Why are companies choosing MDR over building in-house SOCs?

Why are companies choosing MDR over building in-house SOCs?

Companies choose MDR because it delivers enterprise-grade security operations without the massive investment, lengthy buildout, and ongoing challenges of staffing and maintaining an in-house SOC. The math is straightforward: building a capable security operations center from scratch requires 8-10 full-time analysts for 24×7 coverage, expensive security tools, continuous training programs, and years of development time. Meanwhile, MDR providers offer immediate access to experienced security experts, mature detection capabilities, and proven processes—often at a fraction of the cost and with value delivered in days instead of months or years.

The shift toward MDR isn’t just about cost savings, though. It’s fundamentally about access to expertise and scalability most organizations simply can’t build in-house. According to research from Enterprise Strategy Group, partnering with a quality MDR provider can accelerate protection by 24+ months compared to building internally, slash implementation costs by 80%, and achieve 99% risk reduction without enterprise-scale investment. For security leaders facing budget constraints, talent shortages, and ever-evolving threats, MDR represents a strategic way to mature security operations quickly while maintaining flexibility to adapt as business needs change.

 

Why use managed detection and response?

Organizations use managed detection and response because it solves critical operational challenges plaguing internal security teams: alert fatigue, coverage gaps, skill shortages, and the impossibility of maintaining true 24×7 operations without significant staffing investments.

The core value proposition of MDR centers on expertise access. When you partner with an MDR provider, you’re not just getting monitoring technology—you’re gaining access to a team of security analysts who spend their entire careers detecting and responding to threats across hundreds of customer environments. This cross-customer visibility means MDR analysts encounter novel attack techniques at one customer and immediately apply that knowledge to protect all customers. Your internal SOC, by contrast, only learns from attacks targeting your organization specifically.

MDR also delivers 24×7 coverage without the staffing nightmare. Providing genuine around-the-clock security operations requires at least 8-10 full-time analysts to handle shift rotations, vacation coverage, sick leave, and turnover. Most organizations struggle to hire even one experienced security analyst, let alone a full team. MDR providers handle this staffing complexity entirely, ensuring consistent coverage regardless of holidays, vacations, or personnel changes.

The technology complexity challenge is equally important. Modern security operations require integrating and managing multiple tools—SIEM platforms, endpoint detection, cloud security, network monitoring, threat intelligence feeds, and more. Each tool requires specialized configuration, ongoing tuning, and expert interpretation. MDR providers bring mature technology stacks and the integration expertise to make sense of security signals across your entire environment, turning information overload into actionable intelligence.

Time to value is another compelling reason organizations choose MDR. Traditional SOC buildouts can take 24 months or more just to reach operational maturity. MDR services, by contrast, can be deployed and actively monitoring within days or even hours through API-based integrations, immediately closing security gaps that would otherwise remain exposed during a lengthy build phase.

 

Benefits of MDR vs. in-house SOC

The benefits of MDR compared to building an in-house SOC extend across financial, operational, and strategic dimensions. Let’s break down the key advantages:

Cost efficiency: In-house SOCs require massive upfront and ongoing investments. Personnel costs alone for necessary analysts and coverage typically exceed several hundred thousand to over a million dollars annually, depending on market rates and experience levels. Add technology licenses for SIEM platforms, EDR tools, network monitoring, threat intelligence feeds, and security orchestration tools—easily another several hundred thousand dollars annually. Training programs, certifications, conferences, and continuous education for your team add tens of thousands more. Infrastructure costs, management overhead, and inevitable turnover expenses compound these figures. MDR operates on predictable subscription pricing, typically based on devices protected or scope of coverage, delivering significant cost savings compared to the equivalent in-house capability.

Expertise depth and breadth: Your internal SOC team develops expertise through incidents they handle within your environment. While valuable, this creates a limited learning scope. MDR providers gain expertise across hundreds or thousands of customer environments spanning multiple industries, attack surfaces, and threat types. When an MDR provider encounters a novel ransomware variant, advanced persistent threat technique, or zero-day exploitation at one customer, they immediately leverage the knowledge to protect all customers. This collective defense model provides expertise breadth no single organization can match internally.

Scalability and flexibility: As your organization adopts new technologies, expands into new cloud platforms, or acquires other companies, your security operations must scale accordingly. In-house SOCs face difficult decisions: hire more staff, expand tool coverage, and increase costs proportionally. MDR services scale naturally as your environment grows. Adding new security tools or attack surfaces to MDR monitoring can happen in minutes through API integrations, not through lengthy procurement and hiring processes.

Reduced alert fatigue: Modern security tools generate thousands of alerts daily, with false positive rates often exceeding 90%. Internal teams spend countless hours triaging noise, leading to burnout and missed genuine threats. MDR providers use advanced detection logic, automation, and experienced analysts to filter false positives, reducing alert noise by 87% or more while ensuring critical threats receive immediate attention.

Technology complexity management: Security operations require expertise across a growing number of specialized domains: cloud security architecture, endpoint forensics, network traffic analysis, threat intelligence interpretation, malware reverse engineering, and more. Building a team with all these capabilities in-house is extraordinarily difficult. MDR providers maintain teams of specialists across all these domains, applying the right expertise to each investigation.

 

Why outsource security operations?

Organizations outsource security operations because building and maintaining security expertise in-house has become increasingly impractical for all but the largest enterprises. The reasons span talent availability, economic efficiency, and strategic focus.

The talent shortage—on top of the hiring challenges facing organizations—represents the most significant driver. What’s less obvious is how structural barriers limit the available workforce before you even start recruiting.

Women represent only 22% of cybersecurity professionals globally—worse than tech overall, where 27% of roles go to women. This isn’t just a diversity concern; it’s a capacity crisis. When you eliminate half the potential workforce through structural barriers, everyone competes for the same limited talent pool.

In practice, this looks like: posting SOC analyst positions and getting three qualified applicants. Maybe. If you’re lucky. And two of them are evaluating three other offers simultaneously. And that’s after you find them in the pile of 1,000+ resumes submitted per listing. 

Recent research from Expel challenges the traditional “talent gap” narrative, revealing the problem isn’t necessarily a shortage of qualified security professionals but rather a fundamental misalignment in hiring strategies. Analysis of over 5,000 active security job postings from Fortune 100 companies uncovered only 8% of cybersecurity roles offer remote work despite remote positions attracting 3x more applicants. Job role naming confusion creates discrepancies in compensation packages, and cybersecurity positions lag behind adjacent fields in pay and benefits like equity packages.

Even when organizations successfully hire security talent, retention poses ongoing challenges. Security operations work is inherently demanding: constant vigilance, high-pressure incident response, irregular hours, and the stress of defending against sophisticated adversaries. Burnout rates in security operations are notably high, creating a perpetual hiring and training cycle. Outsourcing to an MDR provider transfers this staffing complexity to specialists who have built sustainable operational models with proper shift coverage, career development paths, and support structures.

Even when organizations successfully hire security talent, retention poses ongoing challenges. Security operations work is inherently demanding: constant vigilance, high-pressure incident response, irregular hours, and the stress of defending against sophisticated adversaries. Burnout rates in security operations are notably high, creating a perpetual hiring and training cycle. Outsourcing to an MDR provider transfers this staffing complexity to specialists who have built sustainable operational models with proper shift coverage, career development paths, and support structures.

Resource constraints drive outsourcing decisions as well. Most organizations have finite IT budgets and must prioritize investments across numerous competing needs—infrastructure modernization, application development, cloud migration, digital transformation initiatives. Security is critical, but many organizations find better ROI by outsourcing security operations to specialists while focusing internal resources on strategic initiatives that directly drive business value and competitive advantage.

The technology complexity involved in modern security operations has also escalated dramatically. Security teams must now protect endpoints, networks, cloud infrastructure, SaaS applications, containers, serverless functions, identity systems, and more—each requiring specialized tools and expertise. Maintaining this technology stack internally means continuous vendor management, contract negotiations, integration projects, and ongoing optimization. MDR providers absorb this complexity, bringing mature technology stacks and integrating seamlessly with customer environments.

Expertise access represents another compelling reason to outsource. Building security expertise takes years of experience across diverse incident types, threat actors, and attack techniques. Organizations experiencing breaches infrequently (which is ideal) paradoxically give their internal teams less opportunity to develop incident response expertise. MDR providers handle hundreds or thousands of incidents annually across their customer base, developing pattern recognition and response capabilities individual organizations can’t match internally.

 

MDR vs. hiring security analysts

The decision between partnering with an MDR provider versus hiring security analysts isn’t always either/or, but understanding the tradeoffs helps inform security strategy.

Speed of deployment: Hiring experienced security analysts typically takes 3-6 months per position, sometimes longer for senior roles in competitive markets. Building a full SOC team can take 18-24 months. MDR deployment happens in days or weeks, immediately closing security gaps. This speed differential is critical when organizations face active threats or regulatory deadlines.

Cost comparison framework:

In-house security analyst costs:

• Salaries: $80,000-150,000+ per analyst depending on experience and market
• Benefits and overhead: Add 30-40% to salary costs
• Training and certifications: $5,000-15,000 annually per analyst
• Tool access and licenses: Varies by environment
• Management overhead: Senior security leadership to guide team
• Minimum 8-10 analysts needed for 24×7 coverage
• Total annual cost: Typically $1-2M+ for basic coverage

MDR service costs:

• Subscription pricing based on coverage scope
• All expertise, technology, and operations included
• Predictable annual costs
• Scales with organization size
• Typical range: Fraction of equivalent in-house costs

Quality and consistency: Individual analyst capabilities vary significantly based on experience, training, and aptitude. Your internal SOC’s effectiveness depends heavily on who’s working each shift. With small teams, key person dependencies create risk—what happens when your most experienced analyst leaves? MDR providers deliver consistent quality through standardized processes, continuous training programs, and depth of expertise ensuring effective coverage regardless of which specific analysts are handling your environment at any given time.

Career development challenges: Security professionals value learning opportunities and career growth. Small internal SOC teams may struggle to provide varied experiences, advancement paths, or exposure to cutting-edge threats and techniques. This can lead to turnover as analysts seek more dynamic opportunities. MDR providers offer their analysts exposure to diverse environments, advanced threats, and clear career progression, which helps them maintain stable, experienced teams.

Hybrid approaches: Many organizations find optimal value in a hybrid model: maintain 1-2 internal security professionals who understand the business, make strategic decisions, and liaise with the MDR provider, while outsourcing the heavy lifting of 24×7 monitoring, alert triage, and frontline incident response. This approach provides internal security voice and context while leveraging MDR for operational scale and expertise.

 

Reasons to choose MDR

Organizations across industries and sizes choose MDR for several interconnected reasons that collectively make a compelling case for this approach to security operations:

1. Immediate expertise access: MDR provides instant access to experienced security analysts, threat researchers, and incident responders who have seen thousands of attacks across diverse environments. This expertise would take years to develop internally.
2. 24×7 coverage without staffing complexity: True around-the-clock security operations require significant staffing investments. MDR delivers comprehensive coverage without hiring, training, managing shifts, or dealing with turnover.
3. Cost efficiency and predictable budgeting: MDR subscription pricing offers predictable costs compared to the variable and often surprising expenses of building and maintaining internal security operations. No recruitment costs, no retention bonuses, no training budgets to manage.
4. Rapid time to value: MDR services deploy quickly through API integrations, providing security value immediately rather than after lengthy build phases. Organizations facing active threats or compliance deadlines benefit enormously from this speed.
5. Technology complexity management: MDR providers handle integration, optimization, and management of complex security tool stacks, freeing internal teams from endless tuning and maintenance.
6. Scalability as business grows: As organizations adopt new technologies, expand geographically, or acquire other companies, MDR scales naturally without requiring proportional increases in internal staffing or tool investments.
7. Reduced alert fatigue and burnout: By filtering false positives and handling frontline triage, MDR eliminates the grind of alert management that burns out internal analysts, allowing any internal security staff to focus on strategic initiatives.
8. Collective defense benefits: Threats detected at one MDR customer inform protection for all customers, providing a level of shared intelligence and defense individual organizations can’t achieve alone.
9. Strategic focus for internal teams: Organizations can redirect internal IT and security resources toward strategic security initiatives—architecture design, security awareness programs, risk management, vendor assessments—rather than spending time on alert triage and incident response operations.
10. Compliance and audit support: Many MDR providers assist with compliance documentation, security controls demonstration, and audit preparation, reducing burden on internal teams during regulatory assessments.

 

What size company benefits from MDR?

The short answer: companies of virtually every size can benefit from MDR, but the specific value proposition shifts based on organization size and security maturity.

Small companies (10-250 employees): Smaller organizations rarely have dedicated security staff at all, relying instead on IT generalists who handle security among many other responsibilities. For these companies, MDR provides access to security operations capabilities they could never build internally. The predictable subscription cost model makes enterprise-grade security accessible without the six-figure investments required for even a single full-time security analyst plus necessary tools. Small companies benefit from MDR’s rapid deployment and comprehensive coverage that would take years and resources they don’t have to build internally.

Mid-market companies (250-5,000 employees): Mid-market organizations often have one or a few security professionals who are overwhelmed trying to manage security across growing, complex environments. These security professionals spend excessive time on operational tasks—alert triage, tool management, incident response—leaving little capacity for strategic security improvements. MDR allows these organizations to amplify their small security teams’ impact by handling operational heavy lifting. The internal security professional becomes a strategic leader and liaison rather than a ticket taker, dramatically improving both security posture and job satisfaction.

Large enterprises (5,000+ employees): Large organizations often have more options, including building internal SOCs. Yet many still choose MDR for several reasons: gaps in coverage areas (perhaps they have endpoint security figured out but struggle with cloud security), staffing challenges in competitive talent markets, or strategic decisions to outsource operations while maintaining internal security leadership and governance. Even Fortune 500 companies and other large enterprises use MDR providers to augment their security programs, close coverage gaps, or focus internal teams on strategic initiatives rather than operational grind.

Security maturity considerations: Organization size matters less than security maturity and strategic priorities. A 500-person company with no security program benefits differently from MDR than a 500-person company with established security operations seeking to add cloud coverage. MDR’s flexibility allows it to serve as either comprehensive security operations for organizations starting from zero, or as targeted augmentation for mature programs seeking specific coverage expansion or operational efficiency improvements.

 

Is MDR just for small companies?

Absolutely not—this is one of the most persistent misconceptions about MDR. While smaller organizations without existing security operations certainly benefit enormously from MDR, the reality is organizations of all sizes, including Fortune 500 companies and global enterprises, actively use MDR services.

The misconception likely stems from the historical evolution of managed security services, which originally targeted small businesses who couldn’t afford internal security teams. Modern MDR has evolved far beyond those origins. Today’s MDR services deliver sophisticated capabilities—advanced threat detection, threat hunting, incident response, security engineering guidance—rivaling or exceeding what most organizations can build internally, regardless of size.

Major enterprises use MDR for several strategic reasons:

Coverage gaps: Large organizations with mature security programs often have specific coverage gaps. Perhaps their internal SOC excels at network and endpoint security but lacks cloud security expertise. MDR can fill these specific gaps without requiring the organization to hire specialized staff and build new capabilities from scratch.

Capacity constraints: Even organizations with internal SOCs face capacity limits. When alert volumes spike, new attack surfaces come online, or major incidents occur, internal teams become overwhelmed. MDR provides elastic capacity that scales with demand without requiring proportional staffing increases.

Expertise in specialized domains: As attack surfaces expand—containers, serverless computing, SaaS applications, operational technology environments—organizations need increasingly diverse expertise. Rather than hiring specialists in every domain, many enterprises partner with MDR providers who maintain broad expertise across all these areas.

Cost efficiency at scale: Large enterprises perform rigorous build-versus-buy analysis. Many conclude even with their resources, partnering with an MDR provider delivers better ROI than building equivalent capabilities internally, especially when considering total cost of ownership including staffing, training, technology, and management overhead.

Operational excellence: Some enterprises maintain internal SOCs but partner with MDR providers specifically for operational excellence, process maturity, and technology efficiency MDR has spent years perfecting. This hybrid approach gives enterprises the best of both worlds: internal security voice and strategic control combined with MDR operational maturity.

The presence of multiple security companies themselves as MDR customers reinforces this isn’t a small-company solution—these are organizations with deep security expertise who nonetheless see value in partnering with specialists for detection and response operations.

 

What do Fortune 500 companies do for cybersecurity?

Fortune 500 companies take varied approaches to cybersecurity depending on their industry, risk profile, regulatory requirements, and strategic priorities. Most employ layered strategies and often include MDR as a component rather than solely relying on either internal teams or external providers.

Common approaches among large enterprises:

Hybrid security models: Many Fortune 500 companies maintain internal security teams focused on governance, risk management, compliance, architecture, and strategic security initiatives, while partnering with MDR providers for 24×7 detection and response operations. This hybrid model allows internal teams to focus on high-value strategic work while outsourcing operational heavy lifting to specialists.

Multiple security vendors: Large enterprises typically work with numerous security vendors simultaneously—endpoint security providers, cloud security platforms, identity management systems, SIEM vendors, and yes, MDR providers. Each vendor addresses specific aspects of the comprehensive security program.

Centers of excellence: Some large organizations build internal security centers of excellence to develop standards, architect security solutions, and provide guidance across business units. These centers of excellence often partner with MDR providers for implementation and operations rather than building massive internal SOC teams.

Industry-specific requirements: Certain industries like financial services, healthcare, and critical infrastructure face stringent regulatory requirements that influence their security approach. These organizations often maintain significant internal security capabilities but supplement with MDR for comprehensive coverage, especially across rapidly evolving domains like cloud security.

M&A integration challenges: Fortune 500 companies frequently acquire other businesses, each with different security postures, tools, and processes. MDR provides a consistent security operations layer that can rapidly onboard acquired companies while longer-term integration planning occurs.

The key insight is sophisticated security programs aren’t either/or propositions. Leading enterprises increasingly embrace partnerships with specialized providers like MDR services to deliver comprehensive security at a scale and sophistication level that would be extremely difficult to build entirely in-house. Using external security services doesn’t indicate organizational immaturity. Today’s reality is the smartest enterprises strategically partner with specialists who can deliver capabilities more effectively than building everything internally.

 

How is MDR different from just hiring analysts?

MDR delivers significantly more than the equivalent of hiring individual security analysts. Understanding these differences helps clarify MDR’s value proposition:

Process maturity: Individual analysts bring their personal skills and experience. MDR providers bring mature, documented processes refined across thousands of incidents and hundreds of customers. These processes ensure consistent quality, efficient investigations, and effective response regardless of which specific analysts handle your environment at any time.

Technology platform: When you hire analysts, you still need to provide them with security tools, SIEM platforms, case management systems, automation capabilities, and threat intelligence feeds. MDR includes a complete technology stack as part of the service. Providers like Expel bring platforms like Expel Workbench that integrate telemetry from customer environments, apply sophisticated detection logic, correlate alerts, and provide complete transparency into security operations.

Collective defense model: Your hired analysts learn from incidents in your environment. MDR analysts learn from incidents across their entire customer base. When ransomware operators develop new tactics, zero-day exploits emerge, or novel attack techniques appear, MDR providers detect these at one customer and immediately apply their knowledge to protect all customers. This shared intelligence model provides protection isolated analysts can’t match.

Specialization and depth: Building a team with expertise across all necessary domains—endpoint forensics, network analysis, cloud security, malware analysis, threat intelligence, incident response—requires hiring multiple specialists. MDR providers maintain teams with all these specializations, applying the right expertise to each investigation.

Operational infrastructure: Running security operations requires far more than analysts. You need shift scheduling, vacation coverage, training programs, career development, management oversight, quality assurance, and documentation standards. MDR providers handle all this operational infrastructure as part of the service.

Continuous improvement: Individual analysts’ effectiveness plateaus without continuous investment in training, tools, and exposure to new threats. MDR providers invest heavily in analyst development, threat research, detection engineering, and process improvement as core business functions. Your security operations improve continuously as the MDR provider matures.

Scale and elasticity: If alert volumes spike or a major incident occurs, your fixed team of analysts may become overwhelmed. MDR providers have depth of staff to handle surges and can escalate complex investigations to senior specialists or threat hunters when needed.

Technology integration expertise: Hired analysts need extensive time to understand your environment, learn your tools, and build integrations. MDR providers bring mature integrations for 130+ security tools, enabling rapid deployment and immediate value without lengthy learning curves.

The fundamental difference is MDR delivers an entire security operations capability—people, process, technology, intelligence, and continuous improvement—rather than just adding headcount to your organization.

 

What drives MDR adoption?

Several interconnected trends drive the accelerating adoption of MDR across organizations of all sizes:

Growing attack surface complexity: Organizations now secure not just traditional on-premises networks and endpoints, but also multiple cloud platforms, SaaS applications, containers, serverless functions, IoT devices, and remote workers. This expanded attack surface requires more diverse expertise and broader monitoring than most organizations can build internally.

Talent availability challenges: While research suggests the “talent gap” may actually be a hiring strategy gap, the practical reality is organizations struggle to recruit and retain security analysts. Competition for security talent is fierce, especially for experienced professionals. MDR provides immediate access to this scarce expertise without the recruitment and retention challenges.

Economic pressures: Organizations face constant pressure to optimize costs while improving security posture. Enterprise Strategy Group research quantifies this, showing MDR can deliver 308% annual ROI while achieving 99% risk reduction. The economic case for MDR becomes increasingly compelling as organizations recognize the true total cost of ownership for internal security operations.

Regulatory and compliance requirements: Industries face increasing regulatory scrutiny around security practices and incident response capabilities. Many organizations adopt MDR specifically to meet compliance requirements for 24×7 monitoring, incident detection timeframes, and documented response processes that would be difficult to demonstrate with small internal teams.

Cloud migration and digital transformation: As organizations migrate workloads to cloud platforms and pursue digital transformation initiatives, security requirements evolve rapidly. MDR providers maintain expertise across leading cloud platforms and can scale security operations as digital initiatives expand, while internal teams might struggle to keep pace.

Board-level security focus: Security breaches generate headlines, impact stock prices, and create regulatory consequences. Boards increasingly hold executives accountable for security posture. MDR provides a credible answer to board questions about detection capabilities, response times, and 24×7 coverage that “we’re working on building it” doesn’t match.

Demonstrated success and market maturity: Early MDR adopters have demonstrated success, and generating positive word-of-mouth and case studies reduce perceived risk for new adopters. As the MDR market matures, offerings improve, pricing becomes more competitive, and adoption accelerates.

Threat landscape evolution: Modern attackers are sophisticated, well-resourced, and increasingly brazen. Organizations recognize reactive security approaches and part-time attention to security operations don’t suffice against determined adversaries. MDR provides the continuous vigilance and rapid response capabilities necessary to counter these threats.

 

Making the build-versus-buy decision

The choice between building an in-house SOC and partnering with an MDR provider isn’t always clear-cut, but several factors should inform your decision:

Consider MDR if you:

• Need security operations capabilities quickly (within days/weeks vs months/years)
• Face challenges recruiting and retaining security talent
• Lack budget for 8-10+ full-time security analysts plus technology
• Want predictable, subscription-based pricing rather than variable staffing costs
• Need 24×7 coverage but don’t have the team size to support shift rotations
• Seek expertise across diverse attack surfaces (cloud, endpoint, network, SaaS)
• Want to focus internal resources on strategic security initiatives rather than operational grind
• Need to scale security operations as your organization grows without proportional staffing increases

Consider building in-house if you:

• Have unlimited budget and can attract top security talent in competitive markets
• Can commit to 2+ year buildout timelines before reaching operational maturity
• Have unique security requirements generic MDR services can’t address
• Operate in specialized environments (e.g., classified government, highly specialized industrial control systems) where external providers face access constraints
• Already have mature security operations and simply need incremental staff additions

For many organizations, a hybrid approach offers the best of both worlds: maintain internal security leadership and strategic direction while partnering with MDR for operational excellence, 24×7 coverage, and specialized expertise.

The trend is clear: even organizations with resources to build in-house increasingly choose to partner with MDR providers who can deliver mature, sophisticated security operations more efficiently than building from scratch. The question isn’t whether your organization is “too small” or “too large” for MDR—it’s whether MDR aligns with your strategic priorities, resource constraints, and security maturity goals.