How ConnectWise Manage Revolutionized the Way We Work

Connections for Business

Connections for Business, a South Florida IT service provider, was spending unnecessary money on labor and overhead. Without a business management platform to assist in developing their systems and processes, that job fell on the team, and the team only. Billing was inaccurate and taking 40-50 hours a month to complete. Once ConnectWise Manage was implemented into their business model, the company saw profit margins grow as they decreased spending and improved service delivery. Operations were smoother with optimized billing and an overall increase to the efficiency of their managed services. Having lost faith in their previous solution, they soon saw that ConnectWise was, hands down, the place to be.

Challenge

Connections for Business was spending too much on labor and overhead to develop their own internal systems, while at the same time undermining opportunities to improve their processes and service.

Solution

Implementing ConnectWise Manage as their core business management platform has optimized and streamlined their billing process and fully taken over the job of developing internal tools so their team can focus on revenue building tasks.

Results

After reducing the cost spent on labor, reducing the time spent on billing by 90%, and streamlining their overall processes, their operations and service delivery have improved tremendously.

"It completely revolutionized and changed the way we work and conduct business…It’s probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in business."

– DAVID BENNETT, President, Connections for Business

Trading Labor Expense for an Investment Strategy

It made sense at first. Connections for Business was using their own homegrown tool to manage their business. That meant resources were allocated to software development—to the tune of $90K annually in labor costs alone. It didn’t take long to determine that might not be the best use of their resources.

The company’s decision to shift from ongoing software development to investing in a business management platform was a no-brainer when the costs and benefits were analyzed. Purchasing ConnectWise Manage eliminated the need to dedicate resources and a labor budget to internal development. Instead, they could rely on the experts at ConnectWise to provide superior software at a fraction of the cost.

A Path to Centralization Paved with Cost Savings

“Billing was a manual process,” says David Bennett, President at Connections for Business, as he recalls life before ConnectWise Manage. Dave and other staff members were spending 40-50 tedious hours each month to reconcile billing inconsistencies because their internal tools weren’t effective.

After the implementation of ConnectWise Manage, they reduced time spent on billing by 90%! According to David, “That’s the gift that keeps on giving because time is the most precious thing we have.” Time savings resulted from improved accuracy and a feedback loop that, along with accountability, encouraged better ticketing and billing habits. After a few months, the process was so much better that David could offload many of his billing duties to a clerk. With improved accuracy, the clerk could approve all consistent bills in about four hours and only involve David to review a few discrepancies. He’s very happy to report that, “Today, my personal time on billing is about 15 minutes a month.”

After their first year using ConnectWise Manage, the team started to recognize its long-term benefits. Their internally developed software tools of the past were disconnected whereas ConnectWise Manage provided a single platform for centralized tracking. This enabled a culture of collaboration, sharing, and learning. “It gave us an edge to be able to share with each other,” says David. “It gave us an edge to be able to look up what we’d done in the past to learn from each other… that’s extraordinarily powerful.”

Streamlining the Process to Improve Service Delivery

Connections for Business used Kaseya for their remote monitoring and management needs for many years until changes within Kaseya’s management team caused David to lose faith with the company. This opened the opened the door for a new solution—ConnectWise Automate.

“From the standpoint of monitoring, ConnectWise Automate knocks it out of the park,” says David. ConnectWise Automate made it easy to identify machines that had malfunctioning antivirus software or were out of compliance. With Kaseya, this was a multi-step process which took time and degraded service delivery. After making the switch, technicians could quickly identify machines that required an update and fix them immediately, improving the quality and speed of service. Now, the team could monitor multiple endpoints with ease thanks to automation.

Pairing ConnectWise Automate with ConnectWise Manage also created an advantage. These products work together seamlessly to reduce “noise.” Instead of continuous alerts automatically triggering multiple tickets, they can auto-close tickets after an alert is resolved. The event is logged for historic purposes, but doesn’t contribute to ticket volume. The team now benefits from the insights of a historic log without being distracted by unproductive tickets.

A Solid Company with Evolving Products

Connections for Business has been a ConnectWise partner for over a decade and has witnessed the company’s growth and maturity. They look forward to rolling out new product versions because they are confident the upgrades will add value for their team and their customers. And, as an added benefit of a subscription model, new versions are available at no additional cost. With a solid history and product improvements arriving consistently, “ConnectWise is the place to be,” says David. “I’m glad I made the right bet with ConnectWise.”