- Your MSP contract renews in the next three to twelve months
- The bill keeps rising and nobody can explain which line grew
- You suspect you are paying for licences and services nobody uses
- Incidents repeat, but the SLA report says everything was met
- Up to 150 employees, one principal provider
All services
02 · Sourcing & vendor governance
MSP Contract & Service Review
What your contract obliges your provider to deliver, what you actually get, and the gap between them in writing.
- 4–6 weeks
- ~12–16 consulting days
- From 750,000 HUF + VAT
- Independent of your provider
The problem
Nobody inside the company can say whether the provider is doing their job.
The invoice arrives every month and nobody checks it against anything, because there is nothing to check it against. The contract was signed years ago, by someone who is no longer here, and it has rolled over automatically ever since. The SLA reports say green while the same incident comes back every few weeks.
So the argument inside the company is about feelings. One person says the provider is expensive and slow. Another says they are fine and the real problem is the users. Neither can prove it, so nothing changes — and the renewal is signed again because the alternative is unknown and switching sounds frightening.
Meanwhile the provider holds the administrator accounts, the documentation, the licence agreements and the only record of how anything works. That is not bad faith. It is what happens when nobody on your side owns the relationship.
Who it's for
This is a fit if
Who buys it
- CEOs, founders and operations managers who own the relationship but cannot read the SLA
- CFOs, when a renewal date or a rising invoice is the trigger
- Boards and owners who want a decision they can defend
- Several providers, or a provider who also supplies your core business software, are quoted individually
What happens
Five steps, four to six weeks.
- Mobilisation Half a week. Sponsor kick-off, and access to the contract, the SLA, the last twelve months of invoices and whatever ticket history exists.
- Contract and SLA analysis One week. What the provider is actually obliged to do, what is explicitly excluded, what the response and resolution targets really mean, how the price escalates, and what the exit clause says about notice, data return and handover.
- Service and cost evidence One and a half weeks. Ticket data against the SLA targets, incidents by recurrence rather than by count, invoices against the contracted scope, and licences billed against licences actually in use.
- Interviews and a provider session One week. Your people on what the service feels like, then a structured session with the provider — held as a conversation, not an ambush. They usually explain half the findings themselves.
- Findings, brief and readout One week. The gap register, the negotiation brief, and a recommendation presented to you and your sponsor before anyone speaks to the provider about it.
Premium adds two things: we sit on your side of the table through the renegotiation itself, and we come back ninety days after signature to check that what was agreed is what is now happening.
What you get
Contract & SLA Obligation Map
Service Reality Report
Cost & Licence Findings
Responsibility Split & Negotiation Brief
Four documents, and an answer you can act on.
Every obligation the provider carries, in plain language, with the exclusions beside it — plus the exit terms, the notice period, the data-return provisions and the price-escalation mechanism, each marked as adequate, weak or absent.
What was promised against what was measured. Response and resolution against target, recurring incidents grouped by root cause rather than counted as separate tickets, and the areas where no measurement exists at all — which is itself a finding.
What you are billed for, what is consumed, and the difference. Licences paid for and unused, services duplicated between the provider and your own subscriptions, and work billed outside the contracted scope.
Who owns backup, patching, security monitoring and access management — written down, because in most SME contracts this is exactly where each party assumes the other is doing it. Then the prioritised negotiation positions and a stay, renegotiate or go-to-market recommendation.
Packages
- Entry — contract and SLA read The paperwork only: what the contract obliges, what it excludes, what the exit terms allow, and the three questions to ask your provider next. No service or cost evidence. 750,000 HUF + VAT.
- Standard — the full review Everything on this page, from contract analysis through service and cost evidence to the negotiation brief and recommendation. 2,400,000 HUF + VAT, fixed price.
- Premium — through the renegotiation Standard, plus client-side support through the renegotiation itself and a ninety-day follow-up review against what was agreed. 3,900,000 HUF + VAT.
- Custom Several providers, or a provider who also supplies your core business software. Quoted individually.
Payment is 40% at signature, 30% at scope confirmation, 30% on the findings report. The Entry fee is credited in full against Standard or Premium if you continue within 60 days.
- The contract, the SLA and the last twelve months of invoices — the review is only as good as these
- Ticket or service-desk history, in whatever form it exists; if none exists, that is a finding, not a blocker
- One executive sponsor who can decide whether and when the provider is told about the review
- Thirty minutes each from three or four people who deal with the provider weekly
- Requested information within five business days; delays move milestones, they do not shrink the work
- Not legal advice — your lawyer reads the wording, we read what the service is and whether you get it
- Not negotiation on your behalf; we prepare you, and in Premium we sit beside you, but you sign
- Not a tender — going to market is a separate engagement, and one of the possible recommendations here
- Not an audit of the provider's own systems or security posture
- Not a security assessment of your IT; that is the IT Service & Risk Assessment
Next step
Find out before the renewal date, not after.
The leverage is in the notice period, and it expires quietly. If the review finds your provider is doing a decent job at a fair price, you will get that in writing too — and it is worth knowing.