Pax8 Academy launches in ANZ to provide MSP business training

US-headquartered cloud distributor Pax8 has announced the availability of Pax8 Academy to MSP partners in Australia and New Zealand.

Pax8 Academy includes on-demand learning involving access to virtual courses and a resource library, as well as instructor-led courses which aim to solve business problems with virtual, interactive courses. The program also allows partners to choose what they want to learn.

The launch follows Pax8’s acquisition of Asia-Pacific business of IT services training provider Sea-Level Operations in April as part of the company’s expansion in the region.

“We simplify the cloud-buying journey for our partners, and we pair that with world-class education offered through Pax8 Academy that fuels partner growth and offers expertise every step of the way. Pax8 Academy is the secret sauce to partner success, and we are thrilled to offer it in the Australian and New Zealand markets,” Pax8 chief executive officer APAC Chris Sharp said.

“The focus of Pax8 is on our partners and enabling them to discover new ways to become successful – through operational efficiencies, education, automation, and enablement.”

Pax8 said Pax8 Academy has coached some 9000 MSPs globally, saying partners have seen an average growth of 100 percent over a six month-period. Its coaches have a collective 600 years of experience total. 

The academy also involves peer groups, which allows partners to gain insights from other MSPs facilitated by industry experts. Pax8 Academy also includes business coaching involving customised success road mapping, objective guidance, and accountability from MSP coaches.

Pax8 Academy director for Asia James Davis told CRN that he is in charge of partner education, focusing on "how to enable a partner to grow to reduce risk in their businesses and increase their efficiencies as well, so that they're more much more sustainable”.

“Our courses, which we're delivering a couple this month, are aimed at point in time information for the partners to help them with a specific challenge. We've got a service management course where we're teaching the fundamentals of service management to our partners, and we're doing delivering one on CIS controls, so how to implement better security practices based on a framework.”

“In the peer groups we're creating a community for peers to learn off each other and create partnerships and look for acquisition targets, or potentially look for those acquirers and create a different kind of community down here in this part of the world."

Davis added it was important for MSPs to stay up to date with training and industry news “because the industry is going through so much disruption and we are needing to change our business models, and if you don't know where the industry is heading you are going be left behind very quickly.”

Following the potential implementation of the Small Business Technology Investment Boost and Small Business Skills and Training Boost, Pax8 Academy plan to release “more initiatives, specifically to help drive partners to help their clients at the end of the day.”

Townsville IT company ADITS’ managing director Ashley Darwen said, “We made the switch to Pax8 because they listen to our business challenges and create new paths for growth.”

“We feel as if our business has been lacking in some operational maturity for years, and we are excited to have a partner in Pax8 academy who cares about our business and offers the support we need to thrive.”

Next year, Pax8 is hosting its first-ever conference, Beyond 2023 in Denver, USA, with 1500 attendees, with hopes to empower partners.

In October, Pax8 named James Bergl as its next VP of sales in ANZ and Tracy Lacewell as its new VP of corporate projects in APAC.

During August, Pax8 scored agreements with cloud services vendors BitTitan, Call2Teams, Liongard, Nerdio and Printix to provide them to APAC managed services providers over its cloud marketplace.

In May this year, Pax8 announced it had signed up some 100 managed service providers in Australia and New Zealand to use its partner enablement platform, despite having only officially launched in ANZ early this year.