Pia CEO on the underlying theme that’s “scary” to MSP owners

David Schwartz also discusses how they’re keeping Pia in touch with its Aussie roots.

In this current AI climate, there is an underlying theme that is “scary” to MSP owners, according to Pia CEO David Schwartz.

Speaking to CRN Australia, he explained MSPs are feeling the pressure to implement AI and automation in their offerings, but don’t want to lose the human touch in their services.

“There are concerns in certain capacities on losing that human touch that their clients have become so accustomed to getting,” he said.

Schwartz added there is a challenge of finding that right balance between automation and human.

“There is a lot that of stuff that can be automated in an MSP, and making sure that you're picking the right things that drive the right outcomes that you're looking for,” he said.

“You can automate [tasks that are] annoying to do manually but it doesn't move the needle for the business in any meaningful way. It doesn't improve your gross margin, it doesn't improve your bottom line, your profit, or EBITDA.”

Schwartz explained MSPs want to know how to make the right investment that will drive “real, tangible” outcomes.

“It's easy to automate tasks this annoying finance thing that I have to do every month if I'm the owner of a company. But, it doesn't change the economics of your business in any meaningful way,” he added.

The Pia CEO said they are working with partners to help find a path to drive economic improvements within their organisations.

"It is also not just improving the business. It is also levelling up the ways that your staff can support your customers today. It's freeing them up from the stuff that they're stuck doing to be able to work on the stuff that is meaningful to their customers,” he explained.

For those who are undecided on implementing AI and automation in their organisation, Schwartz said waiting on the sidelines might hurt them.

“There's something that comes from getting a lot of experience of trying a tool and trying to work with it,” he said.

“The best way to understand what your business needs is to get your hands on the tools.”

Keeping Pia Aussie

The Australian-founded automation company may have a US-based CEO, but Schwartz is very purposeful in in keeping the culture as Aussie as possible.

“We've been very careful to make sure that we maintain that DNA in our business, specifically in that part of the world,” he said.

“We've had and we continue to have so much growth in that part of the world in Australia, New Zealand, and we don't want to disrupt that by changing culturally how we operate in those markets.”

Being based in Los Angeles, Schwartz said he still needs to understand the Australian market. He noted there still are cultural differences.

"The way that buyer behaviours are, the way that MSPs in the ANZ market are analysing and doing due diligence around what products and solutions they're going to work with.

"Even the sales process specifically, and what they're looking for from an interaction perspective and onboarding perspective, does look different than the US market,” Schwartz explained.

For Schwartz and his team, this means that they continue to grow the team within Australia.

“We want to make sure that ace of partners, which is where we started out of, continues to always feel like that that cultural alignment is still there to properly support them,” he said.

In terms of growth, Schwartz said they’re hiring for different roles within the Australian market including operational and GTM roles.

“When I say operational folks who are supporting our partners there specifically, and then from a sales perspective, obviously sellers,” he said.

2027 plans

For Schwartz, he has several plans in the back of his mind for 2027.

In terms of Pia itself, they will be releasing a new product at the start of next year. While he can’t talk about it, he said he is “beyond excited” and called it a “game changer”.

“There's a chance there's another cool feature that we have coming out next year as well,” he said.

“Those are just product things that I'm excited about. A bunch of focus around our data and analytics and reporting that we give to partners as well.”

Schwartz is also wanting to work with the community in a more “meaningful” way.

“Just being present in more places, the things that we do on site at those events. There's some plans to potentially do some of our own Pia-hosted events. More small curated type of experiences,” he said.

They will also continue to build out their senior leadership team within ANZ and the US. He is looking for leaders within the events space.

"We're looking at maybe some key role to keep the key positions related to us having the best presence at events,” he said.

Former chief growth officer Nic Ferraro left Pia for Aionix, which has left some gaps within the organisation.

“Some gaps that have opened up with his departure that we're working through in terms of it may not be the same role, but it is things that we do need to solve for next year.

“We would like to do a bit more digitally focused as well from an online perspective, finding ways to interact, support our partners better, drive sales more through webinars and thought leadership.”