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Your new hire in Toronto signs and clears background checks, but… waits. Because the laptop is stuck somewhere between a U.S. warehouse, CBSA paperwork, and a carrier you don’t control.
The MSP dashboard is green. Tickets are closed. Nobody actually knows where the hardware is.
Meanwhile, Canada’s managed services market is racing ahead: estimates put it near $19-20 billion today, with revenue projected to more than double by 2030. That spend covers cloud, monitoring, security, and support. But not the layer that decides whether people can work on Day 1: procurement, shipping, customs, retrieval, and IT asset disposition.
That’s where platforms like Firstbase fit. It doesn’t replace your MSP; it gives them a lifecycle logistics layer built for remote, cross-border Canadian teams, from first shipment to certified ITAD.
In this guide, we’ll give you a simple five-factor rubric for comparing Canadian MSPs, walk through six major providers, and show exactly where MSP coverage stops and where Firstbase extends it.
Teams using Firstbase report $100,000 saved in annual shipping costs and more than 5,000 labour hours returned to IT. Take a self-guided tour to see how these gains show up in your own device workflows.
If you’ve looked at any Managed Service Provider in Canada, their sites read the same: 24/7 support, cloud expertise, security layers, and proactive monitoring. Useful, but not enough for teams hiring across provinces or moving hardware across the U.S.-Canada border. But where does an MSP’s responsibility end, and who handles the physical work that actually gets laptops into people’s hands and back again?
To keep this guide honest, we’re using five factors any buyer can validate:
With those five factors, we’ll walk through six well-known providers that are active in Canada and look at what they actually offer across cloud, workplace, and support.
Softchoice is a Toronto-headquartered IT solutions and managed services provider with offices across major Canadian cities and multiple U.S. hubs. It focuses on cloud migration, the modern workplace, managed services, and IT asset management for mid-market and enterprise customers.
Its Workplace Lifecycle and Cloud Lifecycle services help customers manage Microsoft 365, Teams, and Azure usage, costs, and governance, while its SAM+ portfolio and SAM+ Hub centralize subscription licensing data for cost and compliance decisions.
Softchoice’s lifecycle focus is mainly on software, licenses, and asset data. You won’t find information on running warehousing, customs management, or per-employee device retrieval workflows across borders. And these are the areas where Firstbase specializes in a 30-day turnaround.
Softchoice is a large IT solutions and managed services provider in North America, with 14+ locations across Canada and the U.S., and partnerships with AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud to support multi-region deployments.
They offer hardware and software asset management and advisory around lifecycle planning, but not a dedicated device logistics network with bonded warehouses, address confirmation, pre-paid duty handling, and managed retrieval/ITAD.
It’s a good choice for Canadian organizations that want a Microsoft-heavy, cloud-focused MSP with solid SAM. Still needs a specialist like Firstbase to cover device logistics and retrieval in detail.
Long View Systems positions itself as a modern MSP built around employee experience rather than device counts or ticket volumes.
Their approach (Design, Activate, Manage, and Optimize) is built to understand each business unit, deploy the right tools, train users, and continually measure the impact of those tools through telemetry and adoption data.
They also offer a wide range of managed workplace, data, Dynamics, ServiceNow, network, cybersecurity, procurement, and cloud services.
Users note that reporting inside Long View’s engagement tools can feel limited, making it harder to spot trends or plan improvements. Their website also speaks only to digital support, collaboration, and IT operations, not the physical movement of devices, retrieval after exits, or hardware disposition.
Their service desk and support operations run across North America with 24×7×365 availability through multiple contact centers.
Their offerings focus on digital experience, collaboration, support, cloud, and security. Hardware movement, storage, retrieval, and other physical lifecycle steps aren’t addressed.
Ideal for teams that want stronger employee experience and modern workplace support. Not suitable as the sole partner for hardware logistics or retrieval workflows.
CGI supports credit unions and financial institutions that need predictable, compliant IT operations without building a large internal team. Their managed services cover the core pieces of daily banking technology: server upkeep, endpoint care, network stability, secure VPN access, cloud backup, and Office 365 management.
The value they emphasize is stability through consistent patching, hardened security settings, reliable backups, and a service desk that can support branch staff and remote workers.
They also guide clients through regular planning cycles so each credit union can adjust its environment as regulations, workloads, or member expectations shift.
Users point out that it's difficult to spot trends because the reporting detail isn’t strong enough. Their offerings focus on digital operations, backups, and security, but do not address hardware retrieval, cross-border shipping, warehousing, or disposition.
CGI has a large footprint with 90,000 employees across 40 countries, giving it a broad service reach for clients in financial services.
Their services support the software and infrastructure side of endpoints but stop short of managing physical devices. There’s no mention of shipping, retrieval, storage, or certified ITAD workflows.
It’s ideal for credit unions seeking strong security, backups, and Microsoft tenant management. Not built to handle the hardware lifecycle for distributed teams.
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Microserve has been supporting organizations across Western Canada for more than 35 years with managed IT services, procurement, and lifecycle management.
They combine specialized teams in cybersecurity, cloud, networking, and Apple device management with 24/7 alerting and a service desk that handles incidents through an enterprise ticketing system.
Alongside managed services, Microserve also operates a large procurement and logistics arm that helps businesses plan purchases, track warranties, manage standards, and keep hardware refreshed on schedule.
In-person engagement is difficult because their team isn’t local, resulting in a fully remote implementation. They claim strong IT support and procurement workflows, but don’t cover the deeper cross-border device retrieval and return logistics.
Microserve is headquartered in Burnaby with offices in Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton, and Halifax, serving clients across British Columbia, Alberta, and Atlantic Canada.
They manage procurement, shipping, replacements, and disposal at scale, but they do not outline a full retrieval workflow for distributed employees or cross-border device movements.
A solid choice for Western Canada organizations needing reliable managed services and procurement support.
CDW Canada delivers managed services built for organizations that run mixed cloud and on-prem environments and need consistent performance, security, and support. Their teams handle monitoring, incident response, governance, and cloud optimization through Canadian-based operations centres.
They pair this with managed security services, disaster recovery, hybrid-cloud support, and compliance guidance. CDW also brings strong consulting depth, helping customers design, orchestrate, and manage technology solutions with certified architects and engineers.
Users call out long hardware lead times, shifting vendor relationships that create confusion, and training costs that add up over time. Their services cover the digital and security layers well, but they do not outline cross-border shipping, remote-employee retrieval workflows, or ITAD processes.
CDW supports customers in more than 170 countries and maintains Canadian-based SOC and NOC operations for national service delivery.
Beyond day-to-day operations, they offer endpoint lifecycle support for planning, procurement, configuration, deployment, and device retirement. But they do not detail employee-level retrieval or duty handling for distributed teams.
A strong pick for cloud, security, and hybrid environments. Less suited for organizations that need device retrieval and shipping managed across Canada and beyond.
Compugen positions itself as a partner that helps organizations strengthen their IT foundations while reducing the day-to-day load on internal teams. Their services span help desk coverage, migrations, asset management, network monitoring, collaboration tools, mobility, security, and device management.
Their process (Assess, Optimize, Manage) keeps engagements structured, while their service desk and managed offerings aim to keep environments stable, secure, and aligned with long-term goals.
Hardware delivery timelines and vendor changes are unclear. Their services cover device support and management, but don’t describe structured retrieval, return logistics, or offboarding workflows.
Compugen has a Canadian head office in Richmond Hill and additional locations across Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, and a U.S. office in Houston.
Their Integrated Device Lifecycle Services handle procurement, deployment, support, and repurposing for Windows devices, but they do not outline cross-region retrieval processes or offboarding practices for remote teams.
A good fit for organizations wanting strong support coverage, migrations, and device management. Needs a dedicated logistics partner if hardware must move predictably across regions or return from remote workers.
When companies pick a managed‑service provider (MSP), they often zero in on a per‑device fee. But the actual cost of running a distributed workforce shipping laptops, retrieving them, replacing worn gear, and ensuring compliance never shows in the MSP’s invoice.
None of these costs is a failure of the MSP model. They’re simply not part of what MSPs are hired to do. Their job is uptime and support. It’s not procurement, warehousing, shipping, retrieval, or ITAD. For distributed teams, this gap becomes a major source of budget drift, operational delays, and security blind spots.
Teams that want predictable spending usually add a lifecycle-management partner to handle the physical side.
Firstbase runs a Discovery-to-Doorstep logistics workflow that covers everything MSPs don’t: procurement, configuration, zero-touch deployment, retrieval, certified ITAD, bonded warehousing, and pre-paid duty handling.
This works across 150+ Canadian and cross-border lanes, giving teams a single operational path instead of juggling couriers, customs steps, or provincial disposal rules. And because it’s all delivered through per-seat pricing, Finance teams get predictable duty and freight costs instead of surprise add-ons.
HR sees the impact first. Devices ship ready for Day 1, backed by a consistent 48-hour delivery and pickup SLA in major global routes. Retrievals don’t drag on, either. Firstbase maintains a 97% retrieval success rate with certified ITAD follow-through. Companies using the platform report a +12 lift in onboarding NPS, largely because hardware is no longer the challenge.
For MSP partners, nothing changes operationally. They continue owning uptime, SLAs, and support. Firstbase simply closes the logistics loop.
“Now that I only have one procurement specialist who's managing all of our equipment across the globe, which is around 4000 laptops, it's very difficult for us to maintain the same level of success without having a managed partner like Firstbase and its self-service portal helping us run that operation.”
— Thomas Olsen, Manager, IT Program Management, New Relic
Week 1: Import your data
IT exports the CMDB and active user list. Firstbase cleans records, flags missing or duplicate endpoints, and establishes baselines for procurement, retrieval, and ITAD workflows. HR and Finance confirm work locations, cost centres, and any role-based hardware rules.
Week 2: Configure logistics
Shipping lanes, warehouse coverage, duty handling, and carrier preferences are mapped. Procurement models (buy, lease, or BYOD) are aligned with setup templates so every shipment stays compliant and cost-predictable. Duty rules and import steps are set for Canada and cross-border moves.
Week 3: Run a single-country pilot
A small group of new hires or replacements goes through the full process: device prep, kitting, and 48-hour delivery. IT validates the configuration, HR checks Day-1 readiness, and Finance reviews the spend breakdown to confirm predictable per-seat economics.
Week 4: Enable automated retrievals
Offboarding workflows go live with scheduled pickups, a 97% retrieval success, certified ITAD, and real-time asset reporting. Finance sees clear per-seat spend; IT gets accurate lifecycle data, and HR sees smoother transitions.
By Day 30, Firstbase is running as your logistics and lifecycle layer beside the MSP, without requiring tooling changes or new headcount.
Canada’s MSP market is strong, but even the best partners leave a hardware gap that slows hiring, strains budgets, and complicates compliance. Adding Firstbase gives IT, HR, and Finance a predictable, logistics-ready layer that keeps every device accounted for and every workflow moving.
Customers see 1.8x better asset tracking and 1.6x stronger retrieval performance, all without changing their MSP stack. If you want a clearer, faster, and fully accountable device lifecycle, book a 30-minute demo and see how Firstbase fits into your existing MSP contract.
