Half of Executives Say They Foresee Moving Toward 100 Percent MSP Engagement The survey, conducted in association with Enterprise Management Associates™ (EMA), collected responses, experiences and opinions from executives, mid-level managers and individual IT contributors from mid-sized and large organizations. All participants were currently engaged with an MSP, planning to engage and MSP, or had used MSP services in the past. Visit www.nimsoft.com for more information.

1. Top Reasons that Enterprises
Outsource IT to MSPs
Phil LaForge Jim Frey
Vice President – Managing Research
Service Providers Director
Nimsoft EMA
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2. About About
› Offer integrated › Leading industry analyst
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as SaaS or on-premise across IT and data
› More than 1,000 management
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Providers monitoring services
over 10,000 end user
environments
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3. Survey Background
› Goal: find out what and why enterprises are outsourcing
to service providers.
› Surveyed 100s of executives, mid-level managers and IT
contributors at mid to large (1,000-20,000 employees)
enterprises.
› Narrowed results to the first 100 to meet the size and
title criteria and have utilized MSP services.
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4. Survey High Level Results
› Broad existing practice and future interest in use of MSPs
EMA recommendation:
Any organization seeking to balance business
priorities against near-term and long-term
operation costs should consider utilizing
MSPs—either as a means to supplement
existing staff or as a primary approach to
operations.
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5. Respondent Demographics
Number of Employees Top Five Industries in Order of Representation:
• Manufacturing
• Finance/Banking/Insurance
1,000 - 2,499 26%
• Healthcare
2,500 - 4,999 34%
• Education
5,000 - 9,999 25%
• Retail/Wholesale/Distribution
10,000 - 19,999 15%
Annual IT Budget Annual Revenue
Less than $1 million 8% Less than $1 Million
$1 million - $5 million 13% $1 Million - $5 Million 5%
$5 million - $10 million 16% $5 Million - $20 Million 6%
$10 million - $25 million 24% $20 Million- $100 Million 20%
$25 million - $50 million 11% $100 Million -r $1 Billion 37%
$1 Billion or more 28%
$50 million - $100 million 13%
N/A (government/non-profit) 2%
$100 million or more 8%
Don’t know 2%
Don't know 7%
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6. Enterprise experience with MSPs
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7. What level of experience does your organization have with MSPs?
We are currently using an MSP 55%
We are planning to engage an MSP 39%
We have previously used an MSP 6%
Sample Size = 100
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

8. Why do enterprises outsource to
MSPs?
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9. CIO Most Commonly Making MSP Contract
Decision
Who primarily drives the decision to contract an MSP within your organization?
71%
CIO
48%
Line IT Support
21%
15%
CEO
5%
6%
Line of Business Management
14%
6%
CFO
12%
Other Executive-level sponsor (Please 3%
specify)
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Executives All Other
Sample Size = 100; Responses not shown received 0%

10. Cost Factors Dominate, followed by Resource
Considerations
Which of the following are the three (3) most important considerations in
your organization’s decision to outsource IT management to and MSP?
Better total cost 41%
Improved technical experience/depth 37%
Improve focus on core business 36%
Free internal resources to focus on more strategic
projects
34%
Improve system uptime 31%
Accelerate cloud adoption 26%
Avoiding capital expense 25%
Better coverage for off-hours 22%
Avoiding direct personnel costs 14%
Skilled resources are not available 13%
Function is difficult to manage/out of control 11%
Gain visibility in system performance 9%
Other (Please specify) 1%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%
Sample Size = 100, Valid Cases = 100

11. What do enterprises look for in an
MSP?
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12. Credibility Gets most Attention for Selecting an
MSP
Q13_1 What attributes does your organization look for when selecting an
MSP? Select all that apply.
Proven experience, depth of expertise 66%
Reputation/references 55%
Service level agreements 55%
Solid capital base, vendor stability 50%
Industry-specific certifications 37%
Has 7x24 NOC facilities 35%
Monitoring across all tech. domains 35%
Implements ITIL-certified practices 34%
Services highly regulated industries 33%
Owns/Leases Tier 3+ Data Center 26%
Customer portal, reporting 25%
SAS-70 Audited or PCI 18%
Middle market/enterprise customers 18%
Published Service Catalog 12%
Other (Please specify) 1%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
% Valid Cases (Mentions / Valid Cases)
Sample Size = 100, Valid Cases = 100

13. Most Would Consider Multi-sourcing MSPs
Which of the following would be valid drivers for outsourcing to more than
one (1) MSP at a time? (Select all)
Balancing risk / business continuity 73%
Differing domain / technology expertise 61%
Differing geographical regions of coverage 32%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Sample Size = 100, Valid Cases = 100

14. Security, Control Top MSP Engagement Concerns
What are the current or potential inhibitors/barriers for engaging an MSP?
(Select all)
Security risk 68%
Loss of control 50%
Uncertainty of cost 44%
Lack of responsiveness 39%
Other (Please specify) 3%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Sample Size = 100, Valid Cases = 100

15. What services do enterprises
outsource to MSPs?
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16. Priorities for Coming Year – Service Desk and
Storage/Recovery
What IT management functions is your organization planning to outsource to
an MSP in the next year? Select only those that are planned.
Service desk, Help Desk 54%
Storage/Recovery 41%
Business Service Management 41%
ITIL Processes 38%
Application Management 35%
Network/Systems Management 35%
Security Management 32%
Network Operations Center (NOC) 32%
Desktop Management 24%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
% Valid Cases (Mentions / Valid Cases)
Sample Size = 100, Valid Cases = 37

17. Storage and Virtual Servers Most Commonly
Planned for Management Outsourcing
Which of the following infrastructure technologies is your organization
planning to have managed by an MSP? Select only those that are planned.
Storage 51%
Virtual Servers 51%
Virtual desktops 44%
LAN/WAN 44%
Data Center infrastructure 44%
Physical Servers 39%
Physical desktops 22%
Other (Please specify) 2%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
% Valid Cases (Mentions / Valid Cases)
Sample Size = 100, Valid Cases = 41

18. Cloud and Hosted Apps Most Commonly Planned
for new MSP outsourced management
Which of the following application and services technologies is your
organization planning to have managed by an MSP? Select only those that
are planned.
Private Cloud 60%
Hosted applications 60%
Public Cloud 47%
SaaS applications 44%
Databases 38%
On-premise applications 29%
VoIP 22%
Video 18%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
% Valid Cases (Mentions / Valid Cases)
Sample Size = 100, Valid Cases = 45

19. What does the future hold?
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20. Many Can See an All-MSP Future
Do you envision a time where ALL of your IT is managed by MSPs?
50%
Yes
21%
50%
No
79%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Executives All Other
Sample Size = 100, Valid Cases = 100

21. Organizations Planning Significant Growth in %
of IT Function Managed by MSPs
What % of your entire IT function is managed by an MSP?
Current vs. Planning
3%
0%
9%
32%
1-25%
57%
36%
26-50%
22%
20%
51-75%
11%
7%
76-99%
1%
2%
100%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
Planning Currently
Sample Size = 100

22. Nimsoft Unified Manager
› Multi-tenanted monitoring provides visibility to your
customers of storage, application, server, network and
database performance.
› Integrated Service Desk
allows for seamless Bridging the Gap between Business Process and IT
correlation of trouble-
ticketing to monitoring
data.
› End-to-end solution for
keeping your enterprise
customers happy with
high performance and
availability.
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23. Q&A
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providers
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