Has your IT MSP (Managed Services Provider) been acquired recently?
There has been a major shift in the IT MSP (Managed Services Provider) industry within the last decade where smaller providers have been getting acquired left and right by larger private equity backed MSP platforms. The heavy influx of private equity investment in the space has created concerns for many of the customers and businesses who utilize MSPs for their infrastructure and IT support. These concerns certainly hold merit as we have seen firsthand the degradation of the customer support journey and service experience due to a smaller provider being acquired and “rolled up” into a larger MSP.
If your MSP has just informed you that they have been acquired or you have been hearing rumblings about this coming down the pike, we are not saying run for the hills yet. That said, you must be weary and cautious of the MSP after the news breaks and make sure to hold them to the level of support you are accustomed to receiving. Your original contract and agreement are with the original smaller MSP provider and you can always remind them of this if you are starting to notice a drop in response times, employee satisfaction from support requests and anything else that is a major change from before.
Chances are that you will have someone from the sales team at the MSP reach out and try to renegotiate your contract terms to get you on the larger MSPs “paper” or contract. What should you know about this tact? Perhaps with your original provider you had a 1-year agreement that auto-renewed or needed verbal negotiation or commitment to actually renew. Maybe you had a month-to-month agreement, however, be prepared for that salesperson to now be pushing a 36-month agreement onto you and your business. Private equity firms all have transactional strategies for their portfolio companies where they have somewhere between a 3-5 year plan to resell that business to another entity.
By getting you onto the new 3-year contract they are essentially locking you in and aligning you to their preferred transacting period for this particular portfolio company and MSP. That said, it is imperative that you perform your due diligence on the new MSP and ensure that this is someone you want to have support your business for that longer term commitment. We can’t tell you how many times companies have regretted signing that longer-term commitment without seeing how the engagement goes now that the original MSP provider has been rolled up into the larger MSP.
If you are currently encountering a scenario similar to this or have been dealing with the acquisition of your old MSP for months now, our team would be glad to offer you our expertise coupled with peace of mind and consensus on a very important business decision. You don’t have to try and judge whether or not the new MSP you have been forced to work with via acquisition is the correct choice for your organization long-term. We specialize in assisting companies just like yours in due diligence and evaluation of their MSP provider to ensure that they are in fact the best fit for your unique needs.
It can be tiring to wear the IT point-of-contact “hat” on top of all your other job responsibilities and by leveraging our experts to liaise on your behalf you can rest assured that MSP industry experts are by your side advocating on behalf of your best interests and while holding your MSP accountable.