Connectbase delivers on ambitious growth by accelerating DevOps maturity with professional services

The history

Connectbase is the global digital ecosystem for buying and selling connectivity. The company enables service providers, enterprises and data centers to streamline network procurement, optimize pricing and expand their market reach through its comprehensive marketplace.

Designed to streamline interactions between buyers and sellers across the globe, the Connected World platform offers a dynamic and comprehensive ecosystem, serving more than 400 providers globally.

Traditionally, buying and selling connectivity has been a slow, manual, and labor-intensive process. However, Connectbase has disrupted the industry by creating end-to-end tools that deliver location intelligence and automation to help customers make strategic decisions to support growth objectives.

As one of the fastest-growing private companies in America, Connectbase is rapidly evolving from a startup to a high-growth business.

“Our team needed to be prepared for the exponential growth our business was creating,” said Trey Willis, Chief Technology Officer, Connectbase. “We needed to make significant investments in infrastructure, architecture, and application design, as well as rethink our personnel strategy and organizational management to stay ahead of the rapid growth.”

Previously, Connectbase relied on a model that utilized dedicated offshore contractors. However, the structure lacked the breadth and diversity of experience needed to meet the company’s needs as a lean, high-growth organization.

Connectbase needed a more agile, efficient, and scalable solution that could quickly pivot to align with business priorities without adding greater headcount. The turning point came when Connectbase acquired a company already using the Flexential professional services engagement model.

“As we integrated the new team into our business and aligned our operations, I saw firsthand the value Flexential was delivering,” said Willis. “The team had an excellent, seamless, and collaborative model working with Flexential.”

The challenge

Stay ahead of increased demands without sacrificing quality or speed to market

Connectbase was seeking a U.S.-based professional services partner who could keep pace with the velocity of change and work in tandem with the company’s internal Platform Engineering team.

As the company rapidly scaled its public cloud platform to support business growth, implementing a flexible model was essential to accommodate increased demands without compromising performance or reliability.

Laser-focused on reducing time to market, Connectbase required a partner with deep expertise in delivering value through modern, lean-agile DevOps methodologies. By partnering with Flexential, Connectbase gained access to the DevOps expertise and scalable resources needed to accelerate the company’s cloud-based initiatives and deliver on its aggressive growth plans.

The solution

Connectbase leverages Flexential DevOps expertise to support rapid, cost-effective growth

Flexential provided an experienced Azure-focused DevOps team, including a lead engineer, two assisting engineers, and a dedicated Scrum Master. Flexential not only delivered comprehensive engineering skills to the team but also provided Connectbase with 24/7/365 support, offering the peace of mind that comes from knowing expert support was always available.

“Flexential is a part of our transformation story,” said Willis. “Our team is performing better now with fewer people in a more cost-efficient way, and that’s a tribute to the commercial model Flexential brings along with their experience and wisdom.”

The collaborative approach and proven DevOps capabilities provided by Flexential enabled Connectbase to accelerate its time to market while maintaining the high standards of quality and reliability their customers expected.

“Flexential has become a part of the team in just a short timeframe,” said Vinny Fantauzzo, Platform Engineering Manager for Connectbase. “We’re getting feedback from other product teams that are reaching out to them and asking for their point of view. They are part of our big-picture strategy, making sure that the technologies we choose will move us forward.”

Key features: A deep bench of DevOps experts with a track record of making technology teams faster, better, and more productive.

By tapping into Flexential DevOps experts, Connectbase was able to access the right skills and experience needed to keep pace with exponential growth cost-effectively.

Implementation: Connectbase’s initial engagement with Flexential was marked by a collaborative, iterative approach as the teams established an effective working relationship.

In the early stages, it was essential for the teams to foster open and transparent dialogue as they aligned priorities, processes, and ways of working.

“Flexential was able to quickly adapt to our blameless methodology, which is a culture of solving problems rather than pointing fingers,” said Fantauzzo.

As the partnership progressed, the Flexential team became deeply integrated with Connectbase’s Platform Engineering group, participating in sprint planning meetings, daily stand-ups, and review sessions to provide strategic guidance on technology decisions.

This seamless integration allowed the Flexential team to apply their cross-industry expertise to help Connectbase avoid potential pitfalls and make informed choices to support the company’s rapid growth. The collaborative nature of the implementation process laid the foundation for ongoing, strategic collaboration.

The results

Flexential collaboration accelerates Connectbase’s speed to market

Performance: Connectbase increased its speed to market and reduced operational costs by investing in Flexential professional services.

Efficiency: Connectbase’s ability to cost-effectively scale its DevOps practices with support from Flexential was a key factor in the company’s successful transition from a startup to a high-growth scale-up business.

Customer experience: With the flexibility of professional services, Connectbase seamlessly expanded its DevOps and platform engineering capabilities to support rapid business growth.