Harry Brelsford interviews Oguo Atuanya, Corporate Vice President of Vendor Experience at PAX8, following the PAX Sait conference in Denver. Atuanya discusses PAX8's strategy to shift towards outcome-based solutions for SMBs through MSPs, emphasizing the importance of complete portfolios and leveraging AI to improve productivity and security. Atuanya brings 22 years of experience from Microsoft, where he managed go-to-market channels for SMBs in the Americas.
He also highlights his role in Europe managing the intelligent edge and IoT business. Both men express a desire to stay connected and acknowledge their past roles at Microsoft.
Harry Brelsford 00:00
Hey, nation, nation, we're back follow up to PAX 8 in Denver, Colorado, recently, awesome conference I will repeat, and I'm with one of the executives at PAX 8. And sir, could you pronounce your name and introduce yourself? I always get it wrong. I ah,
Oguo Atuanya 00:23
can you hear me? Harry, yeah. Okay, awesome. Oguo attuanya actually thought he came close when we're in in Denver. I am, I actually am the corporate vice president of vendor experience here at PAX 8, so I'm in charge of global vendor strategy, how we go to market with vendors, how we land the execution in the regions, and how we think about bending that innovation curve when it comes to serving SMBs with vendors through our MSPs,
Harry Brelsford 01:03
yeah, yeah. No, good, good role. And, you know, I know you're building up your line card at PAX 8, right? That's what you do. So you're, you're right in the heart of that, right? Adding logos to the line card,
Oguo Atuanya 01:16
yes, adding logos to the lion card. One of the things we're looking at in the future is how we continue shifting towards outcome based solutions for SMBs through MSPs. You know, very critical that we are addressing with precision what SMBs need in this agentic AI
Harry Brelsford 01:41
era, okay, yeah, continue,
Oguo Atuanya 01:45
yeah. So, I mean, it's a number of things we're looking at doing is, is launching a new vendor, go to market strategy. As I said, we're looking, we're looking to drive outcomes for SMBs. So we're going to look at the portfolio approach when it comes to dealing with vendors. If we have vendors that don't have a complete portfolio within, you know, sort of the solution area that they address, we would look at filling them up with other vendors. But the key is to look at how we drive complete solutions for SMBs. As you know, the things we are selling are changing. How we sell those things you know have to change. Every SMB out there rightfully feels like they deserve to be treated like an enterprise customer, just based on the fact that the solutions are more enterprise, you know, grade SaaS solutions, right? So that's, that's, that's what we're looking to drive with the unique enablement infrastructure we have, the technology that we have within our platform, from an AI driven perspective to continue to help those MSPs deliver in a cost efficient, cost effective and secure manner,
Harry Brelsford 03:19
yeah, yeah. So let's No, I got it. I got it. And thank you for sharing insights. What's your background? How did you end up at PAC saint? Tell me a little bit about
Oguo Atuanya 03:29
Yeah. So I spent 22 years at Microsoft. One of my little scrolls at Microsoft was actually managing the go to market channels in the Americas for SMB. So as you can imagine, a lot of the intricacies that I'm looking to land in this strategy. It was really me channeling what I felt like I needed from a vendor perspective, 8 months ago, when I was still at Microsoft, right? So, but if you look from a vendor's perspective, when they're trying to serve SMB, they want to put a product that addresses the outcome. They want to make sure that the you know, value of the product and the suite they're putting into SMB is realized by the SMB. And they also want to make sure that they drive and improve productivity for SMBs, right? So when you look at that, the pillars for that really revolve around, you know, leveraging AI to improve this productivity, making sure that it's secure, and making sure that we're delivering complete outcomes for the SMBs, but being specific to address, you know, the verticals or industries that they live in.
Harry Brelsford 04:48
Yeah, I'm surprised we haven't met, you know, I was pretty active with Microsoft and a couple different roles, Windows Server, Small Business server, and then I'm so I would have been building 44 in Redmond, and then I kind of moved. To the partner side in building 121 apple, yeah, we, I was on the team that handled Windows XP, okay, years ago. Man,
Oguo Atuanya 05:14
I worked, I worked in building 121
Harry Brelsford 05:18
we haven't met yet. Right
Oguo Atuanya 05:20
before I left for Europe in 2015 so I spent four years in Europe running our intelligent edge and IoT business across EMEA. So perhaps I missed you in that gap of time down was in I was in Europe,
Harry Brelsford 05:43
yeah, I reported to assuming you know her, if not, she's a solid Anne Marie Rockwell. In one
Oguo Atuanya 05:52
I know Anne Marie very well, actually, on my team while I was in Europe. So we reported to the same leadership, yeah, Europe. So Anne Marie ran the Americas while I ran Europe, Middle East Africa. Yeah,
Harry Brelsford 06:13
yeah, She sure did. Well, hey, I know you have a busy schedule. I appreciate your time. So thank you very much. And hey, stay in touch. I'm gonna, if I'm not already late to you on LinkedIn, I'm gonna go do it now. Okay,
Oguo Atuanya 06:27
I would love to, let's correct the past of us not running into each other frequently as we move forward from now on.
Harry Brelsford 06:33
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Thank you sir for your time. Have a good
Oguo Atuanya 06:37
bye. Bye. You.