UK News
Technology law firm Scott & Scott, LLP has built an integration between its contract management solution and ConnectWise Sell, which is automated quote and proposal software for the IT services industry.
Scott & Scott, LLP offers a cloud- based contracts-as-a-service solution for managed service providers, allowing MSPs to deploy customized versions of its master legal templates for online review and acceptance by end users. Using the Order Porter and quote templates within ConnectWise Sell, MSPs can collect e-signatures, enter into click-wrap agreements, and obtain browser wrap consent from clients for the online terms and conditions provided by the firm.
“The industry is moving to digital contracting and we are helping our clients implement scalable solutions to manage risk,” said Robert Scott, Scott & Scott managing partner.
Industry-leading ConnectWise and MSP consulting firm FocusPlanit is working with Scott & Scott to get the legal agreements the firm has created for its MSP clients integrated with ConnectWise Sell’s quoting software.
The collaboration should result in MSPs being better protected in a time where technology is changing so fast that MSPs are at high cybersecurity and ransomware risks.
“Scott & Scott is providing the contract management solution and we are effectively helping clients implement it using Sell,” according to Calvin Johnson, director of sales and marketing at FocusPlanit. “Since the MSPs we work with on a daily basis aren’t attorneys and are just trying to take care of their businesses, they need the legal aspect to be out of sight and out of mind. We want to provide any help we can to do that.”
Scott & Scott’s solution allows MSPs to bind their customers to services agreements the firm writes using the quote acceptance and electronic signature capabilities of Sell. By integrating directly with the quote, the solution collapses the sales and contracting process into one easy online transaction. The firm was referred by a client to Johnson, one of the early employees at ConnectWise and someone with vast experience in implementing ConnectWise Sell for MSPs.
“Most MSPs lack the internal resources necessary to program Sell to integrate with hosted online terms and conditions,” Johnson said. Saying that he found Scott to be unique in how he explained why legal agreements for MSPs should be structured in a certain way, Johnson said that Scott is “far more technical than any other attorney I have talked with in the MSP space.”
“That matters,” Johnson added, noting that while most lawyers have an idea about the cloud and MSPs’ services, “Rob has a great understanding of the structure of it all.” Johnson also said that being comfortable sending FocusPlanit clients to Scott & Scott because of the collaboration is a big deal.
“We are very picky as to who we send our partners to because if they go out of business or get in trouble, we lose them,” Johnson said. “So, it’s significant to find legal resources that we can send them to. Scott & Scott provides that.”
Further, the firm is being innovative in how it is helping its IT clients, Johnson said. “Scott & Scott is looking to take things a step further and say, ‘Not only will we supply the legal terms and keep them up to date, but we will help you implement them and get them into the quote and proposal.’ It’s a new approach compared to the firm’s peers,” Johnson said. “Nobody else has taken the next step.” It’s a crucial step, however, because it is key to have a legal document that is laid out in a way that a judge will enforce, Johnson said. “If you don’t have that, it doesn’t really matter,” Johnson said. “That’s the part Scott & Scott is trying to fix.”
Johnson said that a person may buy a cable offline and be given the box with the cable, but that doesn’t mean they will know how to install it. He said that if installing the cable is analogous to putting together an effective, potent legal agreement for MSPs, Scott & Scott is, for the first time in history, installing the cable and helping the cable buyer understand how it works. “Many customers want to use ConnectWise Sell but are bogged down in the implementation process. Not only are we showing them how to leverage the tool, we are offering standard templates for quotes and proposals,” Scott said. “Working with FocusPlanit, we now have a standard set of integrations that can easily be applied to any Sell user’s deployment. Thus, we are able to go live with ConnectWise much faster and cheaper than we would have had we not engaged with FocusPlanit.”
Johnson also complimented Scott’s dedication to FocusPlanit clients, pointing out that Scott helped one over the phone at 7 a.m. on a Saturday. “We know we can pass them off to Scott & Scott and they’re taken care of,” Johnson said. “If I can help the firm, that’s awesome, but Scott & Scott is certainly helping us. It’s not just about the need to prove to a judge that a client agreed to X, Y and Z terms. If MSP companies aren’t covered properly and their legal terms aren’t up to date, you could lose your entire business in the blink of an eye.”
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