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What Is Co-Sourced IT?
Co-sourced IT (or co-managed IT as some businesses refer to it) means your internal team and a managed IT partner share the work. Your people keep what they know best, and the partner adds the depth and capacity a small team can’t build on its own. Deciding to co-source is the easy bit. The real value comes from how the partnership is set up and run. The agreements that perform best have clear ownership, one shared set of priorities and regular reviews that track how your security, systems and support are improving. Here’s how to put those in place.
Build Around Your Internal IT Team
Your internal team understands your people, processes and systems, and the context behind how they’ve developed. That knowledge is valuable and should stay in house where possible. A co-sourced partner’s role is to support your team and give them the capacity to focus on improving how the business uses technology.
Co-Sourced IT or a Single Managed Function?
IT support is usually split into three levels. First line handles everyday user requests, second line deals with issues that need more technical knowledge, and third line covers specialist infrastructure, security and complex problems.
In a true co-sourced agreement, the partner works alongside your team across all of these, as well as security, infrastructure and projects. Your internal IT lead stays in charge. They own the IT decisions, hold the partner to account on performance and can still pick up tickets themselves where it makes sense. The partner provides the baseline security, tools and specialist depth that sit behind it all.
If you only need help in one area, such as first line support for your users, that’s usually better set up as a single managed function, like End User Computing. The scope is narrower and clearly defined, which suits teams that want to keep everything else in house.
Neither is fixed. Many businesses start with one function and move to a co-sourced agreement as their team and priorities change.
Start With a Clear Baseline
You can’t improve what you haven’t measured, so start by looking at where things stand today: what your team handles, where they’re stretched and where your technology needs attention. Common gaps include security monitoring, cloud projects and infrastructure work. An IT Health Check, ticket history and a list of stalled projects make a good starting point. Build the agreement around those gaps, not a generic list of services.
Be Clear on Who Owns What
Clear ownership is one of the biggest factors in performance. When responsibilities are defined, tickets move faster, alerts are picked up and both teams know what’s expected of them. Alongside support levels, agree who owns areas like security monitoring, Microsoft 365 and Azure, starters and leavers, and projects, and which are shared, such as the technology roadmap, change approval, documentation and major incidents.
Work From One Set of Priorities
Your partner should work as an extension of your team, with shared goals and a joint way of working. That comes down to a few basics:
- Named contacts: an internal lead, and a Technical Account Manager on the partner side who’s a qualified engineer, not just a sales person.
- One technology roadmap agreed together and reviewed regularly.
- Shared tools and access, so each side can see what the other is working on.
Measure What Matters and Review It Together
Agree a handful of measures at the start and go through them together at regular business reviews:
- Response and resolution times, especially on escalations.
- Security posture and how quickly vulnerabilities are patched.
- Progress against the agreed technology roadmap.
- How much of your internal team’s time is spent on projects and improvements.
Reviewing these regularly shows where the agreement is working well and where the scope or split of responsibilities should be adjusted.
Co-Sourced IT in Practice: The Pension Solutions Group
- End users supported: 15+
- Partnership: 5+ years
- Sector: Financial Services
The Pension Solutions Group kept their internal IT capability and brought us in alongside it. Over four years we’ve helped them move from legacy on premise systems to the cloud, and through a merger and demerger, with their own team involved the whole way. Here’s what they said about working with us on a co-sourced agreement:
‘bzb are our IT supplier and run the day-to-day operations to perfection. We approached them about managing a complex technological change whilst we acquired another business. They were experts in the room from day 1, taking time to understand how our merger would best utilise technology. This deeper level understanding of IT was exactly what we needed and gives us the confidence to do this again in the future.’
Co-Sourced IT: Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between co-sourced and outsourced IT?
With outsourced IT, a provider becomes your IT department. With co-sourced IT, your team stays in place and a partner adds specialist skills and extra capacity where you need it.
Is co-sourced IT suitable for small businesses?
Yes. It works well for SMEs with a small IT team, or a single IT manager, who need more technical depth and capacity.
Will co-sourcing replace our internal IT team?
No. A good partner works alongside your team. You keep control of what you want to manage, and they pick up the rest.
Why Choose bzb IT for Co-Sourced IT in Bath, Bristol & Beyond
We believe internal IT teams are invaluable, and our co-sourced service is built around them. You bring the business knowledge. We bring the technical depth, tools and capacity, working alongside your team across support, security and infrastructure, plus project services, vendor and licence management, and regular performance reporting and reviews. Everything is delivered by our own in house engineers in Bath and Bristol, and every client gets a dedicated Technical Account Manager who’s a qualified engineer.
We’re a Microsoft Solutions Partner across Security, Modern Work, Infrastructure, and Data & AI, and an NCSC Assured Service Provider for Cyber Essentials, operating to Cyber Essentials compliance as standard. You retain control over the elements you want to manage internally, while we take care of the rest.
How to Get Started with Co-Sourced IT
Want to get more from your technology? The best first step is a chat about how your team works today. That could be an informal conversation, a deeper look at your setup or a technical assessment focused on risk and security. Either way, we’ll start with what your team already does well and where the gaps are.
If that sounds useful, drop us a line at hello@bzbit.co.uk for a friendly, no obligation chat or use our handy pop out menu by clicking here.
Keep your IT team. Add the depth behind it.
Co-sourced IT from bzb gives your internal team extra capacity and specialist skills across support, security, infrastructure and projects. Your IT lead stays in charge, and our in-house engineers in Bath and Bristol work alongside them, with a dedicated Technical Account Manager who’s a qualified engineer.
