Tag
operations
8 posts
Your Liability Cap Does Not Cover the Sales Pitch
The liability cap in a managed services agreement limits what an MSP owes for bad work. It does not reliably limit what the MSP owes for a false statement made to win the deal. Eight court rulings across backup, software projects, cloud software, website builds, demos and security monitoring show the split, and seven checks tell an owner where the exposure sits.
The Six Partnerships an MSP Runs On
An MSP resells someone's software, subcontracts someone's labor, gets clients from someone's referrals, sells through someone's marketplace, and is owned by someone's fund, and no industry survey measures any of it. A guide to the six partnership types: what each gives, what each costs, who is doing it, what can go wrong, and the six questions for the owner's next operating review.
The Compliance Practice Nobody Bills For
Four in ten MSPs offer compliance and fewer than one in ten count it as revenue. A guide to building the practice as a real line: what it sells, who buys it, how it is priced, who runs it, what the frameworks require in 2026, whether AI governance belongs in it, and what a buyer of the MSP pays for it.
Rent the SOC, Build It, or Buy It
Most MSPs sell security. Far fewer run the room where alerts get read at three in the morning. For a private equity owner there are three doors to that capability, rent, build, or buy, and the years left on the hold should pick the door.
Send Us the Procedure
A private equity buyer's diligence team asks an MSP for six written procedures because each one tests whether the revenue survives the transfer of the people. Here is the list, what each document proves, and what the owner should do with it before the diligence team arrives.
The Reference Architecture
A reference architecture is a parts list with a rule attached: every client gets the same design. It is where top-quartile MSP profit comes from, and it is the one answer to why you and not the other three firms that quoted.
Satisfied and Leaving
The same clients who report near-total trust in their MSP report majority intent to switch providers. The satisfaction slide measures the wrong thing, and the industry publishes no number that would catch it.
The Business Runs on What Nobody Wrote Down
Diligence counts contracts, margins and the tool stack. Nobody checks whether the work is written down, and that is the part that decides whether an MSP can absorb a new hire, an acquisition, or a resignation.