Agentic SOC Vendor Evaluation Guide
{{ progressLabel }}
THE AGENTIC SOC VENDOR EVALUATION GUIDE · 7 QUESTIONS
Is your MDR provider reducing risk or simply processing alerts?
Answer seven questions to identify your evaluation priorities, uncover potential blind spots, and build a personalized set of questions for your next MDR provider.
Receive your personalized brief after four questions.
What you receive
MDR Evaluation Starter Brief
After four questions: your emerging buyer profile, three priorities, and the vendor questions that expose them.
Personalized MDR Evaluation Plan
After seven: weighted criteria across the ten areas of the MXDR evaluation framework, the critical requirements to gate on, the evidence to request, and our Microsoft security consulting overview.
Question {{ q.num }} of 7
{{ q.category }}
{{ q.question }}
{{ q.limitNote }}
Reviewing your answers
Your initial MDR evaluation profile is ready
Based on your first four answers, we identified the areas your provider evaluation should prioritize.
Emerging buyer profile
{{ result.profile }}
{{ result.interpretation }}
Three initial evaluation priorities
{{ p.n }}
{{ p.title }}
{{ p.detail }}
Preview: one question for your shortlist
“{{ result.previewQuestion }}”
Starter Brief preview
{{ result.profile }}
4 pages · priorities, vendor questions, evidence checklist, consulting overview
Before you shortlist
Ontinue Consulting Services
Workshops and reviews · typically 1–3 days · remote or on-site
Your full plan includes our Microsoft security consulting overview: six workshops and reviews that turn the Microsoft security you already own into evidence you can evaluate against.
Question {{ q.num }} of 7
{{ q.stage }}
{{ q.category }}
{{ q.question }}
{{ q.limitNote }}
Your personalized MDR Evaluation Plan
{{ result.planIntro }}
Confirmed buyer profile
{{ result.profile }}
{{ result.driver }}
Decisive criterion
{{ result.decisive }}
Working boundary to contract
{{ result.boundary }}
Your full plan is ready
{{ gate.headline }}
A preview is below. We will email the complete document so you can score vendors against it and share it with your team.
Weighted evaluation criteria
The ten areas of the MXDR evaluation framework, rebalanced to your answers. {{ result.weightReason }} Score each vendor 0, 1, 2 or N/A per question and weight the section totals.
{{ w.title }}
{{ w.pct }}%
{{ w.detail }}
Blind spots to test
{{ b.text }}
How to score what comes back
{{ sc.score }}
{{ sc.text }}
A capability the vendor cannot demonstrate in a live workflow scores 1 at best. Ask every provider to classify each answer as operational today, partial or manual, roadmap, or not available.
Reading the weighted total
{{ b.band }}
{{ b.text }}
Score the critical requirements separately. A provider that fails one does not pass by accumulating points elsewhere. Either it is closed contractually before award, or the provider is excluded.
Questions for your shortlist
{{ vq.tag }}
{{ vq.q }}
Look for: {{ vq.look }}
{{ gate.lockedLabel }}
Take it further
Put these weightings to work
Let us help you develop a rigorous 100+ question MXDR Vendor Scorecard based on your prioritized criteria: which sections matter most for your situation, which questions become critical requirements, and what evidence to demand for each. With your custom scoring model your team can feel confident in your security partner selection.
Consulting services · Microsoft security
Microsoft-funded workshops for qualifying organizations
We serve Microsoft Security customers exclusively, so our consultants arrive with the deployment patterns, cost levers, and operating practices other teams spend years learning.
Microsoft-only expertise
Led by people who work in Defender, Sentinel and Purview every day.
Proof before commitment
Pilots run in your environment — see value in your own data before you scale.
Board-ready answers
Cost, coverage and risk framed in the terms your executives already use.
Workshops & reviews
Typically 1–3 days · delivered remote or on-site
Threat Protection Workshop
Microsoft funding available
See what your E5 licences can actually stop.
Pilot the full M365 E5 Defender suite with Sentinel, with expert guidance on configuring and operationalising both.
You leave with: A prioritised hardening plan for your Defender estate.
Microsoft Sentinel Workshop
Microsoft funding available
De-risk the move to Sentinel.
Get hands-on with Sentinel on your own data — proper use, cost optimisation, best practice — before production.
You leave with: A sizing and ingestion-cost model for rollout.
Defender for Cloud Workshop
Microsoft funding available
Close the multi-cloud blind spot.
Extend Defender for Cloud across your hybrid and multi-cloud footprint, connecting on-prem and third-party cloud into Microsoft security.
You leave with: A coverage map of what is protected and what is not.
Data Security Workshop
Microsoft funding available
Know where sensitive data is exposed.
Pilot Microsoft Purview: how to apply policies, reduce data-exposure risk and operationalise compliance.
You leave with: A data-protection policy set ready to enforce.
Security Copilot Discovery
Spend on AI where it pays back.
A tabletop on where Security Copilot delivers most value across investigation, response and ops — and how to tune it.
You leave with: A shortlist of use cases ranked by payback.
Security Licence Review
Stop paying twice for the same control.
A review of your Microsoft security licensing with ROI analysis: where capability is underused, overlapping or misaligned.
You leave with: Named optimisation opportunities and their value.
Also supports the wider estate: Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Purview, Defender for Cloud, Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Intune.
Start with one workshop. Decide with evidence.
Talk to the Ontinue Consulting team about scoping a session for your environment — ontinueconsulting@ontinue.com
One detail before you download
Your Evaluation Plan is ready. Enter your business email to open the full document — all ten weighted criteria and every vendor question built from your answers. We will email you a copy to keep.
We use this to email your copy and send occasional Microsoft security research. Unsubscribe any time. Personal email domains are not accepted. See our Privacy statement.
Your plan is open in a new tab
Use Save as PDF at the top of that tab to keep a copy. We have also emailed it to {{ lead.email }}.
{{ overlay.title }}
{{ p.text }}