By Andy Slawetsky – Continuum recently held their annual user conference in their hometown of Boston MA. The conference was sold out with over 700 attendees taking up all of the allotted slots.
For those of you unfamiliar with Continuum, they help over 5,800 Managed Services Providers (MSPs) get their work done by providing them with scalable RMM and BDR software. Continuum is big, managing over 1,000,000 end points across the globe.
While there were certainly a lot of MSPs attending, I was surprised by how many imaging dealers I ran into. Omni in VA and Excel in CA among others. In fact, 1/3 of the companies winning awards during the presentations were imaging dealers as Sharp Business, Meridian and Gordon Flesch all earned recognition and a nice trophy, respectively.
The Navigate conference was a well organized two day event that provided great speakers like Hall of Famer Bill Walton as well as a security key note by Mike Buratowski of Fidelis Cybersecurity – the company you call when you’re a Target or Walmart or government account and you have a breach, or worse. This guy really freaked me out with his doom and gloom on how critical security is, especially with the proliferation of the IoT. In fact, right after he spoke I saw an article about how hackers had taken control of millions of unsecured wifi cameras, using them for all sorts of mayhem.
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The conference provided meaningful presentations on a wide variety of topics ranging from security to marketing. There were lots of familiar faces, including former Sharp President and Valderus exec Ed McLaughlin, who gave a presentation on identifying risks in your accounts and the value of face-to-face meetings.
Continuum is very active with Veterans groups and participates in several charitable organizations, including The Veteran’s Foundation. The meeting opened with Continuum CEO Michael George asking present vets to stand so the crowd could applaud their service – a touching moment. After, the crowd stood for the National Anthem and I’m proud to report there were no knees taken.
Michael went on to tell listeners how Continuum donates 1% of all profits to Veterans’ charities and each employee donates 20 hours (I think I got that right) a year of their time volunteering to Veterans’ charities. They make a point of hiring vets and participate in the Hire Heros program. Continuum has donated over $220,000 since 2013.
.@FollowContinuum donates 1% of profits to the #Veterans Foundation, each employee also donates 20 hours a year. BRAVO!!! #NAV16 #msp pic.twitter.com/m6lXE7uyeo
— Industry Analysts (@aslawetsky) September 29, 2016
Later, we received an update on the company. Continuum has spent the last year improving their efficiency, with ticket times cut 39% from last year, even with 52% more tickets issued.
They also announced new partnerships like the one with Auvik. Auvik does for networks what Continuum does for end points.
Managed Services are widely recognized to be the next big thing for traditional copier dealers. The ones attending I spoke to are all very excited about the potential. They’re starting to make money and several are now past the tipping point and have a clear strategy and growth plan. Gordon Flesch had 14 people at this event. Think they’re serious about making money with managed services? I do.
Partnering with companies like Continuum makes sense. Why reinvent the wheel and try to create a completely in-house offering when the infrastructure and support is already there? Cotniuum is a great way to get into managed services with comparatively minimal investment.
This was an impressive conference. Attendees not only enjoyed themselves, they learned a lot about new programs and partnerships and new products they can offer. It was a couple of days well spent and I can tell you these guys had their act together.
~Andy
