Organisations are offloading their IT operations onto reliable third parties called managed service providers (MSPs). They also look for technology partners who can assist them in achieving their business objectives. Many are starting to appreciate that the right MSP is very effective in that role, too.
Beyond SLAs
Grand View Research reports that MSPs dominate the IT services market, generating a third of IT revenues. They free organisational resources to focus on business priorities. The MSP market has evolved to keep up with different IT management needs, specialising in areas such as managed data, managed security, managed infrastructure and managed cloud services, and governed by service level agreements (SLAs).
Their customers are using this freedom to mature their digital culture, operations and business models. Those businesses need strategic IT partners to grow their core prospects through technology.
Yet, many still think of MSPs as just the "operations guys", not realising that the right MSP can be a terrific business enablement partner.
"The managed services landscape has undergone a fundamental transformation," says Pravesh Parbhoo, Executive Head of Managed Services at Nexio. "What began as basic infrastructure monitoring and break-fix support has evolved into a sophisticated ecosystem of proactive, AI-driven and strategically aligned services. For IT managers and CIOs navigating this new terrain, the challenge isn't just finding a vendor. It's identifying a true strategic partner capable of driving business outcomes in an increasingly complex digital environment."
MSPs occupy a unique space in this conversation. Leading MSPs have proactive and predictive capabilities, supporting customers through greater agility and scalability. It's here where business-enablement MSPs operate.
Invested in enablement
Business-enablement MSPs use operational leadership to support business outcomes, says Parbhoo: "They elevate the conversation. They move beyond holding their customer's hand if anything goes wrong to guiding the customer on a journey that leads to their desired business goals. It's not just about maintaining customers' systems but helping them find and implement what they need to move forward."
These MSPs already have an advantage over other IT partnerships: they have visibility and understanding of the customer's IT stack and maturity, tending to these proactively (preventing problems) and predictively (forecasting problems).
Business-enablement MSPs use such capabilities as a baseline to enable potent attributes:
- Strategic and business alignment: The MSP values outcome-based partnerships, measuring success by how technology enables business growth, innovation and competitive advantage.
- Security-first architecture: Embedded security is crucial; evident through integrated security operations centres (SOCs), continuous vulnerability assessments, proactive threat hunting capabilities, detailed security reporting and transparent security practices and certifications.
- Cloud-native expertise and multicloud management: They have expertise across multiple platforms and deployment models, with native competency in public, hybrid and private cloud deployments, cost optimisation, performance tuning and automated scaling.
- Automation and AI integration: They demonstrably and consistently leverage automation and artificial intelligence to deliver faster response times and self-healing features, reducing human errors and providing actionable performance insights.
- Scalability and flexibility: The MSP's track record confirms their capacity for scaling, adapting to service models, integrating new technologies and supporting organisational growth and transformation initiatives – especially to evolve with a customer's business needs.
These attributes distinguish managed service providers capable of being dependable partners who help their customers achieve business goals. They can handle operational demands and also help their customers accomplish much more. They are there to understand business goals and participate in strategic delivery, says Parbhoo.
"It's the proverbial two birds with one stone. MSPs focused on business enablement are doing the work, getting involved with the customer and understanding what they want to achieve, not just their pain points. They aren't just responding to a request from the customer. It is about being next to their customer in a strategic capacity. Businesses will reap benefits if they conduct thorough research and discover the true value a business-enablement MSP offers. At Nexio, we aim to be that MSP for customers, and it shows growth. We have recently added 300 new team members to strengthen our MSOC capabilities. We look forward to expanding both our service offerings and our customer base.”
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