Occasional Rivals ConnectWise, Pax8 Further Partner to Empower MSPs -

Service Leadership (owned by ConnectWise) and Sea-Level Operations (owned by Pax8) have inked an expanded partnership to help MSPs drive business growth.

Under the expanded agreement, Sea-Level will offer its clients an elevated consulting offering called Value Creation Coaching (VCC) to "enable clients to reach their value creation goal more quickly and with less risk."

Service Leadership-Sea Level Partnership: What Do MSPs Gain?

VCC adds two additional Service Leadership products to Sea-Level’s toolkit:

the Service Leadership Index (S-L Index) Service Executive Quarterly Benchmark Report Book (SE QBRB), and
The Operational Maturity Level diagnostic and acceleration tool, SLIQ.

The overall result: With VCC, Sea-Level becomes the first Service Leadership-certified coaching firm in the industry.

ConnectWise, backed by private equity firm Thoma Bravo, in February 2021 acquired Service Leadership. Pax8, backed by multiple venture capital firms, in May 2021 acquired Sea-Level Operations.

Coopetition: Cooperating and Competing

The expanded Service Leadership-Sea-Level relationship proves that ConnectWise and Pax8 can continue to partner on some fronts while competing on others.

ConnectWise offers a mix of software, services and community to empower MSPs. Pax8 offers a cloud marketplace that modernizes how partners buy, sell, and manage cloud. In some ways, the ConnectWise Marketplace competes against the Pax8 cloud marketplace.

Side note: The late Ray Noorda, formerly CEO of Novell, coined the term coopetition to describe how strategic growth often requires and organization to cooperate and compete with rivals at the same time.