Composable Managed Services: The market shift toward tailored service portfolios

August 2023

Nick Albino
Managing Director, Managed Services, PwC

The managed services provider (MSP) market is predominantly serviced by providers that focus on silo work streams such as IT or transactional business processing. To cover the full spectrum of business, technology and customer demands, companies need to collaborate with multiple MSPs. This often leads to an overlap of services, different delivery models and dilution of ownership. A less obvious issue is that a tapestry of MSPs often sub-optimizes outcomes because MSPs often don’t work well together.

The market is shifting rapidly toward business-led technology, and our clients are increasingly telling us that they need managed services providers that can cover a broader scope of services — from business strategy to IT. The challenge is that the market is dynamic and the services they need constantly change. We believe that the answer is composable managed services, which use a comprehensive breadth of capability building blocks that can be combined to provide bespoke services.

Here’s an example: Many companies have migrated to the cloud and have invested in analytics and AI, but these are in the realm of IT and often supported by different MSPs. A composed managed services provider would pull together cloud computing, AI and deep business expertise to deliver outcomes. We have seen companies use data, cloud computing and deep learning to forecast financial performance, such as cash, earnings and sales with 95%+ accuracy.

When it comes to comprehensive MSP solutions, finding an MSP that can deliver end-to-end capability is key to getting the most bang for your buck. Composable managed services solutions can address your specific business needs and consolidate services wherever possible to deliver the right results.

Making the distinction between what you have and what you need

The companies that were the biggest winners after the COVID-19 pandemic were adaptable and flexible to meet changing business conditions and customer needs. That’s what organizations should look for in their MSP offerings – flexibility, modular, composable managed services that can be customized as needed, based on the following attributes:

  1. Breadth of services to cover end-to-end processes, including strategy, business and IT
  2. Flexibility to bring the right expertise at the right time. Client needs are dynamic and services must be as well
  3. Scale to right-size services based on client needs
  4. Investment in new service offerings to stay ahead of the market

This model is especially effective when it comes to delivering business outcomes. We recommend assessing your operations and finding where an end-to-end approach would yield a larger impact. From this vantage point, composable managed services can be tailored specifically for your business to address a range of different elements — each with its own unique features — combined in various ways to create differentiated and sustainable outcomes.

Business models are changing in today’s world of economic uncertainty and rapid technological advances. To keep pace while reducing costs, we recommend choosing the MSP that offers comprehensive, flexible services that can be customized to fit the specific needs of your business.

Learn more about how organizations are leveraging managed services to become faster and more innovative, and reach out to me if you would like to talk more about composable managed services for your organization and how we can help.

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