Once you've accepted that running IT properly beats fixing it when it breaks, the next question is how much to hand over. Fully managed and co-managed aren't better and worse versions of each other — they're different splits of the same work. The trick is matching the split to your organisation.
What fully managed means
In a fully managed model, the provider runs the lot: service desk, devices, identity, cyber, cloud, networks, connectivity, backup, strategy — end to end, to an agreed standard, with one set of SLAs. You don't employ IT staff; you hold a relationship with a team that does it all and reports to you.
It suits organisations that don't have an in-house IT function, or don't want one — where the priority is that technology is somebody else's job to get right, with a single number to call and a single throat to choke when it isn't.
What co-managed means
Co-managed keeps your internal IT and adds a provider behind them. The split varies, but the usual shape is: your team owns the day-to-day and the things that need local context — the people, the floor-walking, the business knowledge — and the provider sits behind for the heavy lifting: 24/7 monitoring and security, out-of-hours cover, specialist engineering, project delivery, and the strategic layer.
It suits organisations that have IT people they value but who can't realistically cover everything — every technology, every hour, every specialism — without burning out or carrying risk in one person's head.
The honest decision factors
Which model fits comes down to a handful of practical questions:
- Do you have in-house IT — and do you want to? No internal team, and no wish to build one, points to fully managed. A capable team you want to keep points to co-managed.
- Where are the gaps? Most in-house functions are strong on the day-to-day and stretched on cyber, out-of-hours, and deep specialism. Co-managed plugs exactly those gaps without replacing what works.
- What's your coverage risk? If everything lives in one or two people's heads, holidays and resignations are a real exposure. A provider behind them turns single points of failure into shared cover.
- How much specialist depth do you need? Few in-house teams can staff network architecture, cloud, security operations and AI enablement all at once. A provider brings the bench you can't justify hiring.
- What does your team actually want? The best co-managed arrangements free your people from the thankless, repetitive work to focus on the business-facing projects they'd rather be doing. Ask them.
A rough guide
- Fully managed when: no in-house IT, or a deliberate decision not to run it yourself; you want one accountable partner for everything; technology isn't something you want to staff for.
- Co-managed when: you have IT people worth keeping; the gaps are cyber, out-of-hours, specialism or project capacity; you want to reduce key-person risk without losing local knowledge.
It isn't binary — and it flexes
The line between the two moves, and it should. Plenty of relationships start co-managed and shift toward fully managed as an internal person retires or the estate grows; others start fully managed and pull some capability back in-house as the organisation scales and hires. A good provider is comfortable on either side of the line and will tell you honestly when the split should change — rather than defending whatever arrangement bills the most.
What matters isn't the label. It's that every part of the estate has a clear owner, nothing falls down the gap between “us” and “them”, and the people accountable for each piece are the ones best placed to run it.
Not sure where your line should sit? Talk to us — we run both models, and we'll give you an honest read on which fits your team, rather than the one that suits us.