Has Your IT Provider Been Acquired?
Private equity is consolidating the London MSP market. If your provider just announced "exciting news", here's what usually happens next — and how to protect your business before renewal.
What Usually Changes After the Acquisition
Nothing changes on day one — that's the point of the reassuring email. The changes arrive over the following quarters, as the new owner standardises tooling, centralises support and works towards the margins the deal was priced on.
Your engineer leaves
The people who knew your environment take their earn-out or exit. Their context leaves with them.
Response times stretch
Local helpdesks merge into central queues. The 20-minute fix becomes a three-day ticket.
Prices rise at renewal
Acquisitions are priced on margin expansion. Guess where the margin comes from.
You become a tier
A 15-person client in a 5,000-client portfolio gets portfolio treatment, not partnership.
Five Things to Check in Your Contract This Week
Notice period & auto-renewal
Many MSP contracts auto-renew for 12 months if you miss a 60-90 day notice window. Diarise it now.
Change-of-control clause
Some contracts let you exit early when the provider is sold. If yours does, the clock may already be running.
Who owns your credentials
Confirm you hold admin access to your own domains, tenants and backups — not just the provider.
Data return & offboarding terms
Check what documentation, configurations and data they must hand over, in what format, and how fast.
What you're actually getting
Compare the service you receive now against the SLA you signed. Degradation is your negotiating leverage — or your exit case.
How a Painless Switch Actually Works
Confidential Review
We assess your environment and contract position — before you say anything to your current provider.
Transition Plan
A dated plan mapped to your notice period: what moves when, and what your team will (not) notice.
Parallel Running
We document systems, take over monitoring, licences and backups while your old provider still holds support.
Cutover
Support routing switches last, usually over a weekend. Day one on the new provider feels like any other Monday.
First 90 Days
Security baseline review, quick wins your old provider left on the table, and a roadmap you actually see delivered.
The Alternative: Founder-Led by Design
The CISSP Who Scopes It, Delivers It
Your security isn't scoped by a salesperson and delivered by a rotating helpdesk. The certified professional who designs your setup is the one who runs it.
You Talk to Decision-Makers
Questions get answered by someone who can actually decide — because the founders are the ones on your account.
Enterprise-Assessment Pedigree
We've taken clients through security assessments run by global technology and consumer brands. Small provider, enterprise-grade evidence.
Published, Fixed Pricing
Our prices are on the website. No renewal-time surprises, because the numbers were public from the start.
Switching Questions, Answered
Not immediately — your contract continues with the new owner. But it's the right moment to re-read your terms (notice period, auto-renewal, exit clauses, data return) and to benchmark service levels, because changes usually arrive at the first renewal after acquisition.
Done properly, no. A structured handover runs both providers in parallel for a short window: we document your environment, take over monitoring and licences, and switch support routing last. Your team typically notices nothing except faster responses.
Check your notice period and any change-of-control clause — some contracts allow exit when the provider is sold. Even if you're locked in for months, starting the transition plan now means you switch the day the contract allows.
You lose an account-management layer, not capability. You gain direct access to the certified engineer who designed your setup. For SMBs, the practical difference is faster decisions, no ticket ping-pong, and security scoped by the person who delivers it.
Start With a Confidential Conversation
Free, No-Commitment Switch Review
- Contract position reviewed — notice periods, renewal traps, exit options
- Service benchmark: what you get vs what you pay
- A dated, zero-downtime transition plan
- Completely confidential — your current provider hears nothing from us