When You Should (And Shouldn’t) Use an MSP
If you run IT for a growing organisation, you’ve probably felt the pressure to “do more with less.” Security gets more complex, users expect zero downtime, and your team is buried under tickets and projects. At some point, most leaders ask the same question: should we bring in a managed service provider (MSP), or keep everything in‑house?
This isn’t a yes/no decision; it’s a question of fit. There are situations where an MSP is a force multiplier for your team and P&L, and others where it can slow you down, add bureaucracy, or quietly drain budget. The smart move is to understand where managed services shine, where they struggle, and how that lines up with your business.
In this article, we’ll dig into both sides: when you should use an MSP, and when you probably shouldn’t.
What an MSP Actually Does
An MSP is a third‑party provider that takes ongoing responsibility for some or all of your IT operations under a contract, usually for a fixed monthly fee. They typically provide:
- 24×7 monitoring and incident response for infrastructure and endpoints
- Patch management, backups, and routine maintenance
- User support and service desk functions
- Network, cloud, and security management
- Strategic advice and roadmapping, depending on maturity
Think of an MSP as a long‑term partner, not a one‑off project consultant. You’re effectively outsourcing a defined slice of IT workload and outcomes to a specialised team, with service levels and performance baked into a contract.
That model can be extremely powerful in the right context. It can also be overkill or a poor fit in others.
When You Should Use an MSP
1. Your internal team is overloaded with “keeping the lights on”
One of the clearest signals that you should consider an MSP is when your internal IT team spends most of its time fighting fires and handling repetitive tasks.
If your days look like this:
- Constant reactive handling of tickets and minor incidents
- Patching, backup checks, and routine health monitoring eating entire days
- Key projects perpetually slipping because “we’re too busy”
…then you’re paying senior talent to do work that could be systematised and handed off.
A good MSP can lift a lot of that operational burden:
- Proactive monitoring identifies issues before users notice
- Routine patches, backup verification, and capacity checks become “table stakes”
- Your team gets time back for projects, integrations, and business‑facing work
The value here isn’t just cost reduction; it’s opportunity cost. Every hour your best engineers spend on password resets or manual patch windows is an hour not spent modernising infrastructure, improving security posture, or delivering automation.
2. You need 24×7 coverage but can’t justify a full follow‑the‑sun team
Most mid‑size organisations don’t have the budget or headcount to run genuine 24×7 operations in‑house. But the risk profile has changed: ransomware doesn’t care about your office hours, and cloud workloads are global by default.
Signs you need help:
- Critical services must be available around the clock
- You’ve already had an out‑of‑hours incident where response was slow or improvised
- On‑call is burning out your staff or costing a fortune in overtime
MSPs spread the cost of 24×7 operations across many customers. You effectively “rent” an operations centre and on‑call roster, backed by playbooks, tools, and escalation paths. That can be dramatically cheaper and more sustainable than trying to staff your own NOC/SOC if you’re not an enterprise with deep pockets.
3. You lack specialist skills for specific domains
Security, cloud, networks, unified communications, and modern workplace stacks each require deep expertise. Even a strong internal team will have gaps. Hiring for every niche skill you might need is expensive and slow.
An MSP can give you:
- Access to specialists in security, networking, cloud, identity, and collaboration
- Experience from many environments, industries, and incident types
- Faster time‑to‑value on new technologies because they’ve “done it before” elsewhere
This is particularly relevant if:
- You’re navigating a move to cloud or hybrid and don’t have that experience in‑house
- You’re subject to compliance frameworks but lack specialised security/compliance roles
- You’re deploying new platforms and can’t afford a slow learning curve
In these scenarios, an MSP operates as an extension of your team, filling the gaps without permanently hiring a full bench of specialists.
4. You want predictable IT spend instead of lumpy CapEx
Another classic reason to use an MSP is budgeting. Internal IT often involves:
- Large, irregular CapEx hits when hardware or licenses renew
- Surprise consulting costs when emergencies hit
- Difficulty forecasting spend beyond 6–12 months
MSPs usually work on a recurring subscription model tied to clear metrics (number of users, endpoints, sites, workloads, etc.). That turns a lot of unpredictable cost into:
- A stable monthly or annual OpEx line item
- Clear scope and service levels
- Fewer surprises for finance and leadership
This is especially attractive to organisations that either prefer OpEx over CapEx, don’t want to invest up‑front in tooling, or need cost visibility to support growth and planning.
5. You’re growing quickly and need scalable capacity
Rapid business growth often breaks internal IT processes. What worked for 50 people falls apart at 200, across multiple sites, with hybrid working and more SaaS in the mix.
Growth pains might look like:
- Joiners/leavers taking days to fully provision or deprovision
- VPN and remote access struggling under load
- Ad‑hoc “shadow IT” emerging because central IT can’t keep up
- Project backlogs growing as the business spins up new initiatives
MSPs are built for elasticity. They can scale service up or down with headcount or site changes, bring in extra capacity for projects or peak periods, and standardise onboarding, device builds, and access patterns.
6. You need to improve security posture and resilience
For many organisations, security is the tipping point. You might feel that patching and vulnerability management are inconsistent, you don’t have 24×7 alerting or response for critical threats, backups exist but you’re not confident they’d save you, or regulatory pressure is increasing.
Many MSPs offer security‑focused services: managed firewalls, EDR/XDR, threat monitoring, incident response, backup and DR, and more. When done right, this can significantly raise the baseline without building your own SOC.
When You Shouldn’t Use an MSP
1. When cost saving is your only objective
If your only reason for looking at an MSP is “IT is too expensive; make it cheaper,” you’re likely to be disappointed.
Good MSPs invest heavily in people, tooling, and process; those costs are reflected in their prices. A “cheap” provider often cuts corners on security, capacity, or response, leading to more incidents and hidden costs. You may not actually reduce total spend; instead, you’re trading unpredictable spend for more controlled, outcome‑oriented spend.
Using an MSP makes most sense when you value quality and consistency of service, access to skills you don’t have, and risk reduction—not just headline price.
2. When your environment is highly specialised and constantly changing
Some environments are so bespoke that an external provider will struggle to be effective:
- Heavy use of custom applications or home‑grown platforms
- Highly specialised OT/ICS environments where safety and real‑world processes are tightly coupled
- Rapidly changing R&D setups where infrastructure evolves daily
In these cases, the learning curve for an MSP is steep and ongoing, much of their standard tooling and process may not fit neatly, and you end up paying for generic capabilities but still need in‑house experts to handle the bespoke reality.
3. When you already have a strong, well‑resourced internal team
If you’ve invested heavily in a capable internal team with good coverage, mature processes and automation, strong security posture, and good alignment with the business, then adding an MSP just because “everyone else has one” may not make sense.
In that situation, consider targeted consulting, project‑based help, or tooling investments rather than broad managed services. You may get more impact per pound spent.
4. When you’re not ready to invest time in governance and partnership
Managed services are not a “set and forget” purchase. They require clear scope and interfaces, regular governance (service reviews, roadmap alignment, feedback loops), and internal process changes.
If you’re not prepared to assign an internal owner for the relationship, attend regular reviews, and provide timely decisions, then you’re likely to have a frustrating experience. MSPs work best when treated as a strategic partner, not a commodity vendor.
5. When you want to retain full hands‑on control over everything
Some organisations, especially in regulated or highly security‑sensitive sectors, are uncomfortable with any third party having significant operational access. Others simply have a culture of wanting to “touch every knob and dial” themselves.
If you need extremely tight control of admin rights and change processes, have internal policies that make external access very difficult, or are unwilling to allow an external team to execute changes without heavy oversight, then a traditional MSP model may not fit.
6. When you see MSPs as a replacement for internal IT instead of an extension
A common misstep is trying to use an MSP to “replace IT” rather than augment it. This rarely ends well, because no external provider knows your business, culture, and politics as well as insiders. Someone still has to own IT strategy, vendor management, and internal stakeholder alignment.
A healthier framing is: “We’ll keep a lean, strategic internal IT function, and use an MSP to handle defined operational workloads.” The MSP doesn’t replace your team; it changes what your team spends their time on.
How to Decide: A Practical Framework
To decide whether to use an MSP (and in what scope), ask four practical questions:
- What problems are we actually trying to solve? Be specific: overload, lack of skills, poor security, lack of 24×7, cost unpredictability, or something else.
- What should our internal team be uniquely good at? Typically: understanding the business, setting strategy, managing vendors, and handling highly bespoke systems.
- What level of control and access are we comfortable delegating? Decide up‑front which areas you’re happy to hand off, which must remain internal, and which could be co‑managed.
- Do we have the maturity to manage a partner properly? If you can’t commit to governance, documentation, and internal ownership, even the best MSP will struggle.
If you can answer these honestly, the decision about when you should and shouldn’t use an MSP becomes far clearer.
Managed service providers can be an excellent way to gain capability, resilience, and focus without building a huge in‑house team, especially when you’re stretched thin on BAU, need 24×7 operations, lack specialist skills, or want more predictable spend. They are a poor fit when you treat them solely as a cost‑cutting tool, have highly specialised environments, or aren’t willing to invest in the relationship. The goal isn’t to outsource responsibility; it’s to share it intelligently so your organisation can move faster and safer.