A: A Managed Services Provider (MSP) assumes the responsibility for the running of your IT to ensure you maximise the business value of the investment through improved operational efficiencies and Service Level Agreements (SLA). In essence they are a trusted advisor to the business either as a fully outsourced solution or work in partnership with an existing internal IT resource.

IT outsourcing is no different to other functions that businesses outsource such as Accounting, Legal and HR. A MSP will take the time to achieve industry recognised certifications and invest in employees to ensure you benefit from the highest levels of knowledge and service just like other professional service providers do.

As businesses have become dependent on their IT, the role of a MSP is to ensure that the network is highly available so that it does not impact on any unnecessary downtime or loss of employee productivity. This is achieved by pro-actively monitoring your network and performing routine preventative maintenance. When issues do arise the MSP will be able to pinpoint the root cause almost immediately because they are continuously watching your network, therefore the mean time to fix is significantly reduced.

Support in the majority of cases can and should be provided remotely with onsite visits performed when required. This is an efficient model of delivering services to ensure your business can continue to operate with any disruption kept to an absolute minimum.

The MSP is effectively buying the risk associated with the network and becomes responsible for the response time through a SLA. If there's no SLA – there's no guaranteed Managed Service.

This approach is completely different to other companies who provide monthly support for a fixed fee and only act when a support call is made. Such companies do not invest in certifications and do not offer a SLA. Instead support is on a best endeavours basis and behind the scenes is often chaotic as these companies comprise of fewer technical resources.

More IT Support companies are using the term MSP because of the impression it can give. We would encourage people to take up references, to have meetings at both company's premises to gain a much better understanding of the type of company you end up partnering with.