This year has been anything but business as usual. It’s been a year full of great stress, uncertainty, and trauma but also perseverance. My heart goes out to those in our community who have experienced pain and loss due to this pandemic, particularly those who have lost loved ones.
Looking back on a year full of so much darkness and despair, I am nevertheless full of hope for the future.
I want to start by thanking everyone at Agilence for their hard work and perseverance this year. In the face of so much adversity I’m endlessly proud of everything you’ve accomplished both taking care of our customers and yourselves. Despite the challenges, the uncertainty, the awkward Zoom interruptions by kids, pets, and various family members, we made it through.
As a company, we were able to seamlessly transition to an entirely remote operation without any disruption to service. Our Customer Success team won their third-consecutive Stevie Award for Customer Service Department of the Year and Catherine Penizotto (our VP of Customer Success) won a Stevie Award for Female Executive of the Year. We were also able to add more than 16,000 locations and hundreds of new users to our customer base. Not only were we able to remain operational during unprecedented market volatility, but we were also able to increase annual recurring revenue by 8%. I’m also incredibly proud that we did not lay off, furlough, or reduce pay for a single staff member this year, but instead welcomed 4 professionals to the team.
I would also be remiss not to thank our customer community both for your trust in us and your willingness to help and support one another. I am humbled by the countless positive actions, big and small, that members of this community have taken to help each other adjust to this crisis. From a record attendance at our annual (but first virtual) YOUser Forum to your continued participation in discussions on the Water Cooler, I’ve never seen more collaboration amongst our customers. It makes me endlessly proud to have played some small part in building such a generous, supportive, and hard-working community.
In the spirit of giving back, Agilence is continuing our annual fundraising efforts with Cathedral Kitchen, the largest emergency food provider in our hometown of Camden, NJ, serving more than 100,000 meals a year. Earlier in the year, we also made donations on behalf of members of the customer community to food pantries across the country totaling $2,500.
Reflecting on all of this, I feel incredibly lucky, humbled, and eternally grateful. As we look ahead, beyond the pandemic, I believe that 2021 will be a bigger, better, and healthier year for the entire Agilence community.
Thank you all.
Russ Hawkins
