N-able CEO Outlines Strategy for Channel-First Growth and Business Outcome Focus

Channel Strategy Evolution

N-able CEO John Pagliuca has outlined ambitious plans to transition the company to a completely channel-based sales model, according to reports from the 2025 XChange Best of Breed conference in Atlanta. Speaking with The Channel Company Chief Content Officer Stuart Sumner, Pagliuca revealed that the company currently operates at approximately 85% channel and 15% direct midmarket sales, but sources indicate this ratio is expected to shift to 75%/25% in the medium term.

Channel Strategy Evolution
Business Outcomes Over Technical Features
Midmarket Access Through Channel Partners
Unified Messaging Across Stakeholders
Future Direction and Market Positioning

Business Outcomes Over Technical Features

The company’s strategic direction emphasizes selling business outcomes rather than individual products, the report states. “I was in Italy last week speaking to MSPs up and down the peninsula, and the feedback was customers don’t want to hear about threat hunting,” Pagliuca recounted during the conference. “You shouldn’t be talking to them about the ingredients. You need to be talking to them about the business outcome.”

This approach represents a significant shift from traditional technology sales methods that focus on product specifications. Analysts suggest the industry has “grown out of talking about solutions like email security, backup, DNS filtering, firewall” because such technical discussions “just get lost in the noise” with stakeholders.

Midmarket Access Through Channel Partners

N-able’s path to becoming an all-channel organization involves leveraging larger systems integrators and value-added resellers (VARs) that specialize in midmarket clients, according to the CEO’s comments. “There’s a big convergence going on in the space,” Pagliuca observed. “There are MSPs, there are VARs, there are systems integrators, and then there are all three.”

The company reportedly plans to access the midmarket exclusively through these channel partners by 2026, marking a fundamental restructuring of their go-to-market strategy. This channel-first approach aligns with what Pagliuca described as the company’s mission to “be shepherds for the midmarket and the small-to-medium enterprise.”

Unified Messaging Across Stakeholders

Maintaining consistent communication with all stakeholders emerged as a key leadership principle during the discussion. “One of the more important things as CEO is clear alignment,” Pagliuca emphasized. “The thing I talk to Wall Street about has to be the same thing that I talk to my board and my employees about. It has to be the same exact message to my partners in the channel and end customers.”

This philosophy extends to how the company trains its sales teams, with Pagliuca characterizing the sales process as “more of a transferring of excitement in business know-how from one person to the other” rather than traditional product selling.

Future Direction and Market Positioning

Looking toward 2026, the company aims to “elevate the message” so that IT professionals can effectively communicate business outcomes to their stakeholders. The focus will remain on providing end-to-end solutions that deliver business resilience rather than individual security components.

The executive’s comments at the Atlanta conference reinforce the company’s commitment to what Pagliuca described as his “hallmark of the past 25 years”: helping companies achieve scale through strategic partnerships and outcome-focused solutions.

References

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