An office relocation is a major project. Planning IT and telecoms well in advance will save time and effort in the long term.
A poorly arranged office move can hit a business hard on many fronts if the right considerations have not being made. It could affect employee morale and productivity, or cause the business significant downtime from not having important services in place. Ultimately it could cost the business a lot of money.
However, managed correctly an office relocation enables businesses to raise their corporate profile, grow their client base, improve operational efficiency, retain and attract staff and give the right first impression to your clients thus helping you to succeed in the long term.
That’s why here at Tech IP we have put together a checklist to use as a guide before you start planning your office relocation in order to ensure everything goes according to plan and there are no hidden surprises along the way.
- Try to determine a time frame and moving schedule and set a date when you want your move to be completed. A smooth commercial move relies heavily on planning so start planning your move at least twelve weeks before your move date and that way any hiccups that may arise can be sorted out ahead of your moving day.
- Chose a senior member of your team, this might be yourself, to be responsible for your move and making sure tasks are coordinated
- Review and take stock of your existing IT and telecoms set-up and evaluate whether it meets your needs and will continue to in the future.
- Backup your digital data – Computers are very sensitive devices and they can lose your data if damaged during transit. In order to avoid loss of your businesses critical data and causing downtime for your business, make sure you take backups and if you can, back up to an external source for added certainty.
- During the move, can you be without critical IT systems like e-mail or line-of-business applications? Its important to make alternative plans now or perhaps schedule the move to be out of office hours, i.e., weekends are often a good time to move as you often won’t have to deal with clients whilst the move is going ahead.
- Get connected – Internet service can take a while to get going and you wouldn’t want to be left without such a critical element of your business, so plan this well in advance.
- Look to place orders as early as possible. Lead times of up to 75 working days for EFM and fibre ethernet are commonplace, and most orders are “subject to site survey”, so problems may not be obvious until after you place the order. Consider wireless ethernet if fibre ethernet is going to be too costly or take too long to install. Lead times can be as short as 5 working days.
- If there are capacity issues within the BT Openreach network, lead times could be longer. If new cables need to be laid, you may have to pay significant additional costs to receive service.
- Set up a communications plan to let your customers, suppliers and other pertinent parties know about your move and forward your new address
- Retaining your current telephone numbers or re using your current telephone system – If you are retaining your current telephone numbers or re using your current telephone system at your new site then some degree of downtime simply cannot be avoided and you may wish to have a contingency plan in place that allows for out of hours work to be planned around your move dates.
- If you are installing new systems at your new site then a smooth transition during working hours should be possible. Your new systems can be up and running in advance of your move and any issues with calls to your existing telephone numbers can usually be managed through diverts ensuring a continuation of service for all.
- Sometimes it might seem like the cheapest option to take charge of the office relocation yourself but professional removal companies are there to help with your commercial move and will be able to provide you with expert advice and knowledge to enable a smoother transition. However, keep in mind that this will come at a price and this is something you need to factor into your budget.
We hope the above information is useful to you, if you would like assistance in understanding your best options then please enquiry here or contact us on 0345 389 2310. Alternatively, visit our Moving Office service page for more information or download our telephone systems buyers guide as useful reference material & even run a quick quote to obtain a budget cost for a new telephone system in less than 60 seconds.