If you are considering partnering with a Managed Service Provider in place of all or a portion of an in-house IT department, you might be wondering about the disadvantages of the managed IT support approach.
Non-Dedicated Resources
If you have hundreds of users within your business, your MSP can afford to assign truly dedicated, full-time resources to your account. Otherwise, they will assign a “dedicated account team”.
Unless you have hundreds of users within your business, you’ll have to share your MSP account team with other customers.
While your MSP may assign a “dedicated account team” to your company, it’s typically a team of professionals who are also serving many other clients. You get the consistency of a team of people who know your environment but its not the same intimacy and immediacy of an internal IT department.
MSPs are typically generalists. They work with lots of clients across lots of industries. Yet, every business is unique – with it’s own idiosyncrasies in terms of environment, applications, and industry. An internal team, evolves over time to embrace these idiosyncrasies and create synergy. If given enough time, and if the MSP is stable, they can learn and support these nuances, but probably not as efficiently as a fully dedicated internal team.
Your primary application(s) will still require a “resident expert,” so Managed Service does not do 100% of what you need.
Less time with resources
You have access to the resources, but that amount of time you get is much less than if you had an internal team.
Less knowledge of ins and outs
They will not know the ins and outs of your business specific applications or vendor nuances like an internal IT person could.
Less On-Site Availability
Managed services offerings are generally remote services. Businesses allow third parties to handle their IT needs from external locations. Therefore, there is no on-premise physical presence. If there are any on-site issues, the businesses have to deal with them themselves.
Signing up with an MSP means you are opting to allow another company to manage your technology remotely. This means you will have to bear the brunt of fixing any issue that occurs on-site yourself.
Less Control
You may or may not view this as a disadvantage depending on your outlook, but when you partner with a Managed Service Provider (MSP) you give up direct control over your IT management. The MSP makes hiring decisions, establishes IT policies, and makes configuration decisions.
Your provider will likely have a standard set of tools they implement. If you or your internal IT prefer a different set of tools, there will often be a mishmash. This is rarely an issue because most organizations hire a Managed Service Provider, so they do not have to consider these things. However, in rare cases, if they do want to stray away from the recommendations, it could be considered a con for both parties.
Security and control
When you hire the services of a provider, you are giving access to the sensitive data and information your business runs on. This may be an issue if the nature of your business puts a premium on data security and control of information.
MSP Longevity
A Lot Depends On The MSP’s Longevity
There are chances of an MSP going out of service. Under such circumstances, a business must search for a new managed services provider to handle its requirements. It can affect the business prospects.
Although it is seldom considered, businesses fold up. If your managed IT services provider goes under, you may have to scramble to find a new solution, and this may take its toll on your business.
Expect some turnover within the Managed Services firm and the necessary learning curve.
Massive Variation
Massive variation in the quality and responsiveness of MSPs. It can be difficult to determine which MSP to choose. Support and pricing can vary greatly! To help more with this, check out 16 Top Questions to Ask When Evaluating a New IT Provider. The responses to these questions will tell you a lot and help you choose the right provider.
Contracts
Employees don’t have contracts usually… Even if you’re unhappy with a provider. Oftentimes, there is a minimum of a one-year contract in place.
