Management consulting, M&A advisory, business valuations, and executive coaching for Managed Services Providers and technology services firms — from a practitioner who has led hundreds of engagements since 1987.
Every engagement is tailored to your specific situation — from a focused intervention on one challenge to a comprehensive audit across strategy, operations, sales, and marketing.
Transformation Strategies works with MSPs and IT services firms to design scalable businesses built on recurring revenue models. We address the full operational picture — strategy, service definition, pricing, staffing, technology, and governance — to help clients increase revenue, reduce delivery costs, and create lasting client relationships.
As AI reshapes the technology landscape, MSPs and IT services firms face a strategic choice: adopt AI reactively or build it into their offerings intentionally. Transformation Strategies helps service providers become Managed Intelligence Providers (MIPs) — embedding AI into client-facing services and internal operations to reduce cost, improve delivery, and create competitive differentiation.
Drawing on decades of firsthand leadership experience inside IT services firms, we provide rigorous, results-oriented coaching for business owners, executives, and senior leaders of IT services and managed services firms. Engagements focus on the challenges specific to the managed services and technology services industry — growing teams, scaling recurring revenue models, and building organizations that can sustain growth.
Structured training for sales teams, delivery teams, and leadership groups within MSPs and IT services organizations. Programs are built around real-world managed services challenges and focus on practical skills that produce measurable improvement — not generic curriculum.
Transformation Strategies provides hands-on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisory grounded in real transactional experience in the IT services and managed services sector — from initial strategy and business valuations through post-close integration.
Helping business owners and leadership teams define the right M&A path — whether acquiring, merging, or preparing for a transaction. We work through the strategic rationale, timing, market positioning, and the operational readiness required to move forward successfully.
Independent valuation advisory for IT services and MSP businesses — whether preparing for an exit, evaluating an acquisition target, or establishing fair value for partnership or financing purposes.
Post-close integration is where M&A value is won or lost. We provide hands-on planning and management across people, processes, systems, client relationships, and culture — turning two organizations into one that actually works.
Helping business owners prepare for a successful exit — improving operational maturity, tightening documentation, and positioning the company to attract the right buyers and achieve the best possible outcome.
Success in managed services requires every part of the business operating cohesively. We assess and optimize across all dimensions simultaneously — because isolated improvements rarely stick.
Market positioning, portfolio design, pricing models, and competitive differentiation — built on a clear understanding of where you want to go and what it will take to get there.
Optimizing technical operations, support workflows, staffing models, tooling, and infrastructure to reduce cost while consistently improving client experience.
Messaging, positioning, and demand generation strategies that differentiate your MSP and attract the right clients at the right margins.
Building repeatable sales processes, client acquisition frameworks, and account management discipline that convert pipeline into predictable, growing revenue.
A sample of outcomes we have helped clients achieve across consulting, M&A, and executive coaching engagements.
Complete redesign of service definitions, pricing, staffing model, and operational infrastructure for a mid-market MSP with delivery and margin challenges.
Designed and implemented a managed services practice from initial concept to a live, revenue-generating 24×7 service — serving enterprise and SMB clients across multiple verticals.
Founded in 2007, Transformation Strategies has spent nearly two decades helping IT services and managed services firms grow, scale, and thrive — built on David Schafran's 39 years of firsthand industry experience. David has worked with hundreds of clients across the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia — large and small, across many vertical markets.
David's focus on managed services began in 1999 as SVP, Managed Services at Devise Associates (later Intelispan/Emtec), where he built the firm's managed services practice from concept to a live, revenue-generating 24×7 operation. Later as VP, Managed Services at Exenet LLC, his operational overhaul drove client satisfaction dramatically higher and increased revenue by over 300%.
From 2010 to 2013, David co-founded Cogent Growth Partners, a buy-side M&A advisory firm focused exclusively on IT services — providing full lifecycle advisory from strategy through post-close integration. From 2015 to 2016, he served as President of Aldridge Health, completing multiple transactions — including the acquisition of a practice being divested by another firm — in his first four months, with the firm earning recognition as one of ChannelE2E's Top 100 Vertical Market MSPs.
David currently serves as VP of Partner Enablement at Pax8, one of the leading cloud commerce platforms for the MSP channel. Named to the MSPmentor 250 for three consecutive years (2008–2011) and inducted into the MSPmentor "Locked in the NOC" Hall of Fame in 2012, his work has shaped best practices across the managed services industry.
David is an active board member of MS Hope for a Cure since 2007, an organization that has raised over $8 million for MS research and programs, and was a member of the Volunteer Dive Team at the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk through 2020.
Whether you're looking to scale your MSP, navigate an acquisition, develop your leadership team, or sharpen your recurring revenue model — we're here to help.