Moving your office to another location is not easy and needs a lot of planning. The costs of logistics, overheads, and taxes are several driving forces why businesses consider relocating their facility. Aside from that, there are times when multiple offices have to be consolidated in one location, or a business unit needs to branch out to cater to other clients.
While relocation can bring you opportunities that don’t currently exist for your company, it can also be costly and disruptive to your operations. For one, you need to think about your company’s IT infrastructure, information security, communications, data storage, and collaboration tools. These pose hidden risks and costs during the relocation process. Fortunately, managed IT services in Gaithersburg can deliver IT solutions, which can help you mitigate these issues.
To better understand the costs that you should be aware of, we are going to discuss it in this article.
Lost Productivity
When moving offices, you need months of preparation to design the new space, make a list of equipment, take care of requirements, and get the phone and IT systems back to operational mode. Needless to say, the day of the actual move is a cumulative effect of the whole process and not the beginning.
With all these pre-relocation tasks at hand, the risk of disruption for employees are pretty high. To avoid having lost productivity, managed IT services in Gaithersburg can help by simplifying your moving process. They can store and backup your data in the cloud and deploy technology that will enable your staff to continue their work without any problem.
Company Downtime
Since most businesses are operating 24/7, it can cause some troubles if you become unavailable in the middle of a move. While some companies choose to switch to new technologies once they’ve settled in their new location, it might make more sense to outsource a managed IT service in Gaithersburg before you even relocate. This way, it will be easier for employees to keep working from their old office, eliminating the risk of downtime or a customer unable to reach your staff. An MSP can manage your data backup system and keep your important files in a secure location, during and after the move. In addition to this, they are also available 24/7 to keep your system up and running.
Employee Stress
Some companies have to forego the thought of moving because their employees, especially their top performers, aren’t ready for it. It may be because of their children in school, a spouse’s job, or personal preference. If you are one of them, consider outsourcing managed IT services in Gaithersburg. They can deploy communications systems and productivity software like Microsoft Office 365 to make it simple for your employees to work remotely while still interacting with the rest of your team and your clients.
Upgrading Infrastructure
You probably have equipment from your old office that works completely fine but wasn’t worth loading on the moving truck for your new place. Whether that may be phone systems, security solutions, or servers, it is best to think if they are worth the cost or hassle to move and reinstall. Managed IT services in Gaithersburg can help you reduce up-front capital expenditures by hosting your communications and data systems off-site. You only need to pay them a simple monthly fee so you can minimize maintenance costs without compromising your customer service.
Extra IT Time
Relocation would entail a lot of effort for your IT team as they would need to set up infrastructure in a different place, install new hardware, get new suppliers on board, and educate staff on modern technologies. All of these while doing their daily jobs. If you don't handle their workload carefully, the ball would inevitably drop, with a huge effect on your staff and your clients.
Having managed IT services will enable a single vendor to install, support, and manage your phone systems, productivity software, data storage, and more. It reduces complexity and frees your IT staff’s time for higher-value technology initiatives. Most of all, since you only have a single provider, you just have one recurring bill and one account manager to deal with.
Managed IT services in Gaithersburg can help you navigate and mitigate the hidden risks and costs of relocation, which can affect your business. For your IT needs, Swift Systems is the company to call. We are a leading provider of comprehensive IT services which aims to help you successfully grow your business.