Growing by leaps and bounds: ROOK Connect, a Canadian-based Business Management Software company is taking the world by storm by supporting businesses looking to streamline operations, accountability, collaboration and real-time visibility.

“We build solid long-term relationships with our customers. Our customers want to evolve, grow, get leaner and faster operationally while delivering top quality results for their customers. Any company that refuses to evolve is going to struggle, the ROOK Connect Team solves businesses problems with technology, and we’re constantly improving and evolving how we do it.”

Too many companies fail when integrating software into their business or going digital because the digital systems they are trying to implement can’t adapt to their specific business needs and requirements. ROOK Connect provides structure, processes and workflows while empowering businesses with configurations and a team of professionals to help get the most out of the ROOK Connect software. The company was developed to help businesses streamline operations, enhancing their ability to operate efficiently and maximize revenues through the application of lean practices and workflows. The ROOK software comes fully stacked with templates, workflows, processes and business tools, providing the digital applications needed to drive your business forward. Capitalizing on years of experience with implementations and designing digital workflows and processes, ROOK Connect business management software is changing the way businesses can capitalize on software.

ROOK Connect's growth is nothing short of amazing. With record-breaking sales year after year, the company has been able to grow, evolve and adapt to the market's demands and come out on top. With customers expanding throughout North America and small pockets throughout other countries, ROOK Connect now has its sights on the UK and Australia and appears to be unstoppable.

The Silicon Review reached out to ROOK Connect’s Calgary headquarters and spoke with Kenneth Bond, who serves as the company’s Chief Executive Officer. Here’s what he said.

“There’s no magic at ROOK Connect, explains CEO, Kenneth Bond, our product is the result of a hard working team of individuals that are dedicated to delivering the best quality outcomes for our customers. I couldn’t be prouder of the amazing team I work with, there’s no question that we’re going to continue to be one of the most disruptive software companies again this year.”

As a journalist, I find ROOK Connect quite striking. From the emotional branding standpoint, to the high energy and motivation I feel just talking with the CEO, Kenneth Bond. There’s no question in my mind that ROOK Connect delivers for its customers, it’s the sense of pride I get just doing this interview and learning about the company.

Interview Highlights

Q. How did you come up with the brand name? And please brief us about the history so far.

The game of chess has always been significant and symbolic to me. I believe that strategy and planning ahead are essential elements of any business. Ensuring that all working components of a business are properly connected is my expertise, which is how ROOK Connect software was developed. Keeping with that theme, rooks are chess pieces - the kings’ castles. The rook also participates with the king in a special move called castling. They build the foundation of the company; at ROOK Connect those are our engineers and developers. Knights - also chess pieces - are the individual team members that work directly with customers, business analysts, etc. They stand on guard for the company, help us improve the product and work with customers to help them get the most out of utilizing ROOK Connect for their business.

ROOK was founded as a custom software solution, built from the ground up on large contracts where Kenneth was asked to solve business problems using software. Looking into and working with a variety of digital solutions, we began developing processes that would automate workflows and streamline business practices. With detailed administrative and procedural processes, redundancy is reduced, accuracy is improved and efficiency and organizational objectives can be achieved. Through customer referrals and consistently evolving the capabilities of our software, ROOK Connect uniquely grew into a Business Management Software that could be configured to match a businesses exact needs. “ROOK Connect isn’t just about automation, it’s the connecting tool that brings data in from all areas of your business, so real-time reporting and data visualization truly becomes a reality for businesses. ROOK Connect Business Management Software empowers businesses with a large variety of acronyms, all the way from CRM to ERP.”

Q. What does ROOK Connect do?

The story of ROOK Connect is one of continual growth and constant evolution. With a wide range of business tools (far too many to mention) and an extensive user base, ROOK focuses on quality programming and simple, easy-to-use interfaces that visually bring your data to life. Working in and with a wide variety of industries and markets, we, at ROOK Connect, credit the success of the company to the solid base of our customers. It’s gratifying that our customers wouldn’t settle for a product that couldn’t outperform current products that solve individual business problems. They demanded increases in performance, productivity and reporting, on one platform that could give them all the tools they need to increase efficiency and operationally deliver for customers. “Start to finish business process management is about organization, structure and process implementation, these aren’t easy words for most businesses. We don’t expect our customers to know and understand how software works, we learn how our customers' businesses operate and deliver results today, and work with them to implement solutions to empower them to deliver better quality results with the utmost efficiency.”

More importantly, we don’t expect our customers to be software and process mapping experts; we bring that to the table. We work with professionals who know their business and want their business to excel. Thus we build solid long-term relationships with our customers, to the point where we are constantly bouncing ideas back and forth about how they and ROOK Connect can improve.

Getting hands-on with our customers and learning from management and the front line empowers us to operate at a level that competitors can’t match. We have the flexibility to adapt and grow with businesses, empowering them with a wide variety of workflows, processes, configurations and even customization tools that ensure the software works the way they need it to. ”ROOK Connect brings process, workflows and adaptable templates to our customers, we empower customers to customize their platform so it matches their exact needs.”

Q. How does ROOK Connect help businesses streamline operations and enhance their ability to function efficiently?

Born in the cloud, ROOK Connect is a true all-in-one digital solution for businesses looking to scale, grow, add digital processes and streamline workflows. Providing the ability to access facts in real-time, visibility on all operations as they happen and the critical insight needed to make the best decisions, we ensure that businesses have the essential digital tools to serve customers to the best of their ability and drive financial efficiencies like never before. Focused on providing simple and configurable business management software, CRM, ERP & BI solutions, we help businesses, organizations, departments, staff, vendors and customers achieve the next level of success.

Q. Where does ROOK Connect stand at the moment relative to other participants in the industry?

We don’t see ROOK Connect having many competitors in the market. Though many companies do portions of what we do and have base offerings that may appear similar, we do things completely differently. We don’t want to be competitive with other software solutions, we want to collaborate and work with our customers' partners to ensure they’re getting the results they need.

Our hands-on approach, digital mapping and ability to work with customers to ensure they get what they want changes the way businesses operate for the better. We continue to meet, support, enhance and evolve with the companies we work with. Moreover, we provide new-age technology, exceptional functionality, an amazingly simple user interface and workflows the way our clients need them.

Q. How skilled is the ROOK Connect team of experts? And how do they bring value to the company?

The secret to our success and unprecedented growth is our team’s ability to deliver. Our team doesn’t just take in requirements and deliver the product; we possess hands-on knowledge of the customers we work with, provide unmatched support and go the extra mile to exceed their expectations.

There’s no way anyone at ROOK Connect can work in a silo. Our customer’s demands require us to coordinate together as a team, and the best way we have found to get customers the success they’re after is to make them part of this team. We don’t want to just deliver the result to our customers; we want to provide them with options and work with them to understand their processes today, so our team can help improve those processes in the future.

Q. Last but not least, a personal question. What drives you?

I want to make a difference. I became an entrepreneur to do great things. I continue as an entrepreneur so I can create a positive impact.

Kenneth Bond | CEO & Enterprise Software Solutions Architect

As CEO of ROOK Connect, Kenneth Bond is one of the few Enterprise Software Solution Architects and the Founder of an innovative, operationally-driven technology company based in Alberta, Canada. As a serial entrepreneur with a passion for technology, he leads an extremely diverse team on a mission to reshape and reengineer the way businesses utilize digital strategies to drive efficiencies, streamline business practices, increase reporting and deliver results to customer’s bottom lines. Kenneth credits his successes to the amazing customer relationships he has built with his global customers, and the result-driven success ROOK Connect provides.

Kenneth’s wealth of entrepreneurial knowledge comes from purposeful acts. Taking the guesswork out of business practices has reinforced the importance of having planned strategies in business and everyday life.

“Focused on providing simple, configurable and customizable software, CRM, ERP & BI solutions, we help businesses, organizations, departments, staff, vendors and customers achieve the next level of success.”