What to Consider in Advance Before Your Next Office Move

Here’s what you might not know about an office move… moving, relocating or just refreshing your office technology is going to be a bigger undertaking than you might think. For starters, the dimensions of the new office space will impact cabling, wiring and internet capabilities. You will have to schedule downtown for employees who rely on your network to do their job, and the physical movement of the equipment could have a big impact on whether these items work when you reconnect them in the new space.  Moving or just planning an technology refresh often involves several small details that get overlooked or left off the list. Let us help you evaluate the major (and minor) requirements for an office move or a technology refresh.

7 Items to Consider Before Your Next Office Move:

1. Floor Plan & Seating Chart – You would think this would be the natural step one, but too many times the main decision makers are overwhelmed juggling the daily business in the middle of a move. Upon arrival, it is often discovered that the new space is not what you remembered and there is confusion as to where to place equipment and people. Save your team countless hours of shuffling equipment and office furniture. Map a floor plan and seating chart in advance.
2. Network Downtime – A move or a change in equipment and infrastructure will inconvenience the staff. What is the estimated amount of downtime? How will employees continue to access files and documents during the move? An experienced IT integrator will be sure to map the network and cabling in advance to create an optimal layout and to help you minimize downtime for everyone involved.
3. Cabling – without it nothing works as smoothly as it should, and by that we mean, most business owners and leaders probably forget to consider that a reliable network starts with good cabling. New office space is going to require a solid cabling diagram to understand better where data flows and the most optimal route for quick and reliable WiFi internet connections. These two factors significantly impact the internet, cloud services, and network speeds.
4. Internet and phone service cutover coordination – Making the move to a new space requires a lot of coordination in advance when it comes to the internet and phones. Make sure you contact your ISP/Telecom provider at least 90 days in advance while ensuring all previous contracts have been canceled. (You don’t want to accidentally find yourself paying two sets of bills.)
5. Ask the following questions around your servers, workstations, and printers – are they adequately sized? Are they conveniently located with the team that will use them? Will they fit into the new space? What server and infrastructure upgrades are needed to support a growing and mobile staff?
6. Don’t forget the website & email – Email is the number one most used tool across the board for most office-bound employees. How long will email be down and what is the migration path for getting email up and running quickly?
7. Tell other that you are moving – Have you changed your online address and informed vendors and other key customers of your new address? Has it been updated on the website? These types of small details make a big difference when keeping business up and running in spite of a move.

Working with Zero1Zero Innovations, we will help you do five significant things before a move or infrastructure upgrade:

1. Plan the placement and upgrade of technology within the new or existing space.
2. Refresh your technology to be more efficient, faster and work the way your office works today.
3. Provide the expertise and BICSI certification to ensure your cabling, equipment and cloud services work seamlessly in the new space.
4. Help you identify different applications and services that migrate to the cloud for easier access by employees and lower upgrade costs.
5. Provide advanced cloud performance technologies such as SIP or SD Wan to enhance the performance of your internet speeds to prioritize critical applications and to support cloud applications, video conferencing, collaboration and voice communication all from the cloud.

Final Consideration – Technology Roadmap

An office move or significant change is the ideal time to reconsider how you can leverage technology to compete, grow and streamline operations. Cloud applications and online services make it much easier (and affordable) for small businesses to migrate critical components of their business to the cloud while reducing their staff workload and minimizing many costs related to IT.

IT Roadmaps greatly reduce the ambiguity and financial stress around when and what to buy or upgrade as it relates to technology. Even more importantly, an IT roadmap looks at all the variable in the business as they relate to your business goals and positions technology as a strategic asset to meeting those business objectives. The result is often a significant saving of your IT spend over time and a clearer picture of how technology serves your organization. Whether you are moving or staying put, the experts at Zero1Zero Innovations are equipped and ready to help you build an IT plan for today and into any future move.

Our team of expert, dedicated IT professionals understand the challenges around upgrading, relocating or refreshing your IT network, voice, video and cabling needs. Let us work with you to think through your technology needs for the next location to get your business running quickly and efficiently. Our team will work with your internal staff to create a plan, schedule critical move dates and map out a technology roadmap that always improves internal efficiency and reduces infrastructure costs down the road.

Seize the Opportunity! Let us help you plan your next move or refresh.