Size of MSPs
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This came up in another thread and to keep from derailing that one I thought that I would post a new thread to discuss this. From what I have seen in dealing with communities like Spiceworks, MSPs are extremely small. It appears that the average MSP is a part time affair, typically one IT guy supplementing his day job. A few are multiple part timers like this.
It seems to be under half actually have a full time staff member. And the majority of those appear to be one man shops where one person does everything - the IT, the bookkeeping, the billing, the vendor relations, the sales, the payroll, etc. So while they are full time MSPs, they are only part time IT portion and part time other functions. Many have a spouse that fills in things like bookkeeping part time.
Some have two partners doing it full time together. Or the one man shop managed to get big enough to bring in an employee.
What seems to be rare is the staffed MSPs that have dedicated IT and business functions that have enough people to qualify as a team and be able to have schedules, shifts, vacation, training and other internal resources. The ability to consult each other and bounce ideas, double check things, hand things off, etc.
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NTG seems to support a bunch of part-time/one person shops. I do wonder how many bigger true MSP's there are out there.
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@Minion-Queen said:
NTG seems to support a bunch of part-time/one person shops. I do wonder how many bigger true MSP's there are out there.
That is a way that smaller shops can make it work. Having one of the rare big or Meta MSPs that provide MSP support to make it work.
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I worked for two different MSPs in Texas. One had four teams, each with team leads, and two levels of supervisors above them, an engineering team, a sales/account management team, and purchasing team. Another was much smaller than that but still had probably at least 20 full-time employees, at all different levels. Even they had a small HR team, sales/account management, technical staff, etc. I agree there are plenty of one-man shops, etc, but while this might be the norm, for a one to two person company, there are plenty that aren't.
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I guess the real question is what makes an MSP an MSP. Some of these bigger companies call themselves MSP's but that's not what they really are.
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@Minion-Queen said:
I guess the real question is what makes an MSP an MSP. Some of these bigger companies call themselves MSP's but that's not what they really are.
Most, I think, are VARs.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Minion-Queen said:
I guess the real question is what makes an MSP an MSP. Some of these bigger companies call themselves MSP's but that's not what they really are.
Most, I think, are VARs.
Yeah that is what I think of them as well. They usually support a particular product not a full smattering of services.
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@Minion-Queen said:
Yeah that is what I think of them as well. They usually support a particular product not a full smattering of services.
Most MSPs are focused on a small solution set too. VARs tend to be by product and may or may not provide any support. Most MSPs really focused on a small "this is how we do it" design set.
NTG really isn't an MSP, we are an IT Outsourcer, we provide the full services of an enterprise IT department which is extremely broad. MSPs are normally an "adjust to what we do" type business model. We provide IT services, plain and simple. So not normally categorized as an MSP.
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One of them supported only hotels, but they were a Dell partner. Still, I'd consider them an MSP. The other could easily be a VAR. They did technical work but they only sold a solution if it was something Dell offered. Or if a company needed backup, it was AppAssure. Firewall? Sonicwall. Server? Poweredge. Computers? Latitudes and Optiplexes. So yeah, I'd consider my last job in Texas to be a VAR more than an MSP.
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How many full time staff members does NTG have?
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@scottalanmiller said:
From what I have seen in dealing with communities like Spiceworks, MSPs are extremely small.
That might be an error in your sampling data. Maybe larger MSPs just don't see the need for posting on communities. Personally, I don't know any small MSPs, but then I don't know how I'd get to know them.
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@scottalanmiller said:
NTG really isn't an MSP, we are an IT Outsourcer,
I have no idea what the difference in. From Wikipedia : "Managed services are the practice of outsourcing day-to-day management responsibilities and functions as a strategic method for improving operations and cutting expenses." That sounds like IT outsourcing to me.
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@Aaron-Studer said:
How full time staff members does NTG have?
We have a total of 8 full timers and about 40 or so part-time/contractors that work with us when project needs arise.
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@Minion-Queen said:
@Aaron-Studer said:
How full time staff members does NTG have?
We have a total of 8 full timers and about 40 or so part-time/contractors that work with us when project needs arise.
Out of curiosity how many clients do you have? Or a ratio of IT (your full timers) to clients?
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Wow that is a little hard to answer. We have about 100 clients that need us often. and about 200 that use or have used us for project work. We also have a few Vendors that are clients as well.
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@Minion-Queen Are your part-time contractors generally there for on-site support when your usual people aren't local?
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Yes. We also partner with a few other small MSP's that help us out from time to time if needed.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
NTG really isn't an MSP, we are an IT Outsourcer,
I have no idea what the difference in. From Wikipedia : "Managed services are the practice of outsourcing day-to-day management responsibilities and functions as a strategic method for improving operations and cutting expenses." That sounds like IT outsourcing to me.
In practical terms, MSPs are the companies that do "managed services" which are predefined and typically billed on a per unit basis. It's that it is "managed services".
As an IT Outsourcer we act exactly like an internal IT department, not like a managed services vendor. MSPs are like many outsources like ADP for example. You adjust to them, not them to you. They have a specific service that they offer, and it is good, but you need to make your workflow work with them.
IT Outsourcers outsource IT only, not only IT in the form of a "managed service." It is a far more flexible service type.
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Serious lack of data
That's like saying accountants don't exist because they are not a member of club X.
I've never heard of NTG in the UK pre-Spiceworks.
http://www.phoenix.co.uk/accreditations/
https://www.softcat.com/what-we-do/managed-services
http://www.qubicgroup.com/pages/qubic/about-us.phpHow are you defining the concept of MSP?
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@Breffni-Potter said:
Serious lack of data
That's like saying accountants don't exist because they are not a member of club X.
I've never heard of NTG in the UK pre-Spiceworks.
What is this a reference to? What's like saying that?
