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Building comprehensive solutions to bolster MSPs

Managed services are the hot topic for the IT channel right now. With enterprises experiencing unprecedented disruption to their services, the pressure is still on the organisations to innovate and prepare for the recovery. As a recent KPMG report states: “IT leaders should continue transforming their operating models and investing in key enablers, like integrated cloud platforms, agile ways of working, intelligent automation, AI, blockchain, and advanced data and analytics.

“History has shown that companies that take a strategic future-focused investment approach during times of unrest were in better places when the global economy rebounded.”

It is up to the managed service providers (MSPs) – to facilitate this for their customers. What enterprises want are holistic, efficient, comprehensive, and strategic solutions, and that’s where ConnectWise comes in. ConnectWise maintains a complex blend of solution offerings, with the parent brand (“ConnectWise”) anchoring each of the solutions that it provides to the market under the one naming banner. In this way ConnectWise operates a little like a Google or Amazon, as a one-stop, cohesive shop for any partner looking to bring a solution to market.

In 2016, ConnectWise began its journey in aligning its product portfolio under this master brand philosophy. This resulted in products being re-named under a single over-arching brand to highlight the cohesive way in which they operate together, and include ConnectWise Automate (formerly LabTech Software), ConnectWise Sell (formerly Quosal), ConnectWise Control (formerly ScreenConnect), and ConnectWise Manage (formerly ConnectWise).

For the channel, this renaming has provided a cohesiveness of vision, and a seamless experience when on-boarding and representing all products in the solution. ConnectWise has delivered the channel a true “platform” experience, with all the benefits of accessing a stack, as opposed to cobbling together solutions from multiple sources. In addition to giving MSPs and their customers the peace of mind that the solutions they’re onboarding are robust, scalable, and stackable, this has been recognised as a leading branding exercise on ConnectWise’s part, with the company being awarded the 2018 Brand & Communications Program of the Year from Sirius Decisions, a global B2B advisory firm empowering marketing, product, and sales leaders to make better decisions, execute with precision, and accelerate growth.

The benefits of this approach to ConnectWise’s channel have continued to grow, too, allowing the company to grow its solutions range and provide partners with an additional breadth of opportunity. Following the acquisition of Continuum in 2019, ConnectWise was once again presented with brand that was distinct from the rest of its offerings, and consequently, one of the first initiatives of aligning the two companies was to bring them together under the same banner.

As of now, the Continuum product portfolio has been rolled into the ConnectWise solution set, as ConnectWise Assist (formerly Continuum Assist), ConnectWise Command (formerly Continuum Command), ConnectWise Fortify (formerly Continuum Fortify), and ConnectWise Recover (formerly Continuum Recover). In 2018, Continuum went through a branding evolution of its own aligning under a Continuum master brand and streamlining the product naming convention. Their recent rebrand made the integration of the Continuum product line into the ConnectWise master brand straightforward.

In addition to the rebrand, the Continuum.net into ConnectWise.com websites will be merged, providing MSPs and their customers a single location to interact with the ConnectWise suite of products.

As a result of these brandings and acquisitions, ConnectWise can offer MSPs a highly flexible and scalable platform of solutions to help them run and grow their business — ranging from software products, expert services, an ecosystem of hundreds of integrations, and an immersive IT community.

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