How to remove solution provider

Question

How to remove solution provider

Terry Lee 0

Hi, our company has employed a solution provider for management of Microsoft 365. However, after 3 years, we find that this provider is below our satisfaction in response to our enquires. We are trying to take it over, just like before employing this provider. Is there any step or confirmation from our side? Could we just do it by ourselve or need support from Microsoft?

Thanks a lot

Terry

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2 answers

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Answer 1

Dear @Terry Lee,

Yes, in many cases you can move away from your current solution provider without Microsoft Support being directly involved, provided that your organization still has full administrative control of the Microsoft 365 tenant.

Before making any changes, I would strongly recommend confirming the following:

Your company has at least one Global Administrator account that is controlled by your organization, not by the solution provider.
You can access the Microsoft 365 Admin Center and view users, licenses, billing, and partner relationships.
You have access to your domains, DNS records, and billing information.

If those conditions are met, the transition is usually straightforward.

Depending on how the provider is connected to your tenant, they may have:

Delegated Admin Privileges (DAP) (legacy model)
Granular Delegated Admin Privileges (GDAP) (current model)
A CSP (Cloud Solution Provider) relationship for licensing and billing

These are separate relationships and should be reviewed individually.

If your goal is to manage everything yourselves, you will generally want to:

Ensure your organization has its own Global Administrator account(s).
Review all administrator accounts and remove any provider-owned admin accounts that are no longer needed.
Review existing GDAP/DAP partner relationships and terminate them if you no longer want the provider to have administrative access.
Determine how licensing and billing will be handled going forward:
- Continue directly with Microsoft.
- Move to a new CSP partner.
- Transfer subscriptions if required.

One important caution: Do not remove the provider's access until you have confirmed that your organization can fully administer the tenant independently.

I have seen situations where a company assumed they had full control, removed the partner relationship, and only later discovered that:

The partner owned the only Global Administrator account.
The partner managed licensing renewals.
Critical knowledge of the tenant configuration was undocumented.

As a practical first step, I would suggest checking: Microsoft 365 Admin Center > Settings > Partner relationships and confirming:

Which provider is currently connected.
Whether the relationship includes delegated administration.
Whether the provider is also your licensing/billing provider.

I hope this information helps point you in the right direction.

Warm regards,

If the answer is helpful, please select "Yes, accept answer". If you have any questions or new updates, please feel free to comment below.

Answer 2

Yes. Admin roles can be removed without ending the partner relationship.

If the goal is to stop the solution provider from administering Microsoft 365, this can be done in the Microsoft 365 admin center:

Go to Settings > Partner relationships.
Select the row for the partner.
Select Remove roles.
In the confirmation dialog, select Yes.

Important details:

Removing admin roles does not remove the partner relationship.
The partner can still work in other capacities, such as Reseller.
If the partner currently has older delegated admin privileges (DAP), the partner entry can show Global Administrator in the Roles column. In that case, select the row with Reseller as the Relationship Type, then choose Remove roles.
If Remove roles is not available, contact Partner Center support.

If the intention is to stop working with the partner entirely, the documented guidance is to contact the partner to end the relationship.

Also note:

If Global Administrator access is removed from a partner, it is recommended to discuss future service delivery with them.
Even after removing DAP/Global Administrator, the partner can still make purchases on the organization’s behalf unless they remove that ability in Partner Center.