How managed services improve efficiency
The managed services market in Australia is expected to experience significant yet steady growth in the coming years, with 2029 earmarked for a market volume of $1.14bn.¹ The anticipated growth of the market is directly driven by Australian businesses, who are continually outsourcing IT operations to free up time, resources, and focus on the core business activities they do best.
In earlier years, the promise of cost reduction was what drew businesses to outsourced IT models. Yet as time has worn on, the motivating factors have shifted. While cost reduction is still a significant component of MSPs’ allure, these days businesses seek out MSPs for a whole lot more than just a healthier balance sheet.
Recent research from PwC highlights how increasingly, businesses are using MSPs for what they call ‘strategic advantage’: compliance, worker upskilling, access to external data (such as industry benchmarking), specialist capabilities, and access to expertise.² Simply, businesses are recognising that the value MSPs bring to the table goes far beyond being a lower cost alternative to investing in internal resources. Particularly in the current climate, where the shortage of skilled talent is verging on crippling.
Our Head of Services, Paul Wegner, has personally seen how the factors driving businesses to engage outsourced IT support have evolved over the years. Over time, he’s observed that efficiency gains, not just cost savings, have become one of the chief reasons businesses choose to outsource.
“People are seeing one of the biggest benefits in the fact they’re outsourcing an outcome…you’re not paying for bodies in chairs, you’re paying for solutions,” says Paul.
He recalls a recent example: “We had one organisation that had forgotten to renew a pretty important subscription and the result of that was that the entire network went down. Luckily, we were able to jump in and get them back online quickly.”
That story shows how an MSP lifts efficiency in two ways. First, by preventing problems such as missed licence renewals.
“There’s a level of compliance that comes with MSP partnerships,” Paul explains.
“With an internal resource, you’re placing a lot of trust in one person, whereas MSPs must deliver on what they have promised. We are bound by that commitment, which gives clients peace of mind. If your outcome is that licensing will be managed, you know it will be handled.”
Second, by providing around-the-clock remediation.
“Our customers know there is someone available to help them, regardless of the time of day,” Paul says.
“Even those who have their own internal team members on call, the difference is that there’s no incentive to get up and solve a problem in the middle of the night. Whereas for us, that is a job we are contracted to do, so there’s peace of mind in knowing that it will be done regardless of what time it is,” he says.
By catching issues early and fixing them quickly, the team keeps disruption low and productivity high. That frees internal staff to tackle work that truly moves the needle.
“When we talk to clients about the impact of our services, the most common thing we hear is that they can focus on strategic projects like upgrading applications or deploying new systems to enhance the productivity of the business, as opposed to getting caught up in the BAU weeds,” he says.
The current talent crunch only increases the need for that agility. When a key role is vacant, or even when someone takes leave, the MSP can fill the gap instantly. “We can scale up quickly to meet those demands,” he notes, meaning projects stay on track and teams avoid burnout.
Paul acknowledges the misconception that working with an MSP creates more work, not through carrying out technical tasks, but through managing the relationship and making sure everything is tracking along as it should. However, he and his team have worked hard to bake efficiency into their processes.
“Each client has a Service Delivery Manager as their key contact. That person provides them with monthly reporting and feedback based on the outcomes that we've delivered through the month, the performance of services, and any potential gaps or risks. It gives the client a really strong picture of what’s happened over the course of the month,” Paul says.
Clients also have live access to the same monitoring dashboards his engineers use, so everyone works from one source of truth. Issues surface sooner, decisions land faster, and both teams can focus on improvements rather than status updates.
For Paul, that impact is the real payoff: “Knowing we’re making life easier not just for the business, but for the people in those IT teams as well, that’s what keeps us motivated.”
Sources
¹ Statista, 2024.
² PwC, 2023.
