'Distributors should be scared of us': The cloud marketplace adding 120 staff a month
Distribution is broken, Pax8 UK channel head Phylip Morgan claims as he reveals plans to boost UK headcount from 80 to over 350 by 2023
The new UK channel head of a cloud marketplace adding 120 staff a month has claimed that "distribution is broken".
Talking to CRN, Phylip Morgan revealed that Pax8 has recruited 1,000 UK partners since it launched here in January on the back of its acquisition of Microsoft cloud consultancy Wirehive.
It aims to have 350-400 UK staff by 2023, up from 80 today, as it takes on traditional "born in the shed" distributors, Morgan said, adding that the US-based firm is currently adding 120 employees a month globally.
Pax8 was namechecked as a potential threat by several distributors in CRN's newly launched Distribution Report (available to view by CRN Essential subscribers here). An abbreviated version of the CRN Distribution Report is free to view here.
But with Ingram (CloudBlue), Tech Data (StreamOne), Arrow (Arrowsphere) and Exclusive (X-OD) all claiming to be enjoying traction for their billing and aggregation platforms, is there really a space for a newcomer - lacking long-term vendor and customer relationships - to disrupt the market?
Morgan claimed Pax8 is on the right side of a generational divide that will shake up the channel over the coming decade.
"Disruption by its very nature tends to come from people who see the world differently and think differently and John Street, our founder, definitely thinks differently. There is a different mindset between being born in the cloud, as we are, to being born in the shed, which is thinking about trucks and logistics and inventory and all that goes with it."
Some 98.1 per cent of Pax8's transactions are touchless, claimed Morgan, who is chief channel officer for Pax8 UK and also VP of international channel.
"Frictionless trading - whether it's ordering a cab on Uber or watching a film on Netflix - is where the modern market is going," he said. "So I suppose [distributors] have got a right to be scared - but they've had the opportunity to innovate for so many years."
Founded in 2012, US-based Pax8 launched its UK business in January after its acquisition of 35-strong Farnborough-based cloud consultancy Wirehive handed it the vendor relationships and consultants needed to get off the ground. Despite Wirehive boasting legacy direct relationships with the likes of Vodafone, Raytheon and Surrey University, Pax8 UK is now moving it to an indirect model and will be MSP focused, Morgan said.
Its international expansion drive won't stop at the UK, Morgan indicated.
"You'll see some news from us in the next couple of months about western Europe, and you'll see some stuff coming from us about APAC and other areas, as we expand globally," he said.
"Distribution is broken," he added. "That's a phrase that we use often at Pax8. It is designed for the born in the shed era where we were moving products and shifting boxes, and selling licences and product-based, transactional stuff. But the cloud era is a completely different market. It's subscriptions based, it's solutions focused. So we are here to help MSPs in particular, to buy, provision, manage, sell, and analyse all of their cloud services."