menzione: Hot
[00:36:00] Oguo Atuanya: and hot
[00:36:01] Vince Menzione: tools,
[00:36:01] Oguo Atuanya: spot applications.
[00:36:02] Vince Menzione: Tools, tools is the best way to
[00:36:03] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:36:04] Vince Menzione: To describe it
[00:36:04] Oguo Atuanya: to
[00:36:05] Vince Menzione: the
[00:36:05] Oguo Atuanya: company and all else spills come to Pax it.
[
[00:36:09] Vince Menzione: Well, I, I’m fascinated to join you in June at Beyond.
[00:36:13] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:36:13] Vince Menzione: Um, same
[00:36:15] Oguo Atuanya: here.
[00:36:15] Vince Menzione: So dates again.
[00:36:18] Oguo Atuanya: Vincent, you put me, I think it’s, uh, June 7th to the ninth.
[00:36:21] Vince Menzione: June 7th to the ninth.
[00:36:22] Oguo Atuanya: And this is, uh, in Salt Lake City. In Salt Lake City
[00:36:25] Vince Menzione: this
[00:36:25] Oguo Atuanya: year.
[00:36:25] Vince Menzione: Salt
[00:36:25] Oguo Atuanya: Lake
[00:36:26] Vince Menzione: year. Yeah. You had it, you had it in a different in Colorado last year
[00:36:28] Oguo Atuanya: we had it in Denver.
[
[00:36:32] Vince Menzione: your hometown,
[00:36:33] Oguo Atuanya: the company. Yeah. This is, this is the mainstream. Beyond. So
[00:36:36] Vince Menzione: I love
[00:36:37] Oguo Atuanya: it. This is a big event.
[00:36:38] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
[00:36:38] Oguo Atuanya: Right. ’cause we also have regional events.
[00:36:40] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Like four or 5,000 people. I think last year
[00:36:43] Oguo Atuanya: it was right around three to 4,000. Three to 4,000 last year.
[
[00:36:56] Vince Menzione: Netherlands
[00:36:57] Oguo Atuanya: after that.
[00:36:57] Vince Menzione: But you did Berlin last year? We
[00:36:59] Oguo Atuanya: did Berlin. Berlin last I knew years ago. Next year we’ll be in, uh, uh, Copenhagen.
[00:37:03] Vince Menzione: Okay.
[00:37:03] Oguo Atuanya: And then we’ll also have, um, uh, Asia version. Nice. Uh, in 27
[00:37:08] Vince Menzione: Milano. Maybe the year after would be good.
[00:37:11] Oguo Atuanya: We, we, we need to arrange, I’ll work with, um, uh, you know, uh, MCEO. Harold.
[00:37:16] Vince Menzione: I love it. I love it.
[00:37:17] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah.
[00:37:17] Vince Menzione: Um. I would, uh, so I have one question. I might’ve asked you this question before, but I would love to just ask you now.
[
[
[00:37:55] Oguo Atuanya: So this one always gets me because
[00:37:58] Vince Menzione: I love that.
[00:37:59] Oguo Atuanya: Yeah. So, you know, you and I have talked before, right? So there’s a standing, uh, invitation for my mom, you know, who know?
[
[00:38:07] Vince Menzione: Yes. Yes.
[00:38:07] Oguo Atuanya: And then, you know, my sister also who
[00:38:09] Vince Menzione: passed
[00:38:10] Oguo Atuanya: away, passed away in May
[00:38:10] Vince Menzione: last year.
[00:38:11] Oguo Atuanya: So I’d love to have this tea because, you know.
[00:38:14] Vince Menzione: Some great conversations. We’ll see how
[00:38:15] Oguo Atuanya: he’s doing and, you know, and check
[00:38:17] Vince Menzione: in with
[00:38:17] Oguo Atuanya: how, how, how things, um, are going and now Wow. This third one,
[00:38:24] Vince Menzione: who’s the third one?
[00:38:26] Oguo Atuanya: This third
[00:38:26] Vince Menzione: one is, he talked about your son a little bit the last couple of days. Yeah. Days. But I don’t think,
[00:38:30] Oguo Atuanya: I don’t think he’s, he wants to be bored.
[00:38:33] Vince Menzione: Yeah.
[00:38:33] Oguo Atuanya: Having, having, um, a dinner with you
[00:38:35] Vince Menzione: and you’ll be there. So now we need to ask add one more
[00:38:38] Oguo Atuanya: person. Yeah. We need to add one more person. I’m thinking about that.
[
[00:38:46] Vince Menzione: love it.
[00:38:47] Oguo Atuanya: I
[00:38:47] Vince Menzione: would
[00:38:47] Oguo Atuanya: love to have him at the, or her at the table.
[00:38:50] Vince Menzione: Yes.
[00:38:51] Oguo Atuanya: And, and talk about what that journey was like.
[00:38:53] Vince Menzione: I love it. I love it. Well, that’ll be a fun dinner and I might come by and bring dessert or something.
[00:38:58] Oguo Atuanya: You,
[00:38:58] Vince Menzione: you, you,
[00:38:59] Oguo Atuanya: you’re
[00:38:59] Vince Menzione: always maybe just stop by and say,
[00:39:00] Oguo Atuanya: you’re always welcome.
[00:39:01] Vince Menzione: I’d love to meet your mom and your sister. So
[00:39:03] Oguo Atuanya: thank you Vince.
[00:39:04] Vince Menzione: Um, you are a great friend. I’m so excited to have you here in the room. Your organization is doing incredible things and we love having you as part of ultimate partner in our community. So, so great to see you again, my friend.
[00:39:18] Oguo Atuanya: Appreciate it, Vince.
[
[00:39:24] Vince Menzione: I love
[00:39:24] Oguo Atuanya: it folks out there. It’s selling out. So
[00:39:26] Vince Menzione: babe,
[00:39:27] Oguo Atuanya: get our,
[00:39:27] Vince Menzione: get your tickets
[00:39:28] Oguo Atuanya: soon. June 7th to ninth. It’s, uh, the biggest show in the MSU
[00:39:31] Vince Menzione: world. It’s the biggest show. And then we, uh, is also gonna participate, I believe, at our, at our Bellevue event, Bellview Forum, which will be an incredible event.
[
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