Do you all struggle with MSP's?
This week i've had three separate engineers comment to me, that we should start our own MSP. What a grand idea!
Contractors (mostly) are always a dynamic bunch of business minded individuals. Each one of us with our own corporate identities.
With Brexit looming and the potential changes to IR35 making the market a little more tricky to navigate for new contracts most of us are seeking to get our opportunities lined up for the future.
I agree it might be an interesting journey becoming an MSP.
This week i've been speaking to a service provider who seems to think its okay to get old equipment out of second hand bins and install it as new equipment. This is a large company who act as an ISP for home and business services. When I spoke to their engineer about security vulnerabilities he started to stutter. I knew then what was going on. This was a classic example of an MSP saving money and providing a low quality service based on the back of a dodgy service contract.
I have seen a major site outage where the power service providers are a third party MSP and the site went down a week ago and the site still has no power. The MSP made a fuss about not having the correct keys to open the cabinets.
The Crown Prosecution Service in the UK outsourced their IT to a large IT services MSP company a few years ago, every time a mouse was replaced the company charged them £65 +VAT. The mice were bought at £3.50.
I was offered a contract by an MSP a couple of years ago. I bought all the tools I needed to do the job for them and they cancelled the job the day before I was due to start. I hear numerous tales like this.
Working in environments where MSP's have free reign to supply equipment and services at extortionate prices and with little consideration for their customers is disheartening.
So when you think its a good idea to start an MSP, make sure you start a good MSP.
Always be honest with your customers and subcontractors.
Don't rip them off.
Always maintain high standards.
Customers remember.
So I don't think I want to be an MSP... I'm happy being a humble engineer up against the terrible MSP's working for myself putting in Solarwinds.
What do you think?
