Rob Rae is in learning mode right now. As corporate vice president of communities and ecosystems at Denver-based distributor Pax8—a new position tailored to him and his strengths—he’s taking the first few months to learn the ecosystem, his new role and how it all fits together.
“With my previous company, it was just very narrow and focused on our tech,” he told CRN. “This is different. This is focusing on everybody’s tech.”
Rae joined Pax8 in February after spending about nine years at Norwalk, Conn.-based software vendor Datto, which was acquired by Miami-based rival Kaseya for $6.2 billion last year.
His sweet spot, and what he’ll mostly be doing in his new role, is talking to MSPs to see what’s working and what’s not in their business and how Pax8 can help.
“Every MSP I talk to, the first question I always ask is, ‘How’s business?’” he said. “Then I start digging in a little bit. ‘Where are you seeing opportunity? What’s changing? What’s new? What are your end users responding to? What’s working?’ That’s part of our role, which is finding out what is actually working and then doing it for everybody,” he added.
“I like gathering all the little tidbits and then putting it together into, ‘Everybody’s seeing growth here,’ or ‘People are suffering,’ or, ‘We’re hurting over here, and let’s avoid this but let’s do more of this kind of thing,’” he said. “It’s grouping all that knowledge together, which is why I ask that question.”
And when Pax8 acquires a company, like Microsoft Dynamics-Focused Bam Boom Cloud in February, it’ll be something that will help the MSP market grow, he said.
Pax8, similar to a lot of the hyper-growth vendors in the channel, finds scalability to be the biggest challenge, Rae added.
“We’re doing a phenomenal job at it compared to most vendors,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of forgiveness in our space as a result of how quickly everybody is growing. The scalability thing is always going to be a challenge to make sure that you stay on top of it and continue to deliver the service, the products, the account managers and everything else that the MSPs need from their vendors.”
Now just under three months in his role, Rae is still in learning mode while also gearing up for Pax8’s inaugural Beyond conference in June, which he is hosting, and learning how to best help MSPs throughout the ever-growing Pax8 ecosystem.
Check out what Rae told CRN about Beyond, competitors and how he’s going to be an “even bigger bother” to MSPs.
LEARN MORE: Collaboration & Communication | Distribution
CJ Fairfield is an associate editor at CRN covering solution providers, MSPs and distributors. Prior to joining CRN, she worked at daily newspapers, including The Press of Atlantic City in New Jersey and The Frederick News-Post in Maryland. She can be reached at [email protected].
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