ConnectWise: Customers Focused on Outcomes, Not 'Dazzled' by Technology

CONNECTWISE AUTOMATION NATION — As customer demand accelerates toward everything managed-as-a-service and outcomes over technology, ConnectWise is introducing new innovations to make it easier for partners to meet this demand.

That’s according to Craig Fulton, ConnectWise’s chief product officer (pictured above). He gave the opening keynote at this week’s Automation Nation 2018 conference. The 1,300 conference attendees include 30 solution partners.

ConnectWise’s customer base is the channel.

“The united message is you have to have a platform that’s connecting everything,” he said. “You need to have a platform in your business that is connecting everything. The more they get that are disconnected and have to be manually managed, the harder it’s going to be to grow.”

ConnectWise plans to add staff to its product team so “we can be more engaged with our partners, and add more value to our product and the platform,” Fulton said.

Customers are using technology to become successful and their needs are changing rapidly, Fulton said. This creates a “great opportunity” for ConnectWise partners, he said. For example, in North America, backup and disaster recovery represents a $9.7 billion opportunity and security represents a $6.1 billion opportunity, he said.

Customers no longer are as “dazzled by hearing all the big, technical words they don’t understand,” he said.

“They’re smarter now, they’ve got smartphones and they know how things should work,” Fulton said. “People want a high-tech personal life and work life, and they get it. They just want the technology to work for them. The conversation is definitely changing, and at ConnectWise we pride ourselves on understanding the customer; we align our road map to that customer journey they take through the business. We feel we’re on the right path and that we’re going to be successful in helping our partners.”

Later this year, ConnectWise plans to launch a new solution menu and a customer portal.

“We do work with our partners’ customers and ask them how do you want to interact and what are the things you’re looking for, and we’ve been hearing a great need for a portal for awhile,” Fulton said.

The solution menu will be “fundamental” to companies that are growing and adapting to changes “because they have to get faster and they need everything connected,” he said.

“That whole journey that the customer goes through has to be connected,” Fulton said. “That’s the importance of getting that solution menu into the sell, so they can add to their stack.”

ConnectWise solutions are used by more than 22,000 partners in more than 70 countries. Billings increased 22.5 percent in North America and 32.1 percent internationally year over year.

Karl Bickmore, CEO of Snap Tech IT, an MSP, said ConnectWise leading with “an everything as-a-service offering is…

…laying down the groundwork that everybody else is confused about.”

“I see them as being a beacon in the industry pointing to what’s next,” he said. “I think this everything as-a service idea with your technology team and solution menu is dead on.”

Gregory Howard, Acronis‘ senior director of cloud sales, said his company “loves” that ConnectWise continues to build an open platform and ecosystem. Acronis is integrated with Manage and Automate.

“So no matter what product or service they might offer — either Manage, Automate or (Control) — it gives us the hooks to build in our integrations,” Howard said. “We’re big believers in having an open ecosystem so it provides the best experience for the MSP and most importantly the end customer, and what we’re seeing with ConnectWise is that freedom and flexibility unlike others. And we work with many others, but nobody gives us the reach, ability and scale they do from an API integration perspective.”

Acronis has enhanced its support for ConnectWise Automate and Manage, and added Acronis Files Cloud and Disaster Recovery Cloud integrations. MSPs now can sell, provision and monitor Acronis Data Cloud services.

AlienVault has been working with ConnectWise for about four years and last November became one of its technology integration partners. Mike LaPeters, AlienVault’s vice president of global channel sales, said he agrees with Fulton’s assessment of what customers are most interested in.

“I think business outcomes are where the success is and too many companies focus too much on the products and we always kind of scratch our heads when a partner comes to us, especially a services partner, and says ‘hey, will you do this show with me, have a booth or webcast with me where you demo AlienVault?’,” he said. “There is so little value in that in the end user’s mind. When you go to buy a new bookshelf, do you really care what kind of hammer or miter saw they’re using, or do you care about the carpenter being someone who knows what they’re doing and provides a beautiful finished product?”