Co-Managed Services
Business case
A customer who requires more than one MSP to provide services for their IT function. However, most vendors for PSA and RMM are great to provide a single tenancy per MSP with multiple technicians and multiple customers, but assuming the MSP is the single outsourcing party per IT customer. This is the common scenario with small IT customers.
The bigger customers may have more than one MSP.
The struggles are:
1. Different vendors’ PSA and RMM add complexity and require integration between MSPs
2. Single point of contact from a customer perspective requires one MSP to take all first-level calls and to escalate to the correct direction or sometimes wrong escalations which introduce delays
3. Automation of the ticketing system is not great unless every MSP installs its own RMM agent/system
4. Troubleshooting experiences delays as other parties are required
5. Extra processes and workflows are required to be followed to achieve interoperability
Our MSP is spread across Europe and we do partner with other MSPs. Some of the MSPs are happy to revise their vendor for PSA and RMM and collectively move to a single one.
I am looking for a single vendor for PSA and RMM solutions that will be able to do the following:
1. The IT customer will have the main tenancy at the vendor for PSA and RMM
2. The IT customer will create accounts for the internal technicians
3. The IT customer will pay for their own technicians/devices
4. The IT customer will be able to invite MSP A, MSP B,…, and MSP N to their vendor tenant
5. Each MSP will be able to designate who from their own technicians will be shared with the IT customer tenant. It may be a per-user or a group belonging level
6. The IT customer will be able to organise the permissions for the shared technicians in the IT customer's own tenant
7. The MSP will be able to see the IT customer environment (as per the given permissions), tickets, and reports in their MSP portal in conjunction with what the IT customer can see in theirs
8. The vendor for PSA will bill the IT customer for all external (MSPs) technicians additionally. The devices are already covered in the main tenancy
9. IT customer and every MSP will have their own tenant for the same vendor for PSA and RMM
All the salespeople from the PSA and RMM vendors can read between the lines and easily pick up that this will be a game-changer for the sales channel. Using the same solution for the customer and the MSPs will inevitably push the MSPs to think do they want to work for this customer. If yes, they have to use what the IT customer already has or to be able to convince them to a change. The PSA and RMM market competition will move to the hearts and souls of the big to mid-sized enterprise IT customers, as they will drag the MSPs to use the same solution.