Summary
Choosing the right Azure Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) is a pivotal decision for any business leveraging Microsoft Azure.
Maybe you’re currently purchasing Azure directly from Microsoft or through another CSP and you’re still some way from having the fully optimised Azure environment that you were after.
Are you still looking to make substantial cost savings, get streamlined support and tailored managed IT services?
If you’ve answered yes to any of the above, switching to an Azure CSP that is also a Managed Service Provider (MSP) could be the right decision for you.
Organisations from a wide range of sectors choose Intersys for our deep Azure expertise, combined with practical, responsive managed support.
Our customers value our customised assessments and recommendations that are hard to find with the big vendors and resellers who don’t understand the challenges faced by SMEs. We help SMEs optimise spend, accelerate issue resolution, and future-proof their cloud strategy.
This guide explores what to look for in an Azure CSP, key questions to ask, and why Intersys offers unmatched value for businesses ready to make the switch.
Introduction: Why Switch Your Azure CSP?
Many businesses start their Azure journey by buying directly from Microsoft or through a CSP focused solely on licensing. However, as cloud environments grow in complexity, organisations often encounter challenges:
- Slow, product-only, break-fix support: Direct support is typically limited to break-fix issues, with long turnaround times and little practical guidance for broader IT challenges. Intersys can offer practical support that goes beyond the limited, product-based, break-fix model from a software vendor. As your initial request-handlers, we can quickly diagnose issues and provide deep insights as a first port of call. When we do need to raise a ticket with Microsoft, we have experience in getting better outcomes compared to other resellers. And if you have a managed services contract with us, our competitive SLAs mean that issues are resolved in hours rather than weeks.
- Limited value from traditional CSPs: Many CSPs focus on reselling licenses, not on optimising environments. Intersys can offer consultancy based on your organisation’s specific needs, such as migration, monitoring, embedded governance, SOC and general systems support for deployed services.
- Missed opportunities for cost savings: All our Azure services are underpinned by our FinOps operational framework, where we help our customers track, analyse and optimise their Azure spending. Without proactive management, businesses may overspend on idle or overprovisioned resources. And if you’re still paying the highest ‘list price’ for services, you could be missing out on volume discounts or bundle deals that a CSP like Intersys can offer.
What to Look for in an Azure CSP
Selecting the right Azure CSP is about more than price — it’s about partnership, expertise, and ongoing value. Here’s what you should prioritise:
1. Solutions Partner Designations and other accreditations
Look for CSPs with official Microsoft Solutions Partner designations, such as Data and AI (Azure) and Infrastructure (Azure). These credentials demonstrate advanced capabilities in managing data, engineering analytics, AI solutions and migrating critical workloads. Intersys holds both, ensuring clients benefit from our engineers’ up-to-date skills and proven expertise. We are also an ISO 270001 and Cyber Essentials certified MSP, and are on the CREST Accreditation Pathway. These world-class accreditations demonstrate that all our services are underpinned by a strong framework of data governance and cyber security.
2. Track Record of Successful Azure Projects
Ask for case studies and references from your CSP. Intersys has delivered Azure solutions across a wide range of client verticals. For example, our infrastructure-as-a-service deployment for this fintech client showcases our ability to follow best practices in Azure deployments and security infrastructure for a highly regulated sector governed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). We have also successfully completed several Azure Infrastructure-as-a-Service projects for clients in the pharmaceutical industry, construction management and insurance risk intelligence.
3. Support Model
Microsoft Partners, such as Intersys, manage your full customer lifecycle. We are your single point of contact for any issues with technical support, billing and sales. Our expert staff have in-depth experience in the Azure environment and all its products. This allows us to not only support your organisation but also optimise it for performance and cost. We can work on a reactive, time-and-materials model, or a proactive, unlimited-support model where we monitor the service and fix things before you even notice the problem.
4. Depth and Practicality of Support
A great CSP goes beyond break-fix support. Intersys offers specialised, practical assistance, leveraging deep Azure experience to provide insights that many vendors can’t match. For those customers who have an MSP contract with us, we offer competitive SLAs which offer P1 response times of 1 hour and P4 response times of 16 hours.
Says Yacer Sellam, Intersys’ Head of Infrastructure,
“As your initial request handler in the Azure environment, we can offer deep insights into your issues prior to escalation. For example, if a customer has an issue with deploying an SKU for a VM in Azure, we can not only offer insights into why it may be happening but also raise a case with Microsoft on your behalf with further information. We recently helped a client resolve a Bicep deployment issue during onboarding. We diagnosed and resolved the issue far quicker than the client’s previous reseller. By steering the conversation towards a quick resolution, we were able to save our client weeks of protracted support discussions.”
5. Value-Added Services
Look for CSPs that offer more than licensing — such as cost monitoring, Security Operations Center (SOC) services, and consultancy. Within the Azure environment, we offer our customers a free platform where we monitor their deployments, ensuring they are rightly sized, not running idle or consuming cost and are reserved correctly for optimal cost spending.
We can also provide additional consultancy for Azure and general systems support for deployed services. For instance, we have shown some clients how they can benefit from SaaS in Azure, specifically by using App Service Plans. App Service Plans can scale out with multiple instances for high availability and resource distribution and these have been particularly useful for some of our clients.
Intersys also offers a wide range of additional services that include managed IT support, IT consulting services, cyber security (SOC and CSaaS) and general IT solutions such as network support, Microsoft support and emergency IT support.
To sum up, Intersys can help with every aspect of a client’s infrastructure strategy by providing the kind of customised assessment and recommendations that are hard to find with large vendors or resellers who struggle to understand the SME market.
6. Industry Alignment and Understanding
Your CSP should understand your sector’s unique needs. Intersys has deep experience working with a wide range of organisations from the education and charity sectors to highly regulated industries such as insurance, finance, and life sciences. As an MSP that continuously services clients with varying needs, we have in-depth experience across a broad range of technologies and requirements and are able to understand and advise customers based on their precise needs.
7. Transparent Billing and Flexible Payment Terms
Direct bill customers often face rigid monthly payments. Intersys offers 30-day payment terms and invoice-based billing, making cash flow management smoother. Our customers get just one, combined monthly or annual invoice for all their Azure cloud services and any additional services delivered. Our knowledgeable team can also demystify complex Azure invoices, ensuring you know exactly what you are paying for.
Finance teams appreciate being saved the hassle of working through complicated Azure invoices with scores of line items.
8. Contract Terms and SLAs
Review the CSP’s service level agreements (SLAs) for clarity on response times and support scope. We publish transparent SLAs and consistently deliver on those promises. While we match Microsoft’s retail price on all our Azure services, we also offer additional value in terms of add on services and cost optimisation.
9. Cost Optimisation and Proof of Savings
Ask for real-world examples of cost savings, including your provider’s commitment to our FinOps framework. We encourage close collaboration between operations, finance and technical teams, which in turn leads to the creation of policies and practices that simplify cost optimisation. Intersys regularly reviews client environments to remove idle resources, right-size deployments, and recommend upgrades only where needed. Our cost analysis has delivered thousands of pounds in monthly savings for clients. Some clients have saved over £10,000 per month on their Azure bills by switching to Intersys.
Key Questions to Ask Your Azure CSP
- What Solutions Partner designations do you hold?
- Can you share case studies of successful Azure projects?
- What is your pricing structure and what hidden costs, additional fees or penalties do I need to be aware of?
- What tools do you offer to help monitor and optimise Azure spending?
- Do you have experience supporting hybrid cloud environments and integrating Azure with existing on-premises systems?
- What kind of support do you offer beyond product issues?
- What is your process for support escalation with Microsoft and what outcomes do you typically get?
- What value-added services are available?
- What data and cyber security certifications do you hold?
- How do you align with my industry’s needs?
- How can your services scale to meet our projected growth and need for emerging technologies such as AI and Azure Boost?
- Are your billing terms flexible and transparent?
- What are your contract terms and SLAs?
- Do you offer managed IT services alongside CSP?
A CSP is a certified Microsoft partner that sells and manages Azure services, providing billing, support, and value-added services. Unlike direct Microsoft billing, a CSP offers practical support, flexible payment terms, and can optimise your environment for cost and efficiency.
A CSP-MSP like Intersys combines licensing expertise with award-winning managed IT support, delivering faster issue resolution, proactive cost optimisation, and strategic guidance for your entire IT environment. Choosing an MSP like Intersys with ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials certifications ensures that every aspect of your managed service is underpinned by an industry-leading framework of data and cyber security.
We adhere to our FinOps framework and believe in a company-wide culture of driving business value from the cloud. Intersys reviews your environment to remove idle resources, right-size deployments, remove overprovisioned resources and recommend upgrades only when needed. We can also encourage a wider review of your existing resources to ensure they match your organisation’s actual needs. Our clients have saved several thousand per month and annually through these optimisations.
As a CSP customer, you’ll first receive email assistance for CSP products registered with us. Our support is practical, not just product-based and we also provide rapid diagnosis, and escalation to Microsoft when necessary. If you also have an MSP contract with us, your support will be underpinned by our clearly stated SLAs. Intersys also provides managed IT services, consultancy, and security monitoring.
Yes, with the Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) model, our customers only pay for what they actually use each month, so there are no fixed contracts or upfront costs. Customers can choose to raise or lower their consumption based on their workloads.
Other customers choose to buy Azure Reserved Instances or Savings Plans for fixed workloads. There are significant discounts available here compared to PAYG and billing is either upfront as a one-time payment or with monthly instalments.
We offer 30-day payment terms, transparent invoicing, and don’t require a minimum purchase making financial management straightforward.
Customers can increase or decrease license or Azure usage at any time with costs pro-rated for the rest of the billing period. Customers can also decrease licenses and cancel services each month without added costs.
Absolutely. We have deep experience in finance, insurance, pharmaceuticals, and other regulated sectors, ensuring compliance and security with the UK’s key regulators such as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to name a few.
Contact us for a discovery call. We’ll assess your current environment, outline the migration process, and demonstrate how you can save money and improve support.
Conclusion
Choosing the right Azure CSP is about more than just licensing — it’s about finding a partner who can understand your organisation’s specific needs, optimise your costs, deliver practical support and help your business thrive in the cloud.
Intersys combines Azure expertise with managed IT services, delivering significant cost and efficiency benefits for organisations ready to make the switch. If you’re looking to move from direct Microsoft billing or another CSP, we can offer the strategic partnership your business needs.
Ready to optimise your Azure environment and unlock real savings?
Contact us today for a discovery call and see how much you could save.