You’ve made the big decision to relocate your company. This may be an exciting time for you and your staff, especially if the move is prompted by an onset of company expansion. However, it may also be very stressful. There’s much to be done in order to have a successful move, and there’s a great deal on the line if too many failures and mistakes occur. Delays in production or communication may mean significant revenue losses, especially if customers become frustrated and lose faith in your brand. Because your team will already be overloaded with managing customer care and their daily work during the transition, it’s best to hire an IT service provider to help relocate your IT infrastructure, including physical assets like computers, servers, and so on to ensure you’re up and running again as quickly as possible.
Here are 6 ways utilising the services of such a provider will greatly assist you throughout your move.
Relocating Equipment and Hardware
This is the most obvious part of your move and what you’ll need the most help implementing. While you may be thinking that it doesn’t take an expert to carry items on and off a moving truck, there’s much more to it than that. In fact, your IT team must visit both your old and new spaces ahead of time to assess your situation.
For example, they should check power supply and internet supply for wiring purposes in the new location, and all equipment used in the old location. All hardware items should be labelled down to the last wire. While it can be a right pain to uninstall and then correctly reinstall everything after the move for someone without experience, your IT professionals should have no problem doing so. Additionally, certain equipment is sensitive and must be protected well. For example, moving a physical server must be handled with extra care, as it’s susceptible to damage and quite costly to replace.
Liaison with Third Parties
One of the biggest stresses of a move is transitioning your IT equipment without badly disrupting your operations. For instance, you’ll need to set up equipment and services like your internet connection all over again at your new location. An IT service provider will supply you with experts who can communicate with other vendors you must work with. These IT specialists speak the jargon and understand the issues at hand in a way that will allow them to communicate properly with these third parties. As they’ll be working closely with your business to fully understand its needs, they can properly express what those needs are and make appropriate decisions on your behalf. This will help to smooth your transition process.
Problem Prevention
Because your IT providers are thoroughly experienced, they’ll be able to foresee issues your staff may not have caught early on. The team will make sure to carefully prepare ahead of time, so the process happens as smoothly as possible when it’s time to relocate. Further, there should be a plan detailing all the necessary steps in sequential order to ensure nothing is forgotten.
Testing
Once settled into your new office, it’s imperative all systems and equipment are tested so interruptions don’t occur unexpectedly in the future. Your IT team will be very familiar with the procedures of such testing and how to mitigate any issues arising.
If any unforeseen problems pop up, they’ll be there to help you resolve them immediately. While your team is adjusting to your new office environment, it would only add extra stress to try and fix IT glitches that weren’t previously ironed out. Utilising your IT provider will minimise this stress and give you peace of mind, knowing they’re just a shout-out away.
Save Time
With the facilitation of skilled and trained professionals, you can feel confident that making the switch to your new location will get done much faster than if your staff attempted it alone. Further, the time savings you’ll experience will be multiplied. Some businesses can be severely affected by experiencing downtime and delays since these issues halt business operations. This can hurt sales and cost more than just profits. But with your IT team on your side, you may even be able to work your transition over the weekend and be up and running again by Monday morning.
A Chance to Change
Moving can be like a spring cleaning for some offices. It’s a perfect opportunity to do away with what you don’t need, and instead acquire what would be more beneficial to your business going forward. A good practice is to consult with your staff for their input on what’s working and what’s not. Your IT provider can provide informed advice to you while making these changes and perhaps on investing in new hardware and software. Plus, they’ll make other necessary adjustments to ensure you’re on the right track.
For instance, it’s predicted the cloud computing market will exceed $1 trillion by 2025, and for good reason. An office move may be a great time to think of making the switch to the cloud if you haven’t done so already. However, the actual transition to the cloud isn’t an instant and exactly easy process. Attention to detail is imperative, as all your crucial data is migrated from your local server’s hard drive to your cloud service provider’s system. Your IT company should offer cloud migration services in addition to their relocation services.
The Help of Experts
Centering your move around your IT infrastructure is essential to a successful relocation. Fortunately, management services offered by your IT provider are exceedingly helpful in this endeavour. They don’t simply move your monitors, headsets, printers and so on physically, unplug things, and then plug them in again at your new space. Rather, they do so much more by executing a plan designed to make all the technical aspects of the move as seamless and mistake-free as possible. With adequate knowledge, expertise and critical experience, they can do so exceptionally well and faster than you could do on your own. With such an important part of your move in the right hands, you can focus on running your business and attending to customer needs during the transition period.
