Australian IT channel identity James Davis has parted ways with Pax8 and struck out on his own as an advisor to Asia-Pacific technology solution partners.
In doing so, Davis is returning to his small business roots. “It was a special time, but it is time to get back to where I am happiest, and that is #smallbusiness working directly with leading Technology Services Businesses in the APAC region,” he said in a LinkedIn post.
Davis praised the “awesome” Pax8 Academy team and described being one of the founding employees in APAC as a “great privilege”.
He said the Pax8 Academy was "a crazy ride" and also fun, but “global corporate isn't my thing so it was the right time to move on”.
Pax8's APAC CEO Chris Sharp said that "Over the past three years, James Davis has been a driving force behind the success of Pax8 Academy in APAC, turning it into a powerhouse of innovation and knowledge for partners across the region. His vision didn’t just elevate Pax8 — it transformed how our partners grow and succeed."
"While it’s hard to imagine Pax8 without him, we’re excited to see what’s next for James as he takes on new challenges.”
Davis’s new venture is The TSP Advisory, which aims to help managed service providers (MSPs) transform their business models.
This includes helping value-added resellers to become technology brokers and advising clients how to grow in a modern environment, he told CRN Australia.
The business has a number of MSP partners as clients. Its sweet spot is clients with 30-70 seats.
Profitability a “huge issue”
Davis pointed to several challenges he saw MSPs facing.
“Profitability is a huge issue – the average margin is six per cent," he said.
Customer churn "is the highest I've ever seen.”
Sales is seen as a “dirty word” by “traditionally technical” business owners, in Davis’s view, resulting in reactive businesses reliant on taking orders.
“Clients want us proactively advising them on what they should do, and this requires sales and marketing to be scalable,” he said.
MSPs from a technical background aren't always able to communicate software and hardware lifecycles to clients, in his view.
"There's money to be made elevating yourself to a business advisory level, giving advice on governance and providing a structure to grow," Davis said.
"It's no longer a matter of keeping the lights on; nowadays, the tech generally just works," he added.
"Your mindset needs to change, and there's a glut of new plays," Davis said.
He saw a “a huge shift in the type of projects that we are doing”, which has typically been “lift and shift/behind the scenes technical work that doesn't impact end users”.
Cloud adoption and the dispersion of workforces has reduced SMBs’ infrastructure, decreasing project and professional services revenue from “traditional sources”, according to Davis.
“We need to expect smaller services-based projects and need to get more creative in opening up more opportunities,” he said.
Generational change
Many MSP veterans are looking to exit in the next two to five years after 20 years or more in business, Davis said.
Meanwhile, new technology service businesses with younger owners are emerging at a faster rate, according to the advisor.
From his perspective, these younger owners “understand that they need to do things differently, and they are more willing to learn and get help to be more successful faster rather than feeling they need to ‘invent’ everything themselves.”
In Davis’s view, this differs to the “founding generation of traditional MSP/SI/VAR owners who aren't wanting or able to change their mindsets to transform their approach.”
Davis spent around three years at Pax8, and was director was instrumental in setting up the cloud marketplace's Academy for Australia and New Zealand in 2022
Pax8 Academy is an educational platform run by the marketplace.
It offers training resources, certification programs, and educational content designed for MSPs and IT professionals.
[This story has been updated to include comments by Chris Sharp.]
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