Which providers offer co-managed IT alongside an in-house team?
Co-Managed IT Alongside an In-House Team: What The Shortlist Report Finds
3 firms lead, appearing in 21.2–25.3% of 269 AI responses. The sample cannot separate them, so we do not pretend it can.
Three firms lead
NetSys, Securafy and Hi-Tek Data come up most often here. They are close enough together that the order between them is not worth reading anything into.
NetSys68 of 269
Provides co-managed IT support including engineering capacity, 24/7 monitoring, security operations, and infrastructure while internal teams retain control.
Securafy59 of 269
Provides co-managed security operations, 24/7 SOC, compliance support, and after-hours help desk for organizations with internal IT teams.
Hi-Tek Data57 of 269
Provides managed IT with same-day onsite support in tri-state area and 48 states, serving SMB/mid-market and PE-backed companies.
Based on 269 ChatGPT responses to this question, collected August 8, 2026–October 1, 2026. Firms are counted once per response. How we measure.
The ranking
| Firm | Responses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 3 firms, 21.2–25.3% | |||
| NetSysnetsysgroup.comProvides co-managed IT support including engineering capacity, 24/7 monitoring, security operations, and infrastructure while internal teams retain control. | 68 of 269 | 25.3% | |
| Securafysecurafy.comProvides co-managed security operations, 24/7 SOC, compliance support, and after-hours help desk for organizations with internal IT teams. | 59 of 269 | 21.9% | |
| Hi-Tek Datahitekdata.comProvides managed IT with same-day onsite support in tri-state area and 48 states, serving SMB/mid-market and PE-backed companies. | 57 of 269 | 21.2% | |
| Tier 2 5 firms, 13.8–19.0% | |||
| Exigentexigent.comOffers IT staff augmentation, specialized expertise, project support, and after-hours assistance to supplement internal teams. | 51 of 269 | 19.0% | |
| On-Site Technologyon-sitetechnology.comOffers managed IT, cybersecurity, Microsoft 365, cloud, and onsite engineering for 10–500 user organizations in NJ, NY, PA, FL and nationally. | 45 of 269 | 16.7% | |
| Onward TechnologiesOffers co-managed help desk, monitoring, security, projects, and vendor management alongside existing internal IT teams. | 43 of 269 | 16.0% | |
| DatapathProvides co-managed IT support including help desk overflow, security, networking, backups and projects for organizations with existing teams. | 38 of 269 | 14.1% | |
| SystemsNetProvides co-managed IT services including overflow support, after-hours coverage, cybersecurity, and cloud expertise to extend internal teams. | 37 of 269 | 13.8% | |
| Tier 3 2 firms, 7.8–10.8% | |||
| VirtuWorksvirtuworks.comOffers managed IT services including 24/7 help desk, Microsoft 365 management, co-managed support, and cybersecurity monitoring. | 29 of 269 | 10.8% | |
| Landon Technologieslandontechnologies.comOffers co-managed IT support including cybersecurity, infrastructure, cloud, monitoring, and escalation assistance for internal IT departments. | 21 of 269 | 7.8% | |
Key findings
- NetSys, Securafy and Hi-Tek Data lead this sample, each named in 21.2–25.3% of 269 ChatGPT responses to the question “Which providers offer co-managed IT alongside an in-house team?”, collected August 8, 2026–October 1, 2026.
- The gaps between NetSys, Securafy and Hi-Tek Data are inside the margin of error at 269 responses, so The Shortlist Report groups them in one tier rather than ranking them against each other.
- 10 firms cleared the reporting threshold on “Which providers offer co-managed IT alongside an in-house team?” in ChatGPT as of October 1, 2026; the full table with response counts is below.
- NetSys appears in 3 of the 16 managed IT service providers reports published by The Shortlist Report, the widest coverage of any firm named on this page.
- No firm paid to appear in this ranking; placement cannot be bought, and the counts come from ChatGPT responses rather than from submissions.
Why the tiers fall where they do
Tier 1 holds NetSys, Securafy and Hi-Tek Data, named in 57 to 68 of the 269 ChatGPT responses. They are grouped rather than ranked because the gaps between them are inside the margin of error at this sample size — one extra mention would reorder them, so an order would be reporting noise as a finding.
Tier 2 holds Exigent, On-Site Technology, Onward Technologies, Datapath and SystemsNet, named in 37 to 51 of 269 responses (13.8–19.0%). The sample does separate these firms from the tier above: the difference from the leading group is larger than the margin of error, which is what puts them in a tier of their own.
Tier 3 holds VirtuWorks and Landon Technologies, named in 21 to 29 of 269 responses (7.8–10.8%). The sample does separate these firms from the tier above: the difference from the leading group is larger than the margin of error, which is what puts them in a tier of their own.
The test is McNemar’s at 95%, applied against the same 269 responses for every firm. The full reasoning, and what happened when we ranked one-to-N instead.
What the sample shows
3 firms lead this question: NetSys, Securafy and Hi-Tek Data. They appear in 21.2–25.3% of the 269 responses. The gaps between them are inside the margin of error at this sample size, so they are listed together rather than ranked against each other.
425 firms were named at least once across the sample. 10 of them cleared the threshold of 2 responses and appear above; the rest were named once and are inside the noise.
How to read this
Firms are grouped into tiers, not ranked one to fifteen. A tier holds every firm whose 95% confidence interval overlaps the leader's, which is a long way of saying the sample cannot tell them apart. Order within a tier is arbitrary — read the counts, not the position.
Share is the percentage of responses that named the firm — not a quality score. A firm scoring low here may be excellent and simply under-written about online, which is a finding about its visibility rather than its work.
The same question was asked repeatedly because AI assistants do not answer identically twice. A single response would tell you almost nothing.
What this measurement does not tell you
- It is not a quality ranking. Share reflects how much has been written about a firm online, which is what an AI assistant reads. A capable firm nobody writes about scores low here.
- It is a reading from a date range, not a permanent standing. This sample was collected August 8, 2026–October 1, 2026; models change and so do their answers.
- It covers ChatGPT only. Other assistants answer differently, and we do not extrapolate across engines we have not measured.
- Order within a tier is arbitrary. Read the counts, not the position. Why we use tiers.
Cite this report
The Shortlist Report. (2026). Co-Managed IT Alongside an In-House Team: What The Shortlist Report Finds. The Shortlist Report. https://www.shortlistreport.com/article/co-managed-it-providers
Underlying counts: CSV · JSON. Every answer they were counted from: plain text · JSON. All reusable under CC BY 4.0 with attribution.