Staples Exits MSP Business

Now, the underlying reasons why both Staples and BestBuy initially made these purchases of MSP companies is a matter of public record. Expanding into new service areas, tapping into new business customers with valuable business grade IT services, are just a few of the obvious motivations behind these non-traditional acquirers of managed services firms.

The reason why these two companies sold their MSP businesses is more interesting and can offer some insight into how managed services business units are being used in larger corporate structures. First, I would say that it's obvious to anyone looking at these two retailers that their attempts at managed services were not a success. I will state that the MSP companies they purchased are likely not at fault here. Instead, there was probably an oversimplification of how an MSP business operates and how it should be integrated into a larger corporate structure, especially that of a retailer.

Not a Failure of Managed Services

The fundamental issue here is that MSPs have very deep relationships with their customers and any attempt to cheapen or treat that relationship as a commodity is destined to fail, or at least not have high levels of success. Taking a professional grade IT managed services offering and then making it available to the masses via a retail store front fundamentally mistakes the nature of managed services and how it is purchase and delivered. If customers thought of managed services as merely a product they can buy from their local electronics retailer, the BestBuy and Staples strategies would have worked. This is why Staples and BestBuy eventually sold off their managed services divisions; and not because of a failure of managed services!

This last point is important, because any casual observer might look at this trend and wonder why two electronics retailers went through the trouble of buying MSP's in the first place, only to sell them a few years later. On the one hand, it signifies the importance managed services plays in our global economy (this is a phenomena happening many places around the world), and on the other hand it shows the true intimacy and delicate nature of how managed services are consumed.