Playbook: CSPs

Buying Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or Azure direct feels like the simpler choice. Most IT teams have never actually tested that.

Microsoft and Google aren’t built to handle support directly. If you get locked out of your own tenant while buying direct, your recovery path runs through their support queue, 24 to 48 hours in most cases, often gated behind the same admin login you just lost.

This Playbook breaks down what a CSP actually does in that relationship: real support and escalation, help getting back into a locked tenant, engineering and migration work, and access to vendor funding you can’t reach negotiating direct, usually without adding meaningfully to what you already pay.

Find Your Situation

We’re deciding whether to renew our Microsoft or Google agreement direct or through a partner

This episode walks through what actually changes in support, access, and funding depending on which way you buy. Jump to 10:17.

We got locked out of our tenant and had no fast way back in

Here’s why that happens, and what changes when a CSP holds the right delegated permission to help. Jump to 04:17.

We assumed buying direct was the safer or cheaper choice and never actually checked

Max walks through why that assumption often doesn’t hold, and what it’s actually costing you. Jump to 00:51.

We want to know if our current CSP is actually doing anything for us

Not every CSP relationship is the same. Jump to 06:38.

The Playbook

• 00:00 The cold open: what actually happens the day your last working admin account gets locked out, and why going direct leaves you stuck in a queue you can’t even open a ticket into
• 00:51 What a CSP actually is, and why “MSP” stopped being the term everyone used once things moved to the cloud
• 01:29 Why Microsoft and Google aren’t built to handle support directly, and why CSPs exist to fill that gap
• 01:55 Where a CSP actually sits between you and the platform: licensing, billing, and support all flow through them
• 02:24 The market development and incentive funds vendors push through CSPs, and why going direct means leaving that money on the table
• 03:19 The dedicated admin account problem most companies skip, and what that sets up later
• 04:17 The real causes of a tenant lockout, automated systems, abuse, billing, password resets, phishing, and what direct support actually looks like when it happens
• 05:14 How being a sub of the CSP changes your escalation path, and why that gets you back into a locked tenant faster
• 06:11 The engineering, migration, and configuration work a CSP’s own staff can do that going direct can’t
• 06:38 Why CSPs range from pure billing pass throughs to full service providers, and why the label alone tells you nothing
• 07:03 Tier zero versus tier one support, and why most CSP end user support is really tier zero
• 08:26 The difference between support built for your end users and support built for your admins
• 09:25 Why CSPs get paid through the platform’s margin, not by marking up your price, so most of the time it costs you nothing extra
• 10:17 Max’s bottom line: why the CSP relationship is worth having almost every time

Resources Mentioned

• Microsoft 365
• Google Workspace
• Further reading: Should You Really Buy Microsoft 365 Direct, or Through a CSP?

Signed is the podcast for buyers in a market built for sellers. Playbooks are the solo format, 10 to 15 minutes, one trigger, one specific play. New episodes weekly at itbroker.com/podcast. If the trigger in today’s Playbook is one you’re facing right now, book an intro call at itbroker.com/contact. We help buyers make the right call the first time. Buy tech without regret. Follow: @itbrokerdotcom