ConnectWise was the key to this MSP’s healthy growth

First Focus

First Focus, a Sydney-based managed service provider (MSP), had a big decision to make. The year was 2010 and after many years of steady growth and expansion, the company’s operations had become complex and inefficient.

While growth is great, the existing business processes and applications just couldn’t offer the solutions First Focus needed to optimise efficiency. It was time to switch to a system that could not only grow with the business, but become the integrated platform that would streamline operations, expand accessibility and assist in boosting overall customer experience.

Challenge

First Focus, an MSP based in Sydney, Australia, was growing quickly—but its business software couldn’t keep pace. They needed a scalable solution to ensure projects and workflow stay on track.

Solution

First Focus discovered ConnectWise Manage®, ConnectWise Sell®, and ConnectWise Automate®—an entire suite of applications to help them organise projects and communicate with team members more effectively.

Results

First Focus gained new levels of integration between its offices, helping the company find better solutions for its customers.

'The ability to make the best decisions matters. As an MSP, our teams need to know the essential insight on customers, software, hardware...everything. ConnectWise gives us this advantage.'

-ROSS SARDI, Chief Executive Officer, First Focus IT

Driving Business Efficiencies

To help drive operational efficiencies, First Focus offered the company’s project managers better access to crucial data and information therefore increasing overall productivity. Increasing the efficiency of ticketing was soon to follow, then focus was on developing best practices around time tracking and billing. These operational changes not only increased output, but assisted First Focus to deliver a greater customer experience while reducing the number of administration errors though automation while driving cost savings.

“We had a problem. To grow expertly, we needed to switch over our operations to a trusted service provider. ConnectWise was the clear choice. They understand how we work, and their products helped us scale effectively,” said Ross Sardi, First Focus’s Chief Executive Officer.

ConnectWise Manage delivered immediate results, helping the First Focus team improve several processes. But the best benefit was unexpected.

“ConnectWise Manage gave us a solid core—in other words, it became the center of our software ecosystem. We use a lot of other, smaller software platforms when we work, and they all plug into ConnectWise Manage. It’s a cohesive system” said Sardi.

After assessing First Focus’s requirements and existing technology environment, a migration plan was developed to ensure that ConnectWise was quickly configured and implemented seamlessly within the business. To help drive adoption and maximisation of the solutions capabilities, the ConnectWise University was leveraged to help further educate and empower First Focus to drive efficiencies and overall ROI.

Integrating Operations

Given the business process improvements ConnectWise Manage delivered, it’s no surprise that First Focus soon implemented ConnectWise Sell and ConnectWise Automate.

“We switched to ConnectWise Sell because we needed more flexibility,” said Sardi. “Our sales were booming at that point, and the software we’d been using just wasn’t designed for that scale of work. Being able to quickly develop and deliver interactive and accurate quotes and proposals not only saved time, but delivered a professional image that helped drive better customer interactions.”

The ConnectWise platform lets First Focus add or subtract user licenses as needed, so their sales team can keep growing without roadblocks. This was especially important given the company’s continuous growth: by this point, operations had doubled in size, expanding across seven offices in both Australia and New Zealand. ConnectWise Sell improved integration between the teams, speeding up the sales process. And the platform’s cloud-based quoting and proposal process helped the organisation save time and prevent errors from the get-go.

ConnectWise Automate pushes these benefits even further. The platform’s integration with ConnectWise Manage made it easier for First Focus to proactively monitor MSP vendors, manage costs, and keep track of tickets. All of this gave business executives something invaluable: access to real time information that can be leveraged to drive more informed and strategic business decision making.

“The ability to make the right decisions matters. As an MSP, our teams need to know the essential insight on customers, software, hardware...everything,” said Sardi. “ConnectWise gives us this advantage. We talk about customer service—the best way to support our customer is to give them a smooth, easy experience. And we can only deliver that if we have all the information at our fingertips.”

The Future of Business

Today, First Focus is thriving. Working with ConnectWise hasn’t just improved the company’s day-to-day processes, it’s given them access to data on these processes—which First Focus can use to make better decisions going forward.

‘We can’t afford to drop the ball on our customers, feeling secure that we have a three year MSP contract is now considered old school. To ensure customer satisfaction we have to have the processes and systems in place to ensure we deliver continuous improvement to our customers so that we are delivering real value to their business’, said Sardi.

“ConnectWise gives us access to data driven insights, that we can leverage to determine the best ways to improve customer experience and discover better solutions for the future of our business,” said Sardi.