We’re moving this month, somebody call the phone company!
Most office leases are 3-5 years, so moving an office isn’t something we do very often. Most businesses, therefore, don’t have a plan for re-locating or the expertise to do it. Very often the various responsibilities get handed off to administrative staff who have no training for this and were not with the company the last time it moved. This means that office re-locations don’t go very well – the move is over-budget, balls get dropped, sales decrease and everybody gets stressed out.
ComRes helps our customers move their technology and we see this happen every month. You would be surprised at how many times we get calls from customers who are moving in a week and are just letting us know they need help. These moves rarely end well for the customer, their staff or their customers. Proper planning is required to move your technology.
Timeframes – the longest-lead time item that customers forget about is moving their Internet and phone service. Depending on the type of Internet/phone service you have, it can take anywhere from 1-6 months to move/install this service (except for very small offices that only require basic connections).
DSL/Cable 2-4 weeks to move or install
T-1’s 4-8 weeks to move or install
Fiber 2-6 months to move or install
Technology – it is important to take a good inventory of what technology you have that needs to be moved, upgraded or replaced. This will help you get a more accurate budget for your move, and make sure that you not have service-affecting outages during the move. Some things you should include are:
- Telephone System/VoIP – phones, VoIP, paging systems, etc.
- Cabling – phone and computer cabling, fiber
- IT Equipment – servers, PC’s, printers, WiFi, etc.
- Imaging/Office Systems – copiers, mail machines, etc.
- Security – security systems, access control, surveillance
