ConnectWise's IT Nation, a global community of peers, thought leaders and experts dedicated to elevating the IT ecosystem to new heights, has announced that Strategy Overview was named the winner of the 2025 annual PitchIT Program at IT Nation Connect, in Orlando, Florida. For the second year, Liongard sponsored this year's PitchIT Program.

"We're proud to once again be a part of this incredible initiative," said Michelle Accardi, CEO, Lionguard. "It's inspiring to see emerging vendors challenge convention and create technologies that help service providers deliver greater value to their customers. Supporting PitchIT reflects Liongard's ongoing commitment to strengthening the community and fueling innovation that lifts the entire channel."

Strategy Overview captured first place and a $70,000 grand prize with its innovative vCIO and QBR automation platform — powered by Arya, the world's first vCIO agent — that standardizes tech stacks, delivers clean assessments, updates asset data and gives clients a white-labeled portal to manage their digital transformation. The runner-up, Mizo, showcased an intelligent AI agent-based automation for MSP service desks and received $30,000, which will further support the company's commitment to innovation and growth. Industry experts Juan Mack, MJ Patent and MJ Shoer presided over the competition.

"The MSP industry is entering a new era of innovation and opportunity," said Sean Lardo, IT Nation Evangelist. "This year's PitchIT class demonstrated the creativity and determination driving our community's evolution. Strategy Overview demonstrated the transformative impact that their automated QBR and vCIO agent can have on the MSP industry. We're eager to see what inventive solutions our partners will develop next and we can't wait to meet the next generation of MSPs who'll join our PitchIT program in the coming year. Together, we're shaping a stronger, more secure and more profitable future for the MSP community."

This year, 26 trailblazers from across the global MSP and IT services community joined the PitchIT Class of 2025. Over 16 weeks, participants engaged in comprehensive business development training, mentorship, coaching and co-marketing opportunities. The finalists then took center stage at IT Nation Connect to showcase their solutions, with exclusive access to free booths and personalized guidance from former PitchIT champions, including Senteon.

"Winning PitchIT this year is truly an honor, and I am grateful for the recognition," said Alex Markov, CEO and co-founder, Strategy Overview. "Being part of the program allowed us to reflect on why we built Strategy Overview. It's not just that we built the best vCIO/QBR automation platform in the world, but the biggest impact we have is that our platform gives MSPs freedom. Being part of this community has been the biggest impact on my life, and being able then pass those lessons to the new generation of MSPs is amazing."

Founded in 2018, the PitchIT program is a startup incubation competition designed to help innovators showcase solutions that can be built on or integrated within the ConnectWise ecosystem. Since its inception, nearly 150 companies from around the world have participated. The program reflects IT Nation's ongoing commitment to nurturing innovation and empowering startup integration partners driving progress in the MSP space.

In other news, ConnectWise has announced product advancements across the Asio platform. These enhancements, spanning remote monitoring and management (RMM), professional service automation (PSA) and robotic process automation (RPA), demonstrate measurable progress in helping partners strengthen security, streamline operations and harness the power of automation to drive business impact.

MSPs face mounting pressures from technician shortages, rising service demands and intensifying security threats. ConnectWise is addressing these challenges with tangible product milestones that partners can use immediately, including expanded third-party patching now covering more than 7,000 applications, significant PSA user experience improvements and advanced RPA capabilities to enable workflows that span the entire MSP tech stack.

"Our mission is to deliver real, measurable progress for our partners, not just promises," said David Raissipour, chief product and technology officer, ConnectWise. ‘Expanding third-party patching, modernizing PSA services and advancing RPA with AI capabilities are tangible proof points of how the Asio platform is evolving. These are the building blocks for autonomous service, helping partners strengthen security, improve efficiency and, ultimately, run more profitable businesses."

Key platform advancements include:

• Third-Party Patching Expansion: ConnectWise RMM has expanded third-party patch coverage from approximately 350 to more than 7,000 applications, with policy controls and reporting. This includes widely used and frequently exploited applications such as Discord, Brave, OBS Studio, Slack, Webex, Notion and Spark, in addition to already-covered applications including Dropbox, Chrome, Zoom and Adobe Acrobat, closing common security gaps for MSPs and their clients.
• PSA User Experience Improvements: Significant operational efficiency enhancements for partners using ConnectWise PSA powered by Asio, including Unified Billing Intake enhancements, Calendar View for improved scheduling visibility, custom fields and views for tailored work streams. A new upgrade wizard is available to help partners merge and consolidate data across products as they move to the Asio platform.
• Advanced RPA Capabilities: New AI-powered bot generation planned for release in the coming months and an enhanced, currently live Community Exchange enable partners to share and deploy automation workflows. Early adopters like Mangano have achieved 165-plus tech hours saved per month, 75% faster client onboarding and 90% faster offboarding using RPA automation.
• Network Monitoring Integration: Network monitoring capabilities, through a strategic partnership with Auvik, deliver advanced, full-stack visibility and automation within RMM. Building on foundational monitoring, the latest Premier offering empowers MSPs with deep performance insights, NetFlow monitoring and Syslog support, unlocking faster troubleshooting and more informed delivery at scale.

"What sets ConnectWise apart is the combination of breadth and integration," added Jeff Bishop, executive vice president of product, ConnectWise. "Patching, PSA enhancements and RPA advancements are not standalone wins, but work together through the Asio platform to simplify operations and deliver value at scale. By embedding automation, intelligence and security directly into the tools MSPs use every day, we're giving our partners a sustainable advantage in a competitive and quickly changing market."

ConnectWise's unified Asio platform provides the clean, governed data architecture and agentic workflows needed for AI-driven service delivery. Unlike fragmented toolsets, Asio integrates RMM, PSA, Quoting, Automation, Security and other key products and services into a single platform with consistent data and user experience, enabling MSPs to more quickly and confidently adopt autonomous service delivery.

The expanded third-party patching capability is available now. PSA enhancements including the Upgrade Wizard, custom fields and views are currently available. Advanced RPA features with AI-powered bot generation demonstrated at IT Nation Connect will release in the coming few months.

In other news, ConnectWise has announced major advancements to its cybersecurity and data protection capabilities within the Asio platform. These enhancements empower MSPs to enter the Age of Autonomous Service by unifying security operations, accelerating threat response, and extending business continuity coverage across modern and legacy infrastructure.

MSPs today face mounting pressure from AI-driven cyberattacks, tightened compliance requirements and rising SMB expectations for always-on IT operations. ConnectWise's Asio-powered innovations deliver measurable outcomes, including 30% to 50% faster detection and response through unified alerts and automated actions, reduced tool sprawl by consolidating SIEM, MDR, backup and dashboards in one unified interface, and improved SLA performance through better visibility and automated business recovery.

"MSPs are navigating an increasingly complex threat landscape while customers demand bulletproof security and seamless recovery," said David Raissipour, chief product and technology officer, ConnectWise. "By unifying security and data protection within Asio, we're helping MSPs to enter the Age of Autonomous Service with an integrated platform that enables them to move from reactive firefighting to proactive, outcome-driven service delivery. "

Key platform enhancements include:

• Expanding the ConnectWise SIEM Ecosystem: New integrations with Microsoft Office 365, SentinelOne, Cisco Meraki and Umbrella, Duo and Syslog Router accelerate threat detection while avoiding vendor lock-in, with an accelerated integrations and migration program in-flight.
• The Agentic Evolution of MDR: ConnectWise MDR brings agentic AI into incident response with RPA-powered Security Actions that enable instant containment of suspicious M365 activity. This capability will be demonstrated at IT Nation with full release in Q1 2026.
• Single Source of Truth with Security Dashboard and Backup Dashboard: Security The Dashboard integrates with 14 platforms, including ConnectWise SIEM (powered by Asio), Acronis, BitDefender, ESET, Microsoft Defender AV, Microsoft Defender for Business, SentinelOne, Sophos, Webroot, Breach Secure Now, Infima, PHIN and Proofpoint SAT. The Backup Dashboard provides visibility across six integrations: Axcient x360Recover, Axcient x360Cloud, Acronis, Veeam, Datto and SaaS Backup/Keepit.
• Extending the Reach of BCDR: ConnectWise x360Recover now protects Network Attached Storage (NAS) of any make or model, while new Azure Files protection extends coverage across both modern workloads and legacy infrastructure.
• Expanding M365 Protection with Entra ID: ConnectWise Cloud Backup now protects Entra ID, ensuring user identities, attributes, and policies can be fully restored, which is critical for holistic recovery as SMBs adopt more Microsoft-based solutions.

"The fragmentation of security and backup tools has long drained MSP productivity," said Russ Humphries, executive vice president of product management – security and data protection, ConnectWise. "With more than 20 security and backup integrations unified under a single pane of glass, we're proving that an open-ecosystem approach can deliver both choice and simplicity. Our partners can now detect threats, respond with AI-backed automation and ensure their customers benefit from the fastest business and data recovery possible all from one platform."

ConnectWise is the first vendor to unify SIEM, automated security actions and backup/recovery visibility in one intelligent platform. Unlike point solutions that force MSPs to toggle between multiple interfaces, Asio delivers a true single pane of glass for security and data protection operations.

The SIEM integrations and dashboard enhancements are available now. RPA-powered Security Actions and agentic MDR capabilities will be demonstrated at IT Nation with full release planned for Q4 2025 and Q1 2026 respectively. NAS and Azure Files protection are currently in early access with general availability planned for Q4 2025.

In other news, Service Leadership Inc., a ConnectWise company, has announced the launch of Service Leadership Benchmark Essentials (S-L Benchmark Essentials), a tool designed to equip smaller IT solution providers (fewer than 10 employees) with essential financial reporting capabilities and educational resources to drive business growth. S-L Benchmark Essentials delivers the core features of the renowned Service Leadership Index (S-LI), making high-impact financial insights more accessible and cost-effective than ever before.

Nearly half of solution providers have less than $2 million of annual revenue, and at that size, often lack finance operations capable of utilizing the complete version of Service Leadership Index benchmarking. Compared to the S-L Index, S-L Benchmark Essentials features 70% fewer input fields, reducing the time and effort required to complete quarterly financial surveys. This enables users to take advantage of the powerful benefits of benchmarking while minimizing the burden of more extensive data entry, making it easier for smaller IT solution providers to participate and benefit. As a result, they can access current financial data for informed decision-making, gain insights through key metric analysis, and compare their performance against the best-in-class to identify areas for improvement.

"S-L Benchmark Essentials is more than just a financial benchmarking tool — it's a catalyst for organizational growth and competitive advantage," said Peter Kujawa, executive vice president and general manager, Service Leadership & IT Nation. "Running a smaller MSP is tough, and too many don't make it financially. This will empower smaller organizations to deepen their financial understanding and make business success much more attainable."

In other news,  ConnectWise has announced that Elastic, the search AI company, has named ConnectWise the recipient of the 2025 Elastic Managed Services Partner Award — AMER. The recognition was presented at this year's annual ElasticON ENGAGE NYC.

The 2025 Elastic Partner Awards — AMER honor top-performing partners who have demonstrated technical excellence, local market impact and customer-centric innovation across AI, search and data-driven transformation. ConnectWise's recognition underscores its leadership in delivering Elastic-powered managed services that enable MSPs to work smarter and secure more effectively.

"We're honored that Elastic has recognized ConnectWise with the 2025 Managed Services Partner Award," Rivelo said. "This is a reflection of our commitment to driving innovation, customer growth and market expansion through Elastic-powered solutions. Together, we're helping our partners and customers search, monitor and secure everything that matters and empowering them to achieve greater outcomes in an increasingly data-driven world."

The 2025 Elastic Partner Awards — AMER winners were recognized across 10 categories, spanning revenue generation, co-selling, migrations, solution delivery, managed services, cloud acceleration, cloud growth, technology innovation, professional services and generative AI. Together, these categories highlight the breadth of ways partners create customer impact and fuel growth across the Elastic ecosystem.

The Elastic Managed Services Partner Award acknowledges partners who enable secure, continuous operations through managed services, advanced monitoring and rapid response.

"The 2025 Elastic Partner Awards — AMER recognize partners who pair deep expertise with a relentless focus on customer success," said Jason Kimrey, vice president of channels and alliances, AMER, Elastic. "These winners are demonstrating the full power of the Elastic Search AI platform to expand opportunities, deliver measurable outcomes, while fueling growth and mutual success."