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Automation Nation 2018: keynote

Posted:
06/19/2018
| By: Craig Fulton

Missed this year’s Automation Nation keynote? We’ve got you covered. Here’s a quick look at what happened and what you have to look forward to in the next few months.

As the Chief Product Officer for ConnectWise, I had the pleasure of taking the stage to share what we’ve learned, what’s effecting your business, and how we’re working to make an impact on your success. I was thrilled to see more than 1,300 attendees join us for this year’s keynote, 104 breakout sessions, and some incredible networking events. But as amazing as Automation Nation is, my keynote was focused on telling the story of our industry—and your success—now and into the future.

It starts with the ecosystem

Both inside and outside of our industry, people are talking a lot about ecosystems. Our technology ecosystem is made up of four key components: your customers, the solutions you offer, the technology teams within your business, and the services you provide.

Together, these four pieces make up a great framework—the ConnectWise Ecosystem. We’re supporting the growth of the ecosystem through new efforts to drive the kind of innovation that will push us all to further growth. And that growth can’t happen without big thinkers like you.

Tech Tank

There’s a lot going on in the ecosystem, and we know we can’t do it all on our own. We’ve created a fund to jumpstart new connections from our community’s big thinkers, inviting our partners to submit ideas to the ConnectWise 2018 Tech Tank. Our three finalists joined me onstage at Automation Nation.

  1. YayPay helps automate the collection process while working with Accounts Receivable
  2. MSP Gadgets’ MySlice provides a commission and bonus structure for sales and service teams
  3. MySelf Service Portal allows customers to help themselves, creates tickets, and runs scripts through platform interaction

And we’re proud to announce our winner. These three innovative thinkers are helping us all build up our resilience, which is vital for businesses as our industries have major shifts happening.

We’re in the people business

There was a time when we did some systems integration, found a solution for a partner, handled a one-time transactional cost, and went on with the business of providing our services and support. It was all about the technology we could provide access to, and tracking it in our accounting software. But things are shifting fast.

Our work isn’t just about the technology anymore. Managed services added complications as support became recurring and we started to think about tracking profitability. The ConnectWise platform evolved to help you get into managed services and keep track of everything within that new technology.

Now there’s been another shift. Today, it’s about the people we’re supporting. With partner after partner, we’re seeing that a customer-first approach is the only path to success. We’re hearing partners say, “we’re in a service business that just happens to be tech-related.” Today’s customers are so savvy, they want changes on the spot and service right now, and they’re looking to us in more and more consultative ways. You need a platform that brings everything together and lets you focus on what you love. Our product enhancements are designed to support that focus.

ConnectWise Sell®

  • Tired of copy/pasting agreement information into quotes & proposals? New functionality lets you automate creating renewals, pulling everything directly from your agreements and eradicating manual entry issues.
  • Automate yearly service cost increases into your agreements with the Update Agreement option, replacing or updating additions and bringing in new pricing automatically.
  • Keep track of promised discounts and savings so that they automatically update as new items and services are added to your quotes.

ConnectWise Manage®

  • Simplify onboarding with automatic updates into ConnectWise Automate without waiting for the admin. Tie directly into the service plan so that agreements and policies will also be auto-updated.
  • Use ConnectWise View to launch a remote session through ConnectWise Manage. Take a picture using ConnectWise View and add it directly to the associated ticket.
  • Manage time efficiently by seeing not just scheduled time, but how it compares to actual recorded time right inside each tech’s calendar view.
  • As you increase your rates annually, update your agreements and additions with mass update functionality.
  • Track credits and payments right inside your invoices, so everything adds up!

ConnectWise Automate®

  • A reinvented Notes pod allows you to easily see and access attachments.
  • Go right to a device, see the entire network, and look at connections from inside ConnectWise Automate.
  • Work faster and provide better service with the fast and fully featured web version of ConnectWise Automate.
  • Rely on a platform-based notification system to alert you to significant events like tickets from VIP customers or script-related updates.
Seamless connections

We’re excited to announce new ways to drive efficiency for your teams. We’ll be streamlining the process of adding third-party software options to your quotes to automatically provision and connect you to the solutions your customers are looking for.

Using multiple portals? You’re not alone. We’ve dedicated an entire team to delivering a new customer portal to you, with single sign on functionality and one place for everything. You can brand the portal and use it to show your customers everything you’re doing for them, from dashboards and ticket statuses to the ability to control their own machines with ConnectWise Control®.

We’re looking forward to your feedback on how new features are doing when it comes to meeting your needs. We’re excited to hear your thoughts, and already thinking about what we can bring you at Automation Nation 2019.