Is Your MSP a Vendor ... or a Partner?

Feb 10
3 min read

Let’s talk about partnership.

Lately, I’ve interacted with an increasing number of companies – mostly technology-related, of course. There is a Grand Canyon of difference between those that I think of as vendors and those that I consider partners. With all the complexity and dependence on our technology stack, it’s increasingly important that our business relationships involve partners.

Quick Gut-Check: Is it time to reevaluate?

Though I hate to start this article negatively, I want to catch your attention with some things to consider – this is when you need to reevaluate a relationship. For many business relationships a partnership is important; I’d say the relationship with your Managed Service Provider (MSP) is one where true partnership is vital.

If a few of these sound familiar, you might need to reevaluate.

You have to ask multiple times to get the answers you need.
You find out about changes after they impact your business.
You’re told “that can’t be done” before you even finish explaining the goal.
When mistakes are made, the vendor gets defensive rather than collaborative.

Valuable Partnership Traits

These are not just tech vendor characteristics, but are important for any relationship where shared success is a goal.

Transparency (show me the real data)

We’ve all seen vendor reports that are a sea of green checkmarks. Everything looks great…until you ask one follow-up question and discover the report was meaningless. Vague reporting can hide quite a bit:

A backup report that shows “Success,” but doesn’t show trend over the last 30 days (or whether failures were quietly ignored).
A security summary that lists “patching is up to date,” without showing what’s excluded, what’s pending, or what keeps failing.

In reviewing these kinds of reports, I have found that the things a company leaves out often tell you more than what they include.

In a good partnership, transparency means:

We share mistakes early. No, we do not like mistakes, but ignoring them can be expensive.
We talk about strengths and weaknesses. In doing so, we can encourage each other or pivot to a solution that has the most possibility for success.
Reports reveal all the details about the services we provide. When, for example, a report shows that all machines are patched, but doesn’t detail a list of machines, it’s misleading reporting – the reader must be able to determine if the report encapsulates the full environment or only the conveniently successful machines.

Partnership Story: FIT is a Microsoft-oriented company. When talking with a prospective client, we clearly define strengths in Microsoft and we are transparent about the tradeoffs with Google.

Communication (useful and complete – not noise)

We’ve heard it and lived it - solid communication is vital for a good relationship. With good partnership communication:

Information is shared quickly and fully.
Questions are answered completely (all parts, not just the easy part).
If we see something that could help the other side, we share the information - because our goal is to strengthen both companies.

Partnership Story: Kaseya is one of our critical vendors. A few years ago, Kaseya was the victim of a cybersecurity incident. As a splendid example of relationships with their clients, they called thousands of MSPs within just a few hours. This quick ownership and response greatly mitigated the scope of damage. In part because of Kaseya’s response to this incident, FIT is extremely loyal.

Flexibility (outcome is more important than process)

Rigidity in processes and services makes you focus on the process and not the result. Results-based cooperation requires flexibility.

Processes are extremely important in our industry for consistency and reliability. But neither banking nor technology always fit a perfect formula. In the real world, flexibility gives us permission to use good judgment and collaboration. To be clear, flexibility in a partnership doesn’t mean chaos. It does mean that we work together and adapt when changes are needed. We do not hide behind our processes, but keep our eyes on the desired outcome.