MCSA launches new NOC for managed services push

Service provider looks to broaden its offering deeper into computing and security

Infrastructure services provider MCSA Group has opened a new network operations centre as it looks to ramp up its managed services business.

MCSA Group was formed in 2016 when Maindec merged with CSA Waverley, four years after the latter was acquired.

The newly formed firm has now launched its network operations centre at its Wooburn Green headquarters and has appointed Terry Storrar as its new director of managed services.

Storrar explained to CRN that MCSA is looking to expand its offering in areas such as security and computing, having traditionally focused on infrastructure.

"It's more looking at, from a customer perspective, the total outsource of services and it's certainly taking away the infrastructure piece as a decider of the service that's provided," he said. "The company has been built on its HPE partnership - solid in the storage and infrastructure arena - and now we're building out services around compute, storage, security and the helpdesk.

"All we're doing is changing what we're servicing. It's not as if we've been a box-shifter and we're going into services, like we hear so much now because the margins on tin are going down and everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon."

Storrar explained that he is often frustrated at channel firms that sell hardware to end users on a subscription basis, and claimed that this does not qualify as managed services.

"When we look at managed service here [at MCSA] it's security, storage, compute, IT - it's not 'I'll provide you with this box which is made by this person and I'll manage it for you'," he said. "That's 'managed tin', it's not a managed service.

"It gets frustrating because you are tarnished with the same managed service brush that everyone is coming out with now and it's very hard to differentiate yourself."

Storrar said that his team, based at the new centre in Wooburn Green, do not have to go out and seek a brand new customer base because they can sell to the customers that MCSA has traditionally serviced on the infrastructure side.

He did say, however, that the firm is looking to snap up customers from the growing number of MSPs that have been acquired by larger players, if they have become disillusioned with the service they're receiving.

"When you've got telecoms companies buying IT companies so that they can add to their multiples, the reason people signed up to that IT company was for their ethos and culture," he said.

"If the bigger brother has a totally different way of selling and a totally different way of looking after the customer, all of a sudden you've got a bunch of customers that are in contracts they didn't sign up for.

"What they signed up for was not just SLAs [service-level agreements] and KPIs [key performance indicators], they signed up for the service and culture and I think that's going to see a lot of fallout for customers. That's a great opportunity for us."