What are the advantages and disadvantages of having an MSA (master services agreement)? A limited company has a direct contract for consultancy services with an end client, a large multinational. Now being asked for an MSA to be in place in order to proceed with the next contract renewal. Surprisingly Google does not bring much info related to an MSA between a small limited with one employee (currently) and a large multinational company.
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An MSA normally describes the relationship between Customer & Supplier where the Supplier has many products and services to sell. Rather than having two or more contracts to describe the supply of multiple products, the MSA addresses the common parts of the contract (T&C's), the product is then supplied under a schedule under the MSA. Essentially the negotiation to purchase a new service come down to 'how much do we what to buy & how much is it?', projects don't need to worry about the wider contract implications.
For large companies it vastly reduces the overhead of buying & selling product & negotiating the terms of the contract, for this reason many customers may prefer to purchase from a partner who already has an MSA
In this case, I don't see any advantage for you, I assume your direct, otherwise they should be asking the Agent for a MSA. You might end up agreeing terms for longer than your next extension, so you could lose some flexibility
For the client, as above, it may just make the renewal process easier, just as it's easier to purchase from a preferred supplier & not have to justify why they are using somebody else
Hope this helps
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