Why MSPs Need to Think Beyond PSA and Focus on ITSM
By Pete Roythorne
As larger MSPs have been able to push their services upstream to bigger companies, and with the rise of things like co-managed IT services opening this option up to smaller MSPs as well, many are finding that this calls for them to adopt more mature IT service management (ITSM) practices. So how does ITSM differ from the professional services automation (PSA) platforms commonly used by MSPs?
According to Tim Barton-Wines, part of the executive team at HaloPSA, “At its core, ITSM refers to the policies, processes, and procedures for managing the delivery of IT services to customers. It grew out of frameworks like ITIL that were created for internal IT departments. PSA platforms, on the other hand, were purpose-built for MSPs and focused more on integrating ticketing with billing, invoicing, CRM, and other functions core to running an MSP business.
« Traditionally, IT departments used ITSM tools to manage things like incident management, problem management, change management, and service catalogs aligned to ITIL,” Tim explains. “Meanwhile, MSPs have relied on PSA systems that provided more of a general-purpose service desk focused on the functionality they needed day-to-day such as integrating with RMM tools, creating service tickets, and linking tickets to customer agreements for billing purposes.”
Moving into More Complex Environments
David Weeks, VP of Partner Experience at N‑able, believes ITSM is gaining traction among MSPs for a number of reasons: “MSPs are advancing a lot faster than at any time over the past 10 years and they’re moving into more complex environments. As the MSP market matures, and service providers move further upstream to the mid-enterprise level, there is more of a pull to have ITSM capabilities as it’s more prevalent than PSA in this environment. In some cases enterprises are even contractually requiring that any MSPs they work with adhere to frameworks like ITIL.”
David adds that the super MSPs that are coming into the market through mergers and acquisitions are playing a different game to the rest of the market. “Many of the top MSPs we speak to expect to grow at 30%-plus a year—the industry average is 12-16%,” he says. “The reason that they’re getting that growth is often because they’re moving up market. A lot of these partners are asking us, ‘what platform do I go to? I can’t manage anymore with my old PSA, because it just won’t scale for me’.”
David continues: “On top of this, processes and procedures are having to change with regulation and compliance. In some cases those new requirements, such as having greater change controls, fit better within ITSM than in a standard PSA.”
Tim adds another reason HaloPSA is seeing a shift to ITSM: “Robust ITSM capabilities lead to higher customer satisfaction by streamlining issue resolution and enhancing communication’” he says. “Customers of all sizes appreciate the improved experience. This is a big win for MSPs today.”
Understanding the ITIL Factor
As we mentioned above, a key driver of the ITSM trend is the widespread adoption of the ITIL framework. “ITIL continues to be a widely adopted standard for IT service management. For MSPs serving enterprises, understanding ITIL principles and methodology is becoming mandatory,” Tim explains. “ITIL practices like service desks, incident management, problem management, change management, and release management seem complex at first but really just provide a structured approach to managing IT services end-to-end.”
He continues: “Things like major incident management and root cause analysis help MSPs improve outage response times and keep customers informed. Automated workflow processes reduce human errors and speed up resolution.”
By leveraging ITIL-aligned ITSM, MSPs can show enterprise customers they take service delivery seriously and have the maturity to manage large, complex environments.
Making the Transition to ITSM
So how can MSPs smoothly transition to more mature ITSM? Tim believes the answer lies in “having a platform that can unify PSA and ITSM capabilities”, thereby avoiding having to rip-and-replace existing systems.
“With a unified PSA-ITSM platform like HaloPSA, MSPs gain enterprise-grade service management functionality while keeping their automated PSA workflows intact,” says Tim. “HaloPSA offers the best of both worlds in one unified platform.”
David agrees, adding: “It’s exactly this blend of both worlds that we see driving a lot of the interest in the HaloPSA platform. This is something that is of real benefit to modern MSPs.
HaloPSA enables MSPs to start small by implementing a few key ITSM processes, like incident and problem management. However, as their needs evolve, they can easily activate more advanced capabilities as required to serve larger clients.
By leveraging unified platforms like HaloPSA ITSM, MSPs can adopt ITSM best practices at their own pace while positioning themselves to deliver exceptional service and unlock new growth opportunities. Ultimately, the days of basic PSAs could be numbered as more MSPs embrace mature ITSM.
Pete Roythorne is Senior Brand Content Editor at N‑able
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