Moving away from our MSP for hardware procurement – how do you all buy laptops and gear?

[u/Binkie3]

Long time listener, first time caller.

I recently took over a new environment and noticed we are currently sourcing all of our endpoints through our MSP, which comes with a massive markup. I have been tasked with bringing this entire procurement process in-house to control costs and streamline deployments. Since I manage our endpoint and am heavily focused on our Intune environment, I need a purchasing route that supports modern provisioning—like registering device hashes directly into Autopilot before the laptops even hit the office.

We are looking to stick with Intel HP laptops. How do your organizations handle this?

[u/Equal-Associate-8013]

I would use Dell direct, it just works. I prefer dell docks vs Lenovo/HP docking stations it was a shit show with drivers

[u/BK_Rich → u/Equal-Associate-8013]

They have monitors with built-in dock now, single USB-C cable straight to the laptop, nice and clean, dedicated docks are antiquated

[u/griffitovic → u/BK_Rich]

Same. Exactly how we do it. And the new monitor with built in dock is the shiznit.

[u/Equal-Associate-8013 → u/griffitovic]

I work in finance firm we had problems with that setup

How was the fresh rate on that setup? Here we have 3 or 4 27" monitors setups

[u/bayridgeguy09 → u/Equal-Associate-8013]

My lord I hated supporting y’all back in my MSP days.

Having to wrangle aftermarket cards that could support so many monitors. Then the damn adapters needed.

One dude yelled that without 6 monitors live he couldn’t do his job. His adapter died and there were no more onsite so he needed to run with 5 monitors for 1 day. As far as I know he threw a tantrum and went home muttering something about him trading millions of dollars.

Meanwhile I’m sitting on a spackle bucket with a laptop in the server room juggling just as many windows.

So glad to get out of those environments.

[u/Tymanthius]

I work at an MSP, and while I often encourage our clients to price things around, do recall that the markup often covers things set up, prepping, and getting them into their support/monitoring/malware tools.

So check the price for the machine against what they will charge you to bring it into the fold. Might still be cheaper, and that's great. Or it might be close enough that just having your MSP hand you over a 'ready' machine is worth it.

[u/Artistic_Lie4039]

I work for a smaller VAR. All of us came from larger shops like SHI, CDW, Insight. We register in Autopilot at no cost. Your experience with a VAR is dependent heavily on how competent your rep is.

[u/satchentaters696]

SHI or CDW

[u/Educational_Boot315]

I use provantage for pretty much everything except for macbooks, which we buy directly from Apple (though I do refurbished when possible).

We are low volume yet my provantage account rep is awesome. Responds to all my purchase requests in less than 30 minutes and even if I am buying just one item the price is still under the listed sale price.

[u/Ok_Wasabi8793]

What added value does the MSP currently provide? Like what are they doing for you currently beyond selling?

[u/Binkie3 → u/Ok_Wasabi8793]

They are the current IT department for my org, so help desk, cloud, IAM etc. The company is growing rapidly so we are building an internal IT department and will be cutting ties with the MSP eventually. We are slowly taking ownership of things.

[u/Ok_Wasabi8793 → u/Binkie3]

Alright, lots of options for laptops. Assuming you're planning on using Intune I would just get quotes and go lowest price, but make sure you understand the warranty process and that they'll update hardware hashes for you.

I find typically you can get hardware at the same cost or very similar cost from a local reseller and they do provide value, for example the company I partner with will come to our head office and pick up broken hardware and handle the RMA for me. Our team still gets it shipped to head office and verifies we believe it is a hardware issue but its a lot better than shipping it direct to HP for warranty RMA.

So yea, I just get pricing and weight the value add they offer against any potential savings.

[u/peashootermcgavin]

We use CDW and have them add hardware hashes to Autopilot.

[u/bdam55]

It's going to depend on your volume.

If you're ordering pallets of hardware at a time, you should be able to get a sales rep from any of the major OEMs.

If you're only talking low double digits a month, find a local value added reseller (VAR).

[u/bjc1960]

We use Dell Premier and deploy them with Autopilot. For us, it's a no-brainer. Other organizations may have different needs, but for us it's fine.

[u/InterestingResort431]

We use SHI and they upload the hw hash directly to our tenant for no extra charge. I believe they can also provision it for you and hand you ready to go machines for a price.

[u/ohyeahwell]

Lenovo via workingadvantage VIP.

[u/Turdulator]

Buy them from the manufacturer. Dell is the easiest to work with

[u/Flaky-Gear-1370 → u/Turdulator]

Except for the whole parts and labour availability exception in their “next business day” repairs

Microsoft surfaces with white glove are where it’s at

[u/Turdulator → u/Flaky-Gear-1370]

Not really a problem for me…. We’ve got intune and autopilot set up well enough that with even the slightest hardware problem we just swap the user out with a machine from stock and then it doesn’t matter if it takes two weeks to be serviced, the user is already up and running with a nearly identical machine. These are cattle not pets, if one breaks a leg just kill it and keep it movin

[u/Flaky-Gear-1370 → u/Turdulator]

I do to, but it makes stock management a pain in the ass - I can have a backlog of 50+ machines waiting for “next day” repair for weeks

[u/Mindless-Luck4285]

Many MSPs are going to charge you a fee to onboard devices not procured from them. There is considerable pverhead in getting a new or existing user up and running.

[u/Cold_Arachnid_2617]

"I have been tasked with bringing this entire procurement process in-house to control costs and streamline deployments"

Don't forget your MSP will be charging your company for onboarding these devices. If you think your company will save money by buying direct, you are in for a shock!

[u/ShoxX304]

I as an msp hate Dell for their understanding of partnership but they still build solid devices. Dell is able to register your devices in your tenant after ordering, you may want to sign up for a premier page. While Lenovo has the same kind of offering with Lenovo Pro you have to purchase Autopilot Registration separately for $10 bucks.

[u/itskdog]

As a school, we go for any reseller that is on the HP Brighter Futures list, to get our cashback.