Healthcare Provider MSP Transition Strategy

Our Work: Client Story

Large telecoms solutions provider leverages cyber capabilities as a brand differentiator

Strategic Challenge

The challenge for our client, a small healthcare organization, was a complex one. The client had maintained the services of their MSP for several years. However, in recent times they had become dissatisfied with the MSP’s services. The central questions they wrestled with were: What’s the best MSP services fit for our organization moving forward? How do we find the best-fit MSP for us? How do we manage the entire MSP evaluation, selection and transition process? We were engaged to help guide them through the entire process of implementing effective answers to these questions

Outcomes Achieved

Proactive contract revision of old MSP contract to avoid extended multi-year automatic renewal
Effective transition to new MSP with better alignment
Incremental Value: New and improved IT services and capabilities to support the organization’s current and future needs
Improved IT and cyber risk services support to ensure business continuity

Background & Context

Our client offers mental health services and counseling services.

Information Technology, IT is a foundational element of providing these services to patients but also in managing operations from managing case notes to care services to managing insurance claims and coverage verification. Having the right systems that are fully functional and operational makes a big difference in the lives of both employees and the patients.

With the old/incumbent MSP, employees’ email could be down for as long as 3-5 days without a satisfactory resolution to the problem. Other employees experienced repeated problems accessing critical business systems and yet others could only logon to the company VPN sometimes. The overall experience was inconsistent for employees and there was limited proactive cyber incident detection and security monitoring.

The CFO had been initially involved with managing the MSP relationship but with the departure of the CFO, this task now fell to the CEO. There was limited technology expertise and capabilities. All of these factored into the dissatisfaction challenges for our client. Some of the dissatisfaction challenges our client had with the old/incumbent MSP includes

The principal tasks given to us were as follows:

Define the current and future services needs for a new MSP
Source the right/potential MSP options with the best fit
Perform a comparative evaluation of the MSP options
Define and execute an MSP transition strategy

MSP Transition Strategy

The first element of the strategy was to assess the gaps of the current MSP provider and to analyze the existing contract requirements including termination clauses. This analysis informed the current and future services that would be needed as well as the timing implications for making a transition. We worked to revise the MSP contract to accommodate a 1yr renewal as opposed to a 3yr renewal and proactively avoided termination penalties for switching providers within a 3yr contract.

We developed a set of comprehensive RFP requirements for a new MSP provider that captured all of the required services for our client. These included help desk services, system administration of local and cloud-based IT systems (Microsoft 365 Outlook, SharePoint, Office, Teams and Microsoft Azure Active Directory services) to support employee onboarding and off-boarding.

Our client had limited in-house technology expertise and needed help with onsite support, asset lifecycle management, preventative maintenance and network health monitoring. In addition to the regulatory compliance (HIPAA) needs, there was also a need for more robust security services to minimize disruption of patient care and service down time

As part of the strategy, we managed the entire RFP process including sourcing candidate MSPs, RFP responses’ evaluation, site visits, and facilitated pilot testing of the final MSP to ensure alignment and operational readiness of both the MSP and our client.

Side Bar - MSP Transition Strategy : Comparative Score Card

Sometimes the evaluation and selection of a new or replacement MSP can be very complex. It can feel like untangling a complex hair knot. For some organizations it can be so overwhelming that they decide to live with poor service levels and standards instead of opting to consider alternate options.

You don’t have to live with the hair knot. We hope you can use the guide below to simplify the complexity of your MSP evaluation and selection

Download Guide

As is often the case with most large IT initiatives, the most important element of success of the MSP transition was managing the organizational change. Upon a comprehensive evaluation and selection of the finalist MSP, we worked to advise our client on what operational readiness for the organization meant in anticipation of a transition from the old to the new MSP.

We provided guidance on overlapping projects or concerns between the old and new MSPs while also providing fractional strategic leadership on how new project initiatives should be handled jointly by the client and the new MSP. We also delivered briefings to the client’s board of directors on the transition readiness

Some of the vital components of this MSP strategy included:

MSP Pilot Implementation - this was a new approach for some of the candidate MSPs.
New MSP Contracting - requirements and services validation
Incumbent MSP Termination Notification

New MSP Onboarding and Contract Activation

The last two components had interesting implications for our client and we were able to help them work through them. Our lead consultant was available to support joint coordination activities between the old and new MSPs as well as handle any post-transition issues that emerged

Success Factor - Chief Operating Officer (COO)

The COO played a pivotal role in the success of the MSP transition strategy These included:

Commitment to the strategy against the overwhelming volume of operational demands
Easy to work with and open communication
Flexibility and the willingness to learn new concepts and practices
Digital savvy