How Consenna Revolutionizes Enterprise Solutions

Consenna is a UK-based partner services agency that specialises in helping major IT brands like HP, Dell, and Lenovo grow faster, primarily by unlocking more sales through third-party resale networks (resellers). Whether that means standing up campaign-based programs or equipping resellers with the tools they need to thrive, a big part of that work is custom software. 

Fortunately, they have a (not-so) secret weapon. Together with Airdev, a Bubble Gold agency partner, Consenna has leveraged the speed and flexibility of Bubble to overhaul the way it delivers solutions for enterprise clients — allowing them to compete on both time-to-market and creativity and innovation.

In search of a better way — and the right partner

Before they found Bubble and Airdev, Consenna relied on out-of-the-box software and “traditional” consulting services to help clients hit their sales targets. That worked for a time, but soon those clients started asking for more and more customised solutions. As Customer Success Director Simon Yates told us, “We needed to build web applications, so we experimented with traditional code-based development. But at that stage in Consenna's journey and our company’s size, it was too slow and cumbersome for us and our clients.”

That’s when Consenna's founder, Douglas Jeffery, started exploring no-code solutions. The team was drawn to Bubble’s rapid prototyping capabilities and Airdev’s expertise. They showed Airdev Co-founder Vlad Leytus an example of the kind of app they wanted to build, and Vlad mocked it up right away. That sealed the deal.

“Combining our services with Bubble’s capabilities and Airdev’s skills means we can build these custom solutions our clients need quickly,” Simon said. “It bridges the gap between customisation and scalability. This alignment with enterprise priorities has been vital.”

“[Bubble] bridges the gap between customisation and scalability. This alignment with enterprise priorities has been vital.”

As Consenna’s business grew, they were creating so much software on Bubble that they transitioned to a more permanent partnership with Airdev, who built out a dedicated team to handle all of Consenna’s work. “We moved fairly quickly — maybe within a year or so — from a one-off project basis to having a number of these types of engagements that we were running at any given time,” Airdev Co-founder Andrew Haller told us.

There was no looking back.

A custom CPQ platform for Lenovo

A significant amount of Lenovo’s sales flows through resellers — and there are a lot of them. The IT company turned to Consenna for help streamlining DaaS (Device as a Service) sales quotes and pricing. Airdev used Bubble to build them a custom configure price quote (CPQ) platform.

“These orders can get really complex — they might include custom configurations, pre-set bundles, and promotions that kick in at different thresholds,” Andrew said. “Our system allowed reseller sales reps to configure these custom orders, calculate the right pricing, and get internal approval for any discount requests really quickly. It streamlined what was otherwise a tricky, manual process."

Lenovo had strict security audit processes, including requirements that had been written with traditional code in mind. Consenna and Airdev worked closely with the Bubble team to craft responses that demonstrated how Bubble’s practices met those strict requirements, even if it was done in a different way.

The platform was initially rolled out only in the UK, but eventually the team expanded it to other countries in Europe as well. Airdev used Bubble’s sub app functionality to create different instances of the application for each regional location, complete with the correct currencies and languages.

Powering the HP for Education programme

Another big project that Consenna and Airdev tackled together was the HP for Education programme. They built a multi-sided marketplace that facilitated a buyback trade-in programme for more than 30,000 schools and districts in the UK and Ireland. 

“This thing was massive,” Andrew told us. “The resellers could track customer deals, and then they could offer funds for them to trade-in older devices. There were third-party providers offering products and services too.” On the back-end, a custom-built admin portal allowed the Consenna team to monitor transactions — everything from tracking activity, confirming trades, collecting equipment, and releasing funds via a bank transfer service. “It was a very cool programme,” said Andrew.

It took Airdev just three months to build. The programme ran for two years.

From consultant to service provider

Most recently, Consenna has been working to expand their business beyond consulting. With the help of Airdev, Consenna has launched owned platforms like Catalyst, which allows tech manufacturers to create and distribute email marketing campaigns with and through their resellers to the end customer. The resellers are then able to review leads and build a sales pipeline. “[A client] might have a hundred different resellers that collectively have 50,000 people on their mailing lists that they want to push this content to,” explained Andrew. 

Using integrations with third-party tools, Airdev customised Catalyst even more for the Consenna team — with a big payoff. “We run these massive campaigns where the app is blasting this thing out to tens of thousands of people, and then it's tracking analytics,” Andrew told us. “We use recursive workflows within Bubble to pump out a thousand of these at a time.”

“Bubble has transformed the way we’re able to problem-solve and deploy solutions,” Simon said. “It allows us to offer a more creative, open approach to the services we provide. We’re really proud of the way this collaboration has allowed us to push the boundaries of enterprise solutions and set new standards for innovation and efficiency.”