Managed IT · Logistics & transportation
This logistics provider ran a national footprint with no consistent IT or security ownership — connectivity failures stopped operations, and security tooling was absent or unwatched. intSignal took the whole operational stack: one senior-led team accountable for connectivity, security and support across every site.
The problem
Distributed sites with no consistent IT or security ownership.
What we did
Full and complete IT support with national coverage.
The outcome
Staffing this scope in-house means hiring the whole shape of a team, not a headcount: service desk, a network engineer for SD-WAN and NaaS across the footprint, a security analyst for SIEM/XDR/EDR, Microsoft 365 and identity administration, and someone accountable for security.
The challenge
Distributed sites with no consistent IT or security ownership. Connectivity failures directly stopping operations. Security tooling absent or unmonitored. Support quality varying by location and vendor.
Indexed to building the equivalent team in-house = 100. Figures here are modelled from the engagement's service scope rather than reconstructed from measured ticket data.
The thinking
Building this capability in-house would have meant hiring the whole shape of a team — service desk, network, security, a fractional CISO — and waiting months to fill each seat. We delivered it as one senior-led engagement instead, on day one, because a distributed operation can't afford to be exposed while it recruits. NaaS and SD-WAN over owned hardware kept it resilient and cheap; one provider over many kept it accountable.
The approach
Full and complete IT support with national coverage. NaaS, SD-WAN, and FWaaS. SIEM, XDR, EDR, Microsoft 365, password manager, dark-web monitoring. UCaaS and compliance support.
Why it works
The bigger lesson underneath the numbers is about accountability. Spread the same scope across a dozen small vendors — one for the firewall, one for email, one for the phones, one for each site — and every incident becomes a conference call where nobody is responsible and everybody points sideways. Consolidating to one provider ends that: a single team owns the outcome, a single number gets called, and the systems are unified rather than bolted together at the seams. It also changes the incentives. A large managed engagement is a serious relationship for the provider — real revenue, real stakes — so the provider has every reason to keep it healthy, where a small vendor with a small contract simply doesn't. You stop being one of a hundred accounts spread thin and become the account that matters.
Built to hold up
A four-person in-house team covers business hours in one time zone — freight doesn't. Outsourcing buys the after-hours coverage that headcount can't. Every specialist role at this size is a single point of failure; when the one network engineer leaves, the whole footprint loses its owner. SD-WAN failover keeps sites operating through circuit loss, with FWaaS and standardized security at every location. SIEM, XDR and EDR for detection; dark-web monitoring for exposed credentials; password manager to end reuse and sharing.
Outcome
Every site now runs on resilient SD-WAN with failover, standardised FWaaS, and SIEM/XDR/EDR detection, under one national contract instead of a vendor per city. The scope maps to more than four specialist roles the provider would otherwise carry — delivered on day one rather than after months of hiring, at well below the cost of building it internally.
That models to roughly 4.2 FTE — about $610k/year fully loaded once single-tenant tooling, recruiting and turnover are counted. Outsourcing to a senior-led team lands roughly 60% below that, and starts on day one instead of after three to six months of hiring per role. NaaS removed per-site network capex and refresh cycles; SD-WAN replaced expensive circuits with resilient managed broadband. One national contract replaced fragmented regional vendors, and bundled security tooling cost less than assembling it separately.
How these figures were derived
Effort and outcomes are reconstructed from production systems of record — ticket histories, call detail records, dispatch and SOC/NOC telemetry — read end to end rather than sampled. Cost comparisons are indexed to a baseline, never a fee or rate. Where a figure is modelled rather than measured it is labelled as such, and the model is documented and available to defend on request.
Customer
Shown on request. Some engagements remain confidential by contract.
Logistics & transportation
In third-party logistics, the network is the warehouse. When connectivity drops, product stops moving — so it can't drop.
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