Admins get overwhelmed while change requests stack up … and while your business wants to move fast, operations is barely hanging on. “Yeah, that'll take at least a week to get to,” becomes a more commonplace answer to break/fix requests.
Your operations team … whether it's Finance, IT, Revenue, Sales, whatever … should never function as “just” a break/fix team. But I've seen this firsthand, where systems become so unreliable or the underlying architecture's broken because it was built in piecemeal fashion that Ops teams barely have time to report on what they're working on, much less build a strategic business function.
And this is where managed services comes in … but there's so many myths around it, I want to be clear what it is (and isn't).
Managed Services Isn't (Just) Taking Tickets
The term “managed services” gets thrown around a lot. To be clear, I'm not talking about outsourced help desk tickets or a patchwork of freelance admins.
A real managed services agreement gives your business consistent access to a cross-functional team typically for a set number of hours per month. That includes architects, developers, and consultants who all get to know your org, your processes, and your people.
You're not just submitting work tickets - it's so much more.
It's Strategic.
A major component is understanding how your business operates and its current and future goals, then prioritizing work collaboratively to align to that. This includes evolving your CRM environment with a clear purpose and direction that flows from those business-level goals.
It's structured enough to provide clarity, but flexible enough to shift when business needs evolve.
Now, to be clear, any consultancy offering Managed Services will engage in plenty of break/fix work.
But the real value is in surfacing ideas you hadn't thought of yet. Or seeing a pattern across clients and suggesting a lightweight automation that saves your team hours every week. Or flagging a problem in your quote-to-cash process before it shows up on a CFO dashboard.
Because we're working with clients across industries, we bring an outside-in view that internal teams often don't have time to develop, such as:
- Implementing a new pricing structure for a SaaS company or building more automated renewal sequences based on new recurring revenue models
- Guiding a manufacturing company through ERP integration with SAP or NetSuite
- Helping a transportation client streamline their field service ops
- Designing handoffs between CRM and CPQ platform like Dealhub that factor in syncs from the enterprise ERP
The list goes on … and that's the point!
Supporting Your Admins, Not Replacing Them
We've had clients whose admin was fielding 100+ requests a day. That's impossible to keep up with. Just prioritizing that workload soaked up valuable bandwidth!
By categorizing request types and working through the backlog, not only did we reduce the noise, we created space for the Admin to focus on longer-term improvements that were more beneficial to the business. This helped reduce incoming requests as we built the right automations and processes to create a more effective business that positively supported multiple teams.
Now, if you lose a key figure in your operation, we certainly help by gap-filling or providing a backstop that reduces your risk. We can scale up as you need while continuing to align and challenge your strategic priorities - and both have been appreciated by leaders at clients! One client, Critical Mention, has been on a managed services engagement with us for five-plus years, and the value has kept compounding the entire time. But again, I want to stress our goal is to help your teams do even more.
Why This Model Works
You want to keep building? That's where managed services helps.
You have your own ideas, requests from other teams, operational pain points, and executive pressure to show the value in these investments … but bandwidth typically isn't there. Not to tackle everything.
A strong managed services partnership solves for that by:
- Bringing continuity so you're not re-explaining your process every sprint.
- Moving faster because work gets scoped, designed, and delivered with minimal handoffs.
- Sharing best practices, enabling you to benefit from what's working in other organizations like yours (from strategic goals to technical details)
- Keeping spend predictable with a fixed hours-per-month agreement. Most clients begin with 40 hours per month.
What I really like, however, is how the right partner helps you avoid waste.
We've talked teams out of building the wrong thing just as often as we've helped build the right one. Homegrown systems, custom automations or integrations … the list goes on, and we've been able to say “hang on, there's an easier path that's more sustainable for the next 5-10 years. Here's how.”
Keeping you making the best decisions over and over? That's a fantastic feeling.
Pro Tip: Governance Makes This Highly Effective
Can I be painfully honest for a second? Most organization wishlists are longer than your budget allows.
You have Sales asking for lead routing tweaks, Finance requesting quote approval changes, Service needing new case flows, Marketing needing more clarity on their downstream impact ... the list goes on.
This is why strong internal governance matters.
When companies get the most out of managed services, it's because they've appointed a clear product owner: someone who can gather input, set priorities, and serve as a single point of contact for your partner.
Otherwise, hours get eaten up by un-prioritized noise or trying to determine what's most important. (And nobody's happy when this happens.)
Managed Services Aren't Platform-Specific
Just like data, your managed services are platform-agnostic and should span connected systems. Sure, there are times when you'll need deep expertise around a specific platform, whether it's NetSuite, Salesforce Data Cloud, Dealhub, SAP, Azure, etc.
I saw this firsthand in a company where an acquisition suddenly made one platform the new company-wide standard overnight. Talk about a fast-moving quarter!
And we bring that depth, of course, but the best value comes from building integrated architecture.
Where This Applies at DoubleTrack
We make your systems work, both at the data layer and agentically. That's our Make Systems Work practice.
Keeping an eye on data foundations, how it's flowing through your business … that's one component. De-risking your AI by gating readiness vs. the four Ps, and building in strong guardrails, data stewardship, and abilities to ship rapid improvements? Absolutely.
Post-launch, user feedback of your AI leads to continuous improvement while we help with internal adoption.
You'll notice I haven't stated a platform yet, and that's intentional … doesn't matter if it's your quote-to-cash, customer service, or IT operations and who's seeing the reports, the tactical work gets done while allowing your teams to do far more than they'd otherwise manage.
Because we tackle any issue at its source: the data layer beneath it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's included in a managed services agreement? A managed services agreement features ongoing access to a cross-functional team that includes architects, developers, and consultants for a set number of hours each month. This covers day-to-day tickets and maintenance, but also proactive optimization and business-level strategy (including surfacing automations, catching problems before they escalate, and planning out priorities that support your ideal KPIs).
How many hours do most managed services engagements start with? Most engagements start at 40 hours a month and scale up based on business complexity or seasonality; for instance, if you have an upcoming M&A or need to push hard on a systems migration, you may need to double or triple for a time.
Is managed services just outsourced admin support? No. Managed services is far more than the myth that it's only break/fix admin support. Managed services is a standing partnership where the team gets to know your org well enough to flag problems you haven't noticed yet and suggest improvements you didn't ask for, on top of handling the day-to-day work.
