The managed services industry is hitting a familiar wall. Demand keeps climbing, but so does the cost and complexity of delivering those services. Security expectations are higher, clients want faster response times, and hiring skilled talent is still a challenge.
Summit Holdings’ new MSP-as-a-Service (MSPaaS) model steps into that tension with a simple idea: give MSPs access to ready-made operational infrastructure so they can grow without building everything themselves.
The backbone comes from its NOCDOC acquisition and includes NOC, SOC, and help desk functions alongside pre-sales, onboarding, and ongoing service delivery support. It's packaged as a per-user framework that's meant to simplify how MSPs price and sell.
The interesting part isn't the outsourcing itself. Most MSPs already use outside vendors for pieces of their operations. The problem, according to
Juan Fernandez, Founder of MSP-aaS, is how that tends to play out.
"Outsourcing is a tactic. MSP-aaS is a full operating model shift. Most MSPs already use outsourced services, but they use them in a fragmented way. One vendor for NOC, another for SOC, another for Help Desk, and the internal team is still stitching everything together. That means multiple SLAs, multiple tools, multiple escalations, and still heavy operational overhead," Juan told ChannelE2E.
One Model, One Accountable Partner
The pitch is consolidation. One delivery model, one operational standard aligned to ITIL and CIS, one partner accountable for the whole backend.
"MSP-aaS is different because it unifies and replaces the entire backend. We're not another outsourced vendor. We are the operational layer of the MSP, fully integrated, white-labeled, and aligned to how they run their business."
That matters most when it comes to labor costs, which typically run between 30% and 45% of MSP revenue. Hiring is slow, utilization is uneven, and the gap between adding staff and generating enough revenue to justify it is a constant pressure point.
Redesigning the Cost Structure
"We don't compress margin, we stabilize and expand it," Fernandez said. "MSP-aaS flips this by converting fixed labor into a predictable variable cost, aligning cost directly to users or endpoints, and eliminating underutilization and hiring lag."
MSPs still control pricing, packaging, and customer strategy. The model doesn't dictate any of that. What it changes is the underlying cost structure.
"Instead of guessing whether they can afford to hire, they decide what margin they want to hit and structure around it. In the old model, margin is a byproduct of operations. In MSP-aaS, margin is designed intentionally."
The Dependency Question
The obvious concern with any model like this is dependency. If an MSP hands off its operations, what happens if the relationship sours or the business needs to change direction?
Fernandez pushes back on that framing. "We're not creating dependency, we're creating optionality. Traditional MSPs build everything internally, which is high cost, high risk, and hard to unwind." He argues that MSPs who want to bring operations back in-house can do it, and will actually be better positioned to make that move because they'll have more revenue and clearer process documentation to work from.
In practice, he says most don't want to. "What we've seen is that most MSPs don't want to rebuild operations. They want to stay focused on growth and the customer."
The compliance angle is worth noting, too. MSPaaS builds in ITIL-aligned and CIS-mapped processes, which gives MSPs a structured baseline when customers start asking for documentation of controls or operational maturity. In regulated industries, that proof of process carries real weight.
What to Watch
MSPs are moving toward platform-based delivery rather than rebuilding the same operational infrastructure at every stage of growth. MSPaaS introduces a different way of scaling, but its impact will depend on how it plays out in real environments. Real-world execution will depend on how much control MSPs actually retain over the customer experience, whether margins hold as the model matures, and how MSPs differentiate when their back-end operations look increasingly similar.
