Inside ConnectWise User Group, Chicago - Day #1
Written by: Gennifer Biggs
 Editor Gennifer Biggs is blogging from the ConnectWise User Group event in Chicago starting Tuesday, April 14. She'll bring you insight from the dozens of ConnectWise users, most of them managed services providers, as well as an exclusive conversation with ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini.Day #1: Business Best Practices With CEO Arnie Bellini With the relaxed air of seasoned presenter, ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini took center stage on Day #1 of the North Central User Group hosted by ConnectWise in Chicago April 14-15. With more than 100 users from at least 12 states in attendance, the demographics ranged from one-person shops to a giant 250-seat MSP, but the bulk of the user organizations on hand have 5 to 15 employees. Day #1 is clearly focused on the business processes – all tied into ConnectWise – that can help any size of IT organization grow, profit, and expand at whatever rate it is prepared to tackle. Arnie tackled topics both large and small – challenging attendees to see where they could improve their businesses, including these key areas: Collaboration: Arnie encouraged the group to not see each other as competitors, but rather part of a larger community. He urged the users to learn how to utilize each others' unique skills sets and business savvy through networking, plus ConnectWise modules that allow ticket sharing and outsourcing, which can fuel both expertise growth and geographic growth. “Look at your fellow users as extensions of your company,” says Arnie, reminding the local group that they were among 27,000 total ConnectWise users - an enormous community. Time keeping: The bottom line for any services business is that if your employee isn’t billing a client for his or her time, they are billing you. How to rectify that situation, says Arnie, is as simple as tracking hours. He stresses that everyone from the CEO on down to internal support staff must be accountable for the business running efficiently, and one job for the boss – be it owner or CEO – is to create an environment where everyone understands their role within that efficient business. That means tracking time spend on projects, both outward facing (clients) and inward facing (marketing). His tip of the day on this: make it simple. Closed loop: Within the business management software offered by ConnectWise is a feature that Arnie stresses as highly important for growing MSPs. The “closed loop” ticketing function, unveiled in June 2008 as part of ConnectWise version 7.2, allows help desk techs handle all the tasks associated with a ticket, including emailing customers from within the ticket, adding internal resources with a click of the mouse, and enabling automatic emails to customers and selected resources that include full updates to the service ticket. The importance of this feature, says Arnie, is the ability to include, automatically, every person involved in a customer issue, which creates seamless communications and saves valuable time. In addition, the users surrounding me say the function provides transparency to customers (who are included in all email communications) that reinforces the work being done for them as part of a managed services agreement. On the chalkboard for the afternoon: utilization and dispatching. |