The ConnectWise mission

To empower Technology Solution Providers to realize their vision of success

2020 Strategy

2019 Strategy Success

Our mission is clear and has never been more important

At a time when many TSPs are searching for their mission, debating their business models and offerings, and trying to stay ahead of growing cybersecurity threats, our dedication and commitment to helping deliver success to our partners remain unchanged.

The Infinite Possibilities Ahead

With a new decade upon us, we reflect on what’s gotten us here and the community of partners we’ve worked tirelessly for, but we’re not done yet. To further deliver, challenge the status quo, drive technology solution providers (TSPs) to success, and help The IT Nation thrive in the years to come, our actions must take on a new, infinite mindset.

To change our way of thinking, we must realize we’re not playing in a finite game, but rather a never-ending game. Therefore, we must shift our mindset to build a company that continues to be strong and healthy enough to stay in the game for decades to come. This, of course, will make us stronger in the near-term as well.

High-Level View of Our Infinite Strategy

Our strategy must always align with four key guidelines to ensure our partners and TSPs are on the right path to get to their destinations:

ConnectWise will identify and solve TSPs’ biggest pain points and challenges.
We will lead the way through innovation and by providing a transformational partnership with TSPs.
The ConnectWise Platform, our Services and Solutions, Ecosystem, and immersive Community will make our partners more productive and efficient.
We will help make our partners more profitable and set them up for both personal and professional success.

The ConnectWise Strategy

The ongoing ConnectWise Strategy will be centered around three areas of focus:

Our Strategic Initiatives for 2020

Our strategies will radically change the functions of our business to break down complicated challenges and generate next-level solutions. Our teams will push past the old ways of thinking so we can execute each of our strategies in fundamental ways, building up from there with the bigger picture in mind. In doing so, we’ll establish an unbreakable trust with our partners, become the TSP industry’s true pioneer, and continue to play the infinite game by taking revolutionary steps towards making our vision a reality.

Our strategies for success will not change. Instead, tactics and objectives of what we need to accomplish to move forward will continue to evolve every year. We’ll not only revisit what we were able to deliver upon, but we’ll figure out how it can be done even better in the new decade.

Here’s how ConnectWise is “powering up” last year’s initiatives going into 2020.

Unified Platform

Our partners can expect ConnectWise to invest substantially to become our industry’s essential TSP platform that engages, manages, monitors, and delivers an as-a-service model that’s, first and foremost, secure, unified, and capable of empowering partners to branch out into security offerings and flexible service models.

Secure – It all starts with security. Partners rely on us for this and need to trust that ConnectWise is doing (and will continue to do) everything to keep them and their customers safe from all types of cyberattacks.
Unified – ConnectWise will be focused on not only unifying overlapping platforms from Legacy ConnectWise and Continuum but will also deliver a cohesive partner experience by bringing together other platforms onto the Juno Platform.
Capitalizes Security – ConnectWise will continue to build out its line of security offerings so both ConnectWise and our partners can capitalize on the growing business opportunity that exists. We’ll remain focused on the MSP+ segment. (ConnectWise defines an MSP+ as an MSP looking to offer more cybersecurity services.)
Enables Flexibility - Equipping TSPs with the ability to scale and shift into a variety of business models and choices. From Automate It, Do-It-Yourself, Done-For-You, and Done-With-You service models to offering a TSP marketplace of superior choices for the solutions and platforms that ConnectWise doesn’t develop on our own, partners will find the exact fit for their business needs.

Partner Experience is Everything

We want our partners to have delightful interactions that are consistently exceeding their needs and expectations. Our products will deliver a clean and intuitive user experience. Everyone’s job will be to take end-to-end ownership, ensuring our teams deliver the highest quality of services, solutions, and outcomes at every touchpoint and handoff.

Partner Success

Our Success Pyramid model has long been a guide for helping our partners grow and prosper. For 2020, we will make Success Pyramids for specific audiences a reality. These will focus on the VARs and OEDs who want to transform their business towards a service/recurring revenue model and MSPs looking to add additional aspects of cybersecurity (MSP+). Partner Success will be focused on increasing partner productivity, automation, and profitability.

We made our 2019 strategy a reality, and 2020 will be no different. We’ll continue to push boundaries of what’s possible and what our partners can achieve. We’ll continue to evolve and innovate our platform, improve the partner experience, and help partners find success by doing so.

A Look Back at Our Accomplishments From 2019

Technology-As-A-Service

Strategic Growth Investment From Thoma Bravo

Thoma Bravo shares our Technology-as-a-Service vision for the SMB and believes there’s tremendous growth in the technology solution provider (TSP) market ConnectWise serves. In seven months post-Thoma Bravo acquisition, we have invested millions of dollars in enhancing our core products, infrastructure, and mergers and acquisitions to move our partners forward in any mode of business in the Technology-as-a-Service movement.

Best-of-Breed Specialists-as-a-Service With Continuum

We joined forces with Continuum to change the game through scalable Specialists-as-a-Service teams covering network operations, help desk, backup and disaster recovery, and 24/7/365 security operations that are seamless extensions for in-house service delivery teams.

Joined Forces With ITBoost

We sought to improve managed service provider (MSP) and value-added reseller (VAR) service delivery teams with greater efficiency, productivity, and accuracy by adding the best-in-class integrated IT documentation tool to the ConnectWise product suite.

Cybersecurity, the New Frontier

Best-of-Breed Security Operations Center (SOC) With Continuum

The fusion of Continuum’s DNA into ConnectWise’s vision for security further sharpens and refines our cybersecurity focus by bringing on the technology and expertise of Continuum’s SOC-as-a-Service Continuum Fortify cybersecurity solution.

Launched TSP-ISAO

We announced the creation of the Technology Solution Provider Information Sharing and Analysis Organization (TSP-ISAO), an independent organization with the mission of advancing cybersecurity resilience for TSPs around the world. The TSP-ISAO will serve as the focal point for dealing with all cyberthreats to TSPs. We have extended an invitation to members of the ecosystem, including rivals, to join forces to better the industry.

Launched ConnectWise Identify

We announced a new cybersecurity risk assessment tool for MSPs to easily assess their own and their customers’ current security posture against a wide variety of malicious cybersecurity threats using the NIST Cybersecurity Framework as the basis for the risk assessments.

Launched the Cybersecurity Booster Program Peer Group

Over two days in August, we worked closely with 23 partners, each with a different level of security experience, to help us focus our security strategy, messaging, and marketing. This community provided valuable insight that allowed us to build an understanding of security centered around mutual success and knowledge building. We have continued to get feedback and hear partner progress through quarterly consulting and monthly check-in phone calls with the participating companies. Together, we have discovered the keys to security success and a foundation to build upon in 2020.

Leveled Up the Power of ConnectWise Automate Cybersecurity With Third Wall

A partnership with an ecosystem solutions partner, Third Wall, unlocked the power of ConnectWise Automate to create a unique security offering that automatically delivers proactive endpoint protection settings with over 50 easy to apply and configure desktop hardening policies, automated seek and destroy routines for compromised or stolen systems, and audit trails for solving for compliance rules, regulations, and forensic analysis needs.

Introduced Single Sign-On (SSO) & Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for Streamlined, Layered ConnectWise Software Defense Best Practices

We introduced native SSO to provide an extra level of security, a smoother user experience across ConnectWise software, and a boost to productivity while keeping data secure. The weakest link in the security chain is the end user. To fight back against unprecedented phishing attacks directed at MSPs and RMMs, we’ve implemented mandatory MFA for ConnectWise Automate and ConnectWise Control to neutralize these sophisticated cyberattacks that can cost our partners and their customers millions in damages.

ConnectWise Meets Security & Availability Standard Type 2 SOC 2

We successfully completed a Type 2 Service Organization Control 2 (SOC 2) examination for our flagship software. This recognition demonstrates to our partners that our software can be trusted to adhere to strenuous compliance standards and our commitment to investing in the best security practices internally. We also used the opportunity to hire a dedicated Director of Information Security, exercise cross-functional collaboration between engineering teams and internal security teams and instill security best practices in every phase of product development.

One-Click Ecosystem

A Marketplace Bursting With Meaningful Innovation That Extends the Platform

In 2019, the ecosystem grew to include over 260 third-party integrations to give partners a robust, flourishing collection of solutions to use across the ConnectWise platform. The one-click ecosystem online buying experience is growing as we speak and now offers partners the ability to purchase 10 solution partners through our marketplace in just a few clicks. Those solution partners include:

Bitdefender
Webroot
StorageCraft
Acronis
Dropsuite
Infrascale
MSPToolshed
Keeper Security
Entrust Datacard
ESET

With more to come.

Launched New API Client IDs, a Powerful Unique Identifier Framework

We leveled up quality controls over API access, adoption, and version control. Every integration must have a unique integration key, which identifies the application making API calls. This is not only a security requirement for anyone who wishes to integrate their app with ConnectWise products, but it’s a catalyst to mapping platform usage, assisting solution partners to design superior integrations, and ensuring we curate integrations that extend the platform to the highest ecosystem standards and policies.

Customer Success is Everyone's Job

Implemented a Leadership Structure Around Customer Success

Named Craig Fulton Chief Customer Success Officer, a fanatical advocate of partner success, to not only educate teams on the DNA of what makes partners tick—what delight looks like across the buyer’s journey with ConnectWise—but also to deliver a consistent partner-centered culture across the entire company.

Designed and Implemented the Partner Health Scorecard Framework

Created a ground-breaking holistic framework to capture several inputs of partner health, which serves as an early warning system for retention activities, such as targeted outreach by the customer success team.

Dedicated a Non-Quota Carrying Partner Success Team

We heavily invested in the partners’ ConnectWise experience by bifurcating out a dedicated Partner Success team to maximize success and partner outcome.

Transitioned to Outcome-Based Implementations

Getting the implementation process correct is crucial for partners to have success with ConnectWise. We refactored our service packages, so they are designed to implement ConnectWise solutions to achieve or exceed specific business outcomes.

Created Strategic Partner Segmentation

Through partner segmentation (Tech, Low, and High Touch) within the overall ConnectWise journey, we can provide best practices at that specific point and time in a partner’s journey to make them successful.

Aligned Partner Experience-Facing Teams

Aligned the teams—onboarding, consulting, education, support, IT Nation, and customer success—to focus on partner experiences by shifting towards delivering partner outcomes based on where they’re at in their business maturity journey.

The Evolution of Customer Success in 2020

We spent 2019 accumulating feedback, listening to the concerns and successes of our partner base. With the feedback, we made significant investments in time, talent, and resources that lead to the creation of our Customer Success department. 2020 will introduce Phase Two of our Customer Success strategy that will focus on the ultimate differentiator for ConnectWise: An unmatched partner experience.