Beyond 2024 just wrapped and it was amazing! We couldn’t have done it without the support of our partners and vendor sponsors. Thanks to you all, we were able to over-deliver on our promise of innovation, education, and community. You can find some highlights below.
Wrong answers from the right panel
Day two of Beyond started with a lively breakfast panel moderated by Pax8 Senior Director of Security and Compliance, Matt Lee, covering how to protect your MSP. But there was a catch — it was wrong answers only…well, mostly. They covered hot topics, such as whether SSO is actually more secure than multiple complex passwords (it is), if end user training matters if you have a strong security stack (it does), whether security frameworks actually help or are just a waste of time (they do and they aren’t), and how AI will fix everything (it won’t).
Chief Product Officer unveils the game-changing new Pax8 Marketplace
Libby McIlhany, Pax8 Chief Product Officer, walked partners through the new Marketplace experience with Opportunity Explorer as the star of the show. She highlighted its intelligent, AI-powered design and user-focused features. Highlighting the platform’s intelligent tools and data-driven insights, McIlhany showcased how the new experience can generate a flywheel of unstoppable growth and opportunity for Pax8 partners.
The crowd audibly gasped for the introduction of Storefronts, a custom-branded, self-service model that empowers partners by helping them curate their own digital spaces in the Marketplace to target precisely the clientele they want. Customers can get support, make payments, and even order and manage their products independently so that transactions are streamlined from start to finish.
At the conclusion, McIlhany announced the momentous news: the new Pax8 Marketplace was going to be available ONLY to Pax8 partner attendees on the evening of June 11th, a full six days before the global launch. Then, the full experience goes live for all partners on July 17, 2024.
CrowdStrike’s promise of protection
CrowdStrike’s Chief Business Officer, Daniel Bernard, declared all of us “technologists” in his inspiring keynote. Building on Scott Chasin’s prediction, Bernard touted that consolidation is the word of the year, he showcased the top features of Falcon, their cutting-edge endpoint protection. With real-time threat detection, simplified management, and proactive threat hunting, Falcon, he explained, is designed to stay ahead of cyber threats. Bernard closed with a powerful statement: “We (CrowdStrike + partners) are the what to stop breaches, and Pax8 is the how.”
SuperOps joins the Pax8 Marketplace
Arvind Parthiban, CEO and Co-Founder of SuperOps, and Juan Fernandez, Channel Chief, partnered to present a look at their pioneering of a new era. With two disruptive companies uniting, Fernandez announced that SuperOps is now live in the Pax8 Marketplace. He also talked about the new collaborative services with Pax8 Academy and Peer Groups to support partner success in the future.
Fernandez also announced Vision X, a very special project designed specifically for partner success. He closed by pronouncing June 11, 2024, as “Change Day,” the day Pax8 and SuperOps transformed the industry forever.
Walsh shows partners how to “master their Marketplace”
After Libby’s extraordinary keynote revealing the launch of the new Pax8 Marketplace, Pax8 Chief Strategy Officer Ryan Walsh dug into the numbers and laid out the strategy to ensure partners win with this innovative new platform. Walsh led with some eye-opening stats: 1/3 of buyers today will ONLY purchase through marketplaces and the primary competition facing MSPs today is…other MSPs. In addition, 46% of this ecosystem was not profitable according to the Service Leadership Index from 2023.
To wield the power of these insights, partners must combat five bad habits. Those are:
- Disregarding their data
- Trying to be a Swiss army MSP
- Showing up with tech to a business advisor fight
- Overlooking what truly sets them apart
- Trying to compete against a marketplace
Then, Walsh shared how the revolutionary Pax8 Marketplace can furnish partners with a winning hand and put to rest those habits and help set them up for success in the future.
The new Pax8 Marketplace comes to life
Without a doubt, the new Pax8 Marketplace was the star of the show at Beyond 2024. So it was a treat when Alex Core, Product Manager, and Clemente Miller, Manager of Product Design, both at Pax8, led attendees through a live walkthrough of some upgraded features and benefits of the new Marketplace.
Alex highlighted how to build a client list, showed off the robust new product details page, customized a stack in the solutions page, and confirmed the excitement around Storefronts by curating a stack for a self-service client. Clemente then took the reins and walked everyone through Opportunity Explorer, showing how product and AI come together seamlessly using actionable insights to improve your business.
Altogether, their session brought to life how the new Pax8 Marketplace will:
- Drive meaningful insights and outcomes with data and Al
- Enrich partner opportunities across your customer landscape
- Personalize partners’ businesses to increase business value
Their presentation left no doubt: the new Pax8 Marketplace is poised to revolutionize the way partners drive growth and deliver exceptional value to their customers, and that the future is theirs for the taking!
A deep dive with Opportunity Explorer
Moderated by Chris Smoak, VP of Engineering at Pax8 and joined by Mufaddal Khambaty, Sr. Product Manager at Pax8, John Paul Keesy, Co-Founder and CEO at F1 IT, Chris Bynum, VP of Data, Engineering and Analytics at Pax8, and Alex Stavdal, EVP of Strategy at Homefield IT, this panel delivered a true deep dive into Opportunity Explorer.
Chris started the session by pointing out that Opportunity Explorer already houses 1.5 million opportunities today. And each of those opportunities can help teams grow their businesses, gain efficiencies, and reduce risk. It’s part of the reason why Libby McIlhany called Opportunity Explorer “magic” in her keynote. According to the panel, Opportunity Explorer is special because it’s a client account manager in a box with the ability to understand who you are and give you personalized recommendations that make every aspect of your business easier. But it doesn’t stop there. By leveraging AI and the insights from our 35,000+ partners, we’ve provided features to explain each recommendation, from things like seat usage to competitive industry graphs to a CIS environment to make the case for security recommendations.
By the next Beyond, the panel predicted Opportunity Explorer will provide even more personalization, even better recommendations, and even deeper integration. It’s true innovation. And it will truly revolutionize the MSP community.
The Pax8 Results Selling Framework
Keith Marciano, Senior Executive Coach at Pax8 delivered big on one of the last sessions of the day. In it, Marciano provided a valuable framework for a repeatable, actionable approach to selling with success.
This overview gave attendees a high-level look at a newly implemented Pax8 Academy hub titled the Results Selling Framework. Here, partners can take free, On-Demand classes, Instructor-Led courses, and more. Among other points in this session, Marciano touched on the right prerequisite questions to ask a prospective buyer, the method to changing an MSP’s mindset, and how to uncover prospect and buyer needs.
Ultimately, attendees came away understanding that buyers don’t want someone to sell to them; they want someone to solve their problems so that they can increase their operational efficiencies, reduce their risk and gain a competitive edge.
Exhibit Hall hype
Vendors of all sizes and stripes populated the sophisticated Exhibit Hall, providing detailed walkthroughs and some incredible swag to partners in attendance. On day two, SuperOps also treated partners to ice cream. It was a great chance for attendees to make connections and network with top vendors from the channel.
John Street and Malcolm Gladwell in conversation
During a captivating fireside chat at Beyond 2024, Chairman of Pax8, John Street, and acclaimed author and thinker, Malcolm Gladwell delved into profound topics, ranging from AI’s societal impact to lessons learned from the pandemic. Gladwell, promoting his upcoming book “Revenge of the Tipping Point,” reflected on the 25 years since his seminal work, “The Tipping Point,” was published. He expressed a desire to explore the quieter, subversive strategies people use to influence the world, touching on issues like the opioid epidemic and the unique characteristics of Miami.
Street highlighted the relevance of Gladwell’s themes to the channel, particularly the transformative potential of AI. Gladwell then suggested that AI’s ability to take over specific functions could free up resources and effort for areas that have been historically under-invested.
The conversation explored the pandemic as a significant social learning opportunity, revealing the limitations of digital experiences and the irreplaceable value of interpersonal interactions. Street and Gladwell concurred on the importance of celebrating togetherness and redefining the concept of work, highlighting the potential for AI to reduce noise and enable people to engage in more impactful, purpose-driven activities.
Emphasizing the need to recognize and address the broader spectrum of societal issues, Gladwell noted that the percentage of the population in need of help is much larger than acknowledged. He envisioned a future where AI liberates thoughtful, empathetic individuals to focus on meaningful, value-added work, enhancing societal richness.
In the end, Street closed with, “One thing we do understand is that we must celebrate being together.” And with that, Beyond 2024’s curtain dropped.
Vendor and partner awards announced
Our partner and vendor awards were announced, highlighting businesses that have excelled through their Pax8 partnership. Check out the full list of winners below.
Partner award winners
Global
- Partner of the Year — Sourcepass
- Non Profit Partnership — The 20 LLC
- Pax8 Social Impact — GCIT
- Pax8 Hall of Fame — Leaftech
- Microsoft CoPilot MVP — Sourcepass
- Beyond24 Women in Technology — Natalia Scheidegger, 3rdmill
North America
- Peak Performance, USA — FIT Technologies
- Peak Performance, CA — Alt-Tech
- MVP Security — TeamLogic IT
- MVP Infrastructure — Pump
- MVP Productivity — TPX Communications
- MVP Continuity — Digacore
- MVP Operations — Nexustek
- MVP Network and Comms — Logic Technology Consulting Group
EMEA
- Peak Performance — Topmedia
- MVP Security — Aixpedit
- MVP Infrastructure — Primend
- MVP Productivity — Nostra
- MVP Continuity — Lantech
- MVP Operations — Cloud Nexus
- MVP Network and Comms — Amshire
APAC
- Peak Performance — KMT
- MVP Security — Otto IT
- MVP Infrastructure — Corp IT
- MVP Productivity — GITS
- MVP Continuity — C3 Group
- MVP Operations — ADITS
Vendors award winners
- Global Vendor of the Year — Microsoft
- MVP Vendor, EMEA — Exclaimer
- MVP Vendor, APAC — SentinelOne
- MVP Vendor, NA — Avanan
- Global Breakthrough Vendor Award — Blackpoint Cyber
- Global Partner’s Choice Award — SentinelOne
- Global Collaboration Award — BVOIP
- Global Social Impact Vendor — Microsoft
- Global Innovation/Automation Award — Rewst
- Global MVP Vendor, Communications — Zoom
- Global MVP Vendor, Connectivity — Spectrum
- Global MVP Vendor, Security — CrowdStrike
- Global MVP Vendor, Operations — SuperOps.ai
- Loc8 Star Vendor, NA — Comcast Business
Closing the event with a bang
Beyond 2024 rocked our world for two days straight, so it was only fitting that we closed it out in the biggest way possible. The Spazmatics made a return to the mainstage, playing impeccable covers of the best of the 80s. And then, they had to make way for a very special guest: rapper, actor, artist, the incomparable Ludacris.
Three cheers to Beyond!
As we say farewell to Beyond 2024, we know it’s never too early to start looking forward. Beyond EMEA will be held in Berlin on October 13-15. If you’re a partner based in Europe, you can still secure Beyond EMEA tickets for just €299.
As we think back on this year’s event, we thought it fitting to include one of our valued partner’s voices. During the vendor expo, Mike Glasman of VitalPoints, shared his commitment to Pax8, “Anytime I ever need anything, Pax8 walks me through every solution available, telling me what I should look at and why. Pax8 is the best thing since sliced bread.”
And as an organization built to serve the community, we will strive to uphold this level of high regard from all our partners. Which is why, next year, we promise to level up once again. With more innovation, education, and community all designed to help our Pax8 partners succeed.
Early registration for Beyond 2025 is now available at a special price of only $99.
