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Managed services are a way to offload general tasks to an expert, in order to reduce costs, improve service quality, or free internal teams to do work that's specific to your business. A company that provides these services is called a managed service provider (MSP).

Managed services is the practice of outsourcing the responsibility for maintaining, and anticipating need for, a range of processes and functions, ostensibly for the purpose of improved operations and reduced budgetary expenditures through the reduction of directly-employed staff.

Managed services are on-going and typically work off of a contract. They can cover many aspects of an organization's IT needs on a daily basis. Professional services are project-based and usually address a specific problem or challenge.

With outsourcing, you pick specific services and ask an external company to help address specific business needs. Managed services, on the other hand, take a much more holistic approach to providing excellence in technology services.4

Key players in the managed services market include Accenture, Fujitsu, IBM, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Lenovo, DXC, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development, according to Grand View Research.

Why does a business need managed IT services? Businesses need managed service providers because they negate risks. Instead of outsourcing IT when a problem occurs, managed services allows consistent monitoring of a network. Also, all updating and maintenance tasks are handled by a managed service provider.

A managed service provider (MSP) is a third-party company that remotely manages a customer's information technology (IT) infrastructure and end-user systems. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), nonprofits and government agencies hire MSPs to perform a defined set of day-to-day management services.