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Customers Say MSPs Help Make Them More Competitive

MSPs Customers Say MSPs Help Make Them More Competitive More firms are adopting managed services for a variety of reasons, including to improve the efficiency of their IT operations. It isn’t just about cost anymore. Growth in Managed Services Adoption 68% of organizations have used an outside IT firm for services to manage one or […]

Written By: Gina Roos

Jun 17, 2015

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MSPs

Customers Say MSPs Help Make Them More Competitive

More firms are adopting managed services for a variety of reasons, including to improve the efficiency of their IT operations. It isn’t just about cost anymore.

Growth in Managed Services Adoption

68% of organizations have used an outside IT firm for services to manage one or more of their IT functions or other IT project work in the last year.

Collaboration Benefits

60% of respondents said their managed services engagement is a collaborate arrangement with their internal IT department.

Understanding Managed Services

52% of respondents said they were very familiar with the concept of managed services in 2014, compared were 36% in 2013.

Adoption Drivers for Large Enterprises

For organizations with 100-plus employees, the key factors for using managed services include improving efficiency/reliability of IT operations (56%), enhancing security/compliance (38%) and freeing IT staff to work on strategic projects (38%).

Adoption Drivers for SMBs

For organizations with less than 100 employees, the key factors for using managed services include improving efficiency/reliability of IT operations (47%), enhancing security/compliance (38%) and taking a proactive approach to maintenance (31%).

Not All About Cost

30% of respondents cited cost savings as a primary driver, compared with 57% in the 2013 study.

Meeting Cost Expectations

However, 54% of respondents expected a modest cost savings at the outset of a MSP engagement, and 30% expected significant savings. Meanwhile, 69% said the cost savings met their expectations, and 24% said it exceeded their expectations.

Billing Preferences

About half of respondents prefer flat-rate pricing, including 55% of larger firms (100-plus employees), compared with 43% of smaller firms.

Making the Grade

27% of respondents were very satisfied with their managed services experience, 63% were mostly satisfied and 9% were pretty satisfied/partly dissatisfied.

Top Services

Services currently provided as part of a MSP engagement include backup/disaster recovery (72%), security (68%), storage (64%), email (63%), networks (61%) and cloud infrastructure/applications (60%).

Wish List

Services that are not part of a current MSP engagement but that are desired include audio/visual services (36%), encryption services (35%), application monitoring (34%), help desk (34%) and mobile device management (33%).

Impact on IT Staff

9% of respondents said they eliminated their IT staff when they signed on with an MSP, and another 26% reduced internal head count.

Adoption Barriers

The top barriers to adoption of managed services include skepticism over cost savings/ROI, general lack of need, reluctance to outsource to an outside company, perceived loss of control by IT or operations staff, and concern over disruptions during transition.

MSP Outreach

47% of non-MSP adopters said they were approached in the last two years by an MSP offering an assessment of their IT environment. Of those, 18% agreed to the assessment and 29% declined.

Missed Opportunities

Almost 40% of respondents believe their current IT management methods are working fine, but 61% believe there is room for improvement.

Customers Say MSPs Help Make Them More Competitive

Gina Roos

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