In a managed services industry crowded with providers and squeezed by pricing pressure, scaling efficiently while maintaining service quality is no longer optional—it’s essential. Richard Harber, CEO of Decision Digital, has successfully built a modern, highly automated MSP model that leverages ConnectWise RMM and the Asio platform to reduce overhead, automate intelligently, and remain competitive without sacrificing margin or service excellence.

Competing in a Saturated, Price-Driven Market

Traditional MSP growth avenues—monitoring, maintenance, and support—have plateaued. With growth paths stagnating, MSPs are left with limited options: acquire competitors, get acquired, or win business by undercutting on price. As Harber explains, “Most companies already have an IT provider. So, if you’re going to grow, you’re either going to go the acquisition route or try to win the business, simply on price. And then it becomes a race to the bottom…where no one wins”

But competing on price alone is risky. “You can’t cut yourself into prosperity,” Harber warns. “You can reduce costs, you can reduce people—but eventually, you hit a point of no return. Who’s going to do the work? Automation. There you go. Let automation do the work.” Faced with this reality, Harber set out to reduce operating costs—without compromising service quality. ConnectWise RMM and additional solutions on the Asio platform became the foundation for that transformation.

ConnectWise RMM + ConnectWise RPA = Intelligent Automation

Harber’s team adopted ConnectWise RMM not just for its monitoring capabilities, but for the automation potential unlocked by ConnectWise RPA, the Asio workflow engine. “The real driver wasn’t just RMM stability—it was the Asio workflow engine, which promised to unify automation across ConnectWise’s suite of products,” Harber explains.

Previously, each ConnectWise product—PSA, RMM, CPQ, Reports and Dashboards (formerly BrightGauge)—had its own isolated workflow solution, creating inefficiencies and increasing the risk of errors. ConnectWise RPA serves as a single orchestrator to automate processes across ConnectWise solutions and third-party tools, enabling Harber’s team to:

• Automate ticket triage and dispatching
• Trigger cross-product workflows from a single engine
• Build complex, logic-driven automations that anticipate needs  

“When tickets come from RMM, there’s intelligence inside that ticket,” Harber says. “The workflow engine can see the alert, see the ticket being created, and make decisions based on data points and AI.” 

Virtual Dispatching and AI-Driven Ticket Handling

One of the most transformative shifts came with the implementation of virtual dispatching with the ConnectWise Asio platform workflow engine and Sidekick for PSA. Previously, each ticket required manual triage. “The system automatically classifies tickets based on alert data, determines whether an issue is benign or actionable, soft-closes resolved tickets, and routes actionable ones to the appropriate technician,” Harber explained.

The operational transformation has been profound.

Harber’s team no longer requires a full-time dispatcher, and automation has enabled scalable endpoint management without increasing headcount. “The system is doing a better job than some technicians with respect to classifying and triaging tickets,” Harber notes. “It understands what’s going on and responds with intelligence. It never goes on vacation and never goes to sleep”

Automation now handles 85% of inbound tickets, allowing the team to focus on higher-value tasks. Ticket triage time dropped from 10 minutes to 9 seconds, and over two years, Harber’s team achieved a 38% reduction in labor-related operational costs—all without compromising service quality.

“This AI-driven approach has not only streamlined operations—it’s elevated the precision of service delivery,” Harber says. “We’ve been successful in automating the work that humans used to do. That translates into lower operating costs, which means I can take the price down to be competitive without giving up margin.”