Look beyond the monthly fee to the everyday work, specialist skills and planning an MSP could help your business with.
Proxar · UK expertise
What is a managed service provider?
A managed service provider, or MSP, looks after agreed parts of your IT on an ongoing basis. That can include helping staff, maintaining devices and keeping an eye on the systems your business depends on.
You can hand over a broad range of work or bring in an MSP to support your own IT team. The useful starting point is what needs doing, not the label on the contract.
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What would an MSP look after?
Think about the jobs that keep your business working: setting up accounts, helping someone who cannot sign in, maintaining equipment and following up faults. An MSP agreement puts named responsibilities around the jobs you need covered, along with support hours and a way to ask for help.
It should also explain what happens when another supplier is involved. Your MSP might support the laptop while a software company looks after the application. You still need to know who will coordinate the investigation rather than leave your employee passing messages between them.
How is it different from a one-off IT job?
A managed service is an ongoing arrangement. Ad hoc support deals with work as you request it; a project delivers a particular change, such as a migration. The same provider may offer all three, but paying for support does not automatically pay for every future project.
Check how licences, equipment and major changes are charged. The monthly fee is easier to understand when those items are listed separately rather than left to assumptions.
IT adviser explaining managed service provider support to a business owner · Illustrative image
Your business still makes the business decisions
You decide budgets, who should have access to information and which risks your business is prepared to accept. The MSP provides technical work and advice within the arrangement you have agreed. It does not take ownership of your company simply because it administers your systems.
For a small business, the starting point may be reliable help for staff and someone to coordinate suppliers. An established IT team may need specialist support instead. Our MSP selection checklist helps you compare those options, and the cost calculator gives an indicative estimate to discuss with us.
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“I’ve worked with Proxar for a number of years and have always found them to be honest, knowledgeable and informative.”
Before you decide
Your questions, answered
Does an MSP replace our internal IT team?
Not necessarily. You might keep strategy, business applications and project decisions in-house while an MSP handles user requests or particular systems. The arrangement works best when both teams know who does what, how work is handed over and who has authority to approve changes.
Is an MSP suitable for a small business?
It can be, especially when IT tasks keep landing with someone who has another job to do. Start with your users, devices and the applications you cannot work without. Ask for a service built around those needs rather than assuming you need every available feature.
Does managed IT include round-the-clock support?
Only when that coverage is part of the agreement. Monitoring, a helpdesk and an engineer responding outside office hours are different things. Check the hours for each, which incidents qualify for an out-of-hours response and how an authorised person requests help.
What should we have ready for a first conversation?
A rough user count, a list of important systems and examples of the problems you want to solve are enough to start. Your existing support contract is useful too. Missing technical information can be identified during the discussion rather than guessed at in a proposal.
Your next step
Which IT jobs need a better home?
Tell us what takes up your time, where staff struggle to get help and what your own team already handles well. We will work through the support you actually need.