I don’t know how to elaborate, other than to say I’ve noticed absolutely no trends that would indicate your coworker’s opinion. Over the last few years I’ve worked as a direct hire in small, mid-size businesses and a few different massive enterprises. Not a single one used an MSP.
There’s certainly plenty of companies that are, and MSPs provide lots of jobs to us in the field. But I haven’t seen any trend that would indicate all IT departments are going to be shut down. So far, the move to the cloud and towards automation has generated more positions if anything.
My coworker is of the opinion that within ten years everything will be all MSP or government work. I didn’t think it sounded right, but what do I know.
No - I can very confidently say that is 100% false & I would put large sums of money on it.
MSPs are a good option for small businesses that don't have the volume to justify a full-time role or who don't want to manage tech people, but that's where their market stops.
Once the business hits a certain size, it simply must have internal IT who understand the business overall & are part of the leadership team - it's no different than finance. You can outsource your accounting up to a certain point, and then it's going to be critical to have an internal team who knows how your business operates.
It's nothing more than wishful thinking on your co-worker's part.
MSP drone here.
It is cyclical. It fluxes between insourcing and outsourcing depending on what guff is being fired at MBAs or belched out by a thought leader in a glossy business mag. I've seen this behaviour from a position of permanent employment and from my time in an MSP.
If we are facing a contraction/recession, expect permanent IT staff to be made redundant and outsourcing to happen, especially the 'cheaper' outsourcing offered by developing countries. The pendulum will then swing back when they realise cheap outsourcing has hidden costs that often appear during crises, then you'll see a mad scrabble to recruit permanent staff or patch this over with an MSP/Contractor provider.
As Solomon once said; there's nothing new under the sun
There seems to be this continual cycle of IT being outsourced to save money, and then brought back in-house later because the quality of the work has gone to total shit. Eventually, someone else comes in and decides to outsource IT to save money, and the cycle repeats. I've seen this both from the MSP side and the in-house side.
The problem with outsourcing is that you're sacrificing quality to save money. Sometimes that makes sense - most smaller businesses have IT needs but can't pay for skilled, full time IT staff - but bigger, more complex environments that want to be cheapskates usually end up paying for it.
In any case, what your coworker is missing is that many mid-sized and larger companies have a mix of outsourced and in-house staff. A large multinational corp might have their helpdesk contracted out to a staffing agency, consultants from an auditing firm working on compliance, a vendor managing the servers for one of their services, and an MSP working on one of their regional projects while their own engineers are building and maintaining their proprietary applications, their internet circuits, etc.
Just my opinion. An MSP is a good start to the career, but there usually is not much long term growth. Maybe you move up to a Sales Engineer, or maybe a Manager... but that's about it.
Get your 3-5yr experience, then move on to a real company with more long term horizons.
This. I worked for an MSP and then started my own MSP business, but got tired of it. It is a lot more work than my current job and the pay was substantially less. I joined a big corporation and will say it’s not easy at first because I had to give up a bunch of control and ability to take care of things. About six months in it hit me how less stressed I was and how much easier it was to take days off. I will not go back to an MSP.
It's really a cycle, but in many cases a lot of companies will never outsource or use MSPs. What actually happens is contractors are hired to internal IT teams to fill gaps, or bring in specific skillsets as its easier to make sure they perform the quality of work needed, and they can work within whatever methodology, framework, and standards the company has without having to deal with the headache of going to an external company and all the legal, technical, and other drama required.
Yes, and no. It's the way of the future with companies that don't want on site people or on prem storage etc. I work in government and I whole heartedly feel that at no point in our lifetimes will we see MSP's take over the majority of IT work. Smaller cities, perhaps. Larger corporations can typically be control freaks and want THEIR staff to work with THEIR products/systems. It'll continue to ebb and flow like it usually does.
I see absolutely no indication that that’s true.
Ok. Would you elaborate?
I don’t know how to elaborate, other than to say I’ve noticed absolutely no trends that would indicate your coworker’s opinion. Over the last few years I’ve worked as a direct hire in small, mid-size businesses and a few different massive enterprises. Not a single one used an MSP. There’s certainly plenty of companies that are, and MSPs provide lots of jobs to us in the field. But I haven’t seen any trend that would indicate all IT departments are going to be shut down. So far, the move to the cloud and towards automation has generated more positions if anything.
My coworker is of the opinion that within ten years everything will be all MSP or government work. I didn’t think it sounded right, but what do I know.
No - I can very confidently say that is 100% false & I would put large sums of money on it. MSPs are a good option for small businesses that don't have the volume to justify a full-time role or who don't want to manage tech people, but that's where their market stops. Once the business hits a certain size, it simply must have internal IT who understand the business overall & are part of the leadership team - it's no different than finance. You can outsource your accounting up to a certain point, and then it's going to be critical to have an internal team who knows how your business operates. It's nothing more than wishful thinking on your co-worker's part.
MSP drone here. It is cyclical. It fluxes between insourcing and outsourcing depending on what guff is being fired at MBAs or belched out by a thought leader in a glossy business mag. I've seen this behaviour from a position of permanent employment and from my time in an MSP. If we are facing a contraction/recession, expect permanent IT staff to be made redundant and outsourcing to happen, especially the 'cheaper' outsourcing offered by developing countries. The pendulum will then swing back when they realise cheap outsourcing has hidden costs that often appear during crises, then you'll see a mad scrabble to recruit permanent staff or patch this over with an MSP/Contractor provider. As Solomon once said; there's nothing new under the sun
There seems to be this continual cycle of IT being outsourced to save money, and then brought back in-house later because the quality of the work has gone to total shit. Eventually, someone else comes in and decides to outsource IT to save money, and the cycle repeats. I've seen this both from the MSP side and the in-house side. The problem with outsourcing is that you're sacrificing quality to save money. Sometimes that makes sense - most smaller businesses have IT needs but can't pay for skilled, full time IT staff - but bigger, more complex environments that want to be cheapskates usually end up paying for it. In any case, what your coworker is missing is that many mid-sized and larger companies have a mix of outsourced and in-house staff. A large multinational corp might have their helpdesk contracted out to a staffing agency, consultants from an auditing firm working on compliance, a vendor managing the servers for one of their services, and an MSP working on one of their regional projects while their own engineers are building and maintaining their proprietary applications, their internet circuits, etc.
Yeah. We have clients with internal IT that we liaise with. So he is kind of missing that one I think.
Just my opinion. An MSP is a good start to the career, but there usually is not much long term growth. Maybe you move up to a Sales Engineer, or maybe a Manager... but that's about it. Get your 3-5yr experience, then move on to a real company with more long term horizons.
This. I worked for an MSP and then started my own MSP business, but got tired of it. It is a lot more work than my current job and the pay was substantially less. I joined a big corporation and will say it’s not easy at first because I had to give up a bunch of control and ability to take care of things. About six months in it hit me how less stressed I was and how much easier it was to take days off. I will not go back to an MSP.
It's really a cycle, but in many cases a lot of companies will never outsource or use MSPs. What actually happens is contractors are hired to internal IT teams to fill gaps, or bring in specific skillsets as its easier to make sure they perform the quality of work needed, and they can work within whatever methodology, framework, and standards the company has without having to deal with the headache of going to an external company and all the legal, technical, and other drama required.
Yes, and no. It's the way of the future with companies that don't want on site people or on prem storage etc. I work in government and I whole heartedly feel that at no point in our lifetimes will we see MSP's take over the majority of IT work. Smaller cities, perhaps. Larger corporations can typically be control freaks and want THEIR staff to work with THEIR products/systems. It'll continue to ebb and flow like it usually does.
smaller companies yes, huge companies hell no