DLL Targets MSP Expansion With Infrastructure Financing Model

Key Takeaways

• Equipment financing can be applied to servers, storage, networking, and other infrastructure used by managed-service providers.
• Financing can preserve working capital while an MSP builds recurring revenue, but payment schedules need to reflect customer contracts and equipment use.
• Strong cloud and IT-services spending supports the model, although no verified financing volume specific to individual providers is available.

DLL is positioning equipment financing as a way for managed-service providers to expand infrastructure without consuming the cash they need for sales, staffing, and service delivery. The approach covers assets such as servers, networking equipment, storage systems, and related technology that underpin recurring managed services.

That matters because the economics of an MSP can be awkward. Infrastructure may need to be acquired before a customer begins generating meaningful monthly revenue. Hardware invoices arrive early; service revenue follows over the life of a contract. Financing can spread that cost across a longer period and reduce the initial pressure on working capital.

The opportunity is not limited to traditional technology resellers. Office equipment dealers moving into managed IT, security, communications, and document services face a similar transition. Their established leasing experience may help, but technology infrastructure has shorter refresh cycles, different residual-value considerations, and more complicated service dependencies.

Financing does not turn a weak managed-services contract into a strong one. It works more effectively when the MSP understands deployment costs, expected utilization, customer concentration, contract duration, and the cost of supporting the installed environment. If those variables are poorly tracked, a manageable monthly payment can still become a burden.

The broader spending environment provides a favorable backdrop. A Gartner forecast reported by iTechGuides put worldwide IT spending at $5.618 trillion in 2025, an increase of 9.8% year over year. IT services accounted for approximately $1.731 trillion, including managed services, consulting, implementation, and support.

Cloud investment adds another layer. IDC figures reported by Channelwise forecast cloud-infrastructure spending to rise 33.3% in 2025 to $271.5 billion. Service providers, including cloud providers, hyperscalers, communications providers, and MSPs, were expected to spend $262.1 billion on compute and storage infrastructure, up 30.9%.

Those numbers indicate a growing operational footprint, not automatic profitability. MSPs still have to decide whether to own equipment, finance it, place it in a colocation facility, or consume equivalent capacity from a public-cloud provider. Often, the answer is a mixture rather than a single infrastructure strategy.

Public-cloud end-user spending was projected by Gartner to reach $723.4 billion in 2025, compared with $595.7 billion in 2024. Meanwhile, IDC forecast Canada’s managed-cloud-services market to exceed C$3.9 billion by 2027. That expansion gives providers more systems to manage, but it also raises the importance of monitoring variable cloud charges alongside fixed equipment obligations.

Frameworks such as ITIL 4 and FinOps can help connect those decisions. ITIL 4 gives MSPs a structure for service management, incident handling, change control, and continual improvement. FinOps focuses attention on cloud usage, accountability, and cost optimization. Together, they can provide a clearer view of whether financed equipment is supporting profitable recurring revenue or merely adding capacity.

An Opsio managed-services guide also reflects the industry’s shift toward ongoing operational relationships rather than one-time technology projects. Large providers such as SHI, CDW, and Presidio already combine procurement with cloud, security, and lifecycle services. Smaller MSPs and office equipment dealers are pursuing versions of the same model, though usually with tighter capital constraints.

What should providers examine before financing an infrastructure build? Contract length is one factor. Customer cancellation rights, renewal rates, maintenance expenses, deployment timing, and technology obsolescence also count. Payment obligations that outlast the associated customer agreement can create exposure, particularly when equipment cannot easily be reassigned.

This financing model therefore fits a real funding gap. It can help MSPs align infrastructure spending more closely with recurring-service income while retaining cash for growth. The benefit, however, depends on disciplined forecasting and contract management. Financing can level the timing mismatch between investment and revenue; it does not remove the underlying operating risk.