Helping Clients with Office and IT Relocation

If you are planning to relocate your offices, recent experience suggests that this is also the best time to consider your IT Strategy. We have just helped a handful of clients go through this process and there are a number of benefits to updating, renewing or changing your IT infrastructure as part of the move.

In two specific cases we have employed two very different strategies. For the first client, their requirement was simply to move to new offices but at the same time replace virtually all of their IT, from the server to the phone system, and start afresh at the new premises. The second project was different as they wanted to keep their existing equipment where possible, but either relocate it to a remote site, so it was no longer residing at their premises, or where upgrades/renewals were required, move those services to hosted, shared or Cloud based solutions.

Each project has presented its upsides but in both cases the timing has been the biggest benefit. Where we were implementing wholesale change in the first case, the ability to create and test a pristine new environment at the new premises and manage the provision of new phone/data lines before they were required, minimised disruption – at what is a disruptive time anyway. On the Friday before the weekend move, we were able to back up all of their data and relocate it on to the new machines. At the same time we knew that their phones were in and working on the new numbers, ready for the switch over on the Monday morning.

In the second project, the relocation was the catalyst for a fresh look at their IT strategy.  The move allowed them to consider how they provided their IT services and what their staff were requesting. With higher costs of larger premises, the business took the decision to look at its other costs and decided that using rented, leased, hosted or subscription services was not just the way the market was heading, but was also likely to be the most cost effective option for them as they continued to grow.

In both cases, having the chance to stop and review or spend a decent amount of time implementing the right solution has made the process of IT change much easier and also reduced a great deal of the disruption caused by making sweeping changes whilst the business is active.

If you are moving to new offices and would like to know what telecoms services are available at the new location, or you would like to use the opportunity to review your IT plans, please contact us today.

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