Are you looking to move your business without costing you thousands in productivity?
The simple fact is that corporate relocations are occurring at record levels. 9% of U.S. public companies changed their headquarters location between March 2022 and March 2023 – that’s a 29% increase from the previous year.
The problem is, most businesses take the wrong approach to relocation.
The average business tends to treat its corporate relocation the same way it treats a residential move. Load up on Friday, pray everything works on Monday, and hope nothing breaks.
Corporate relocations are a completely different animal. Downtime for your business is no simple inconvenience – it’s losing money hand over fist.
Every hour that your company is offline equals real money lost in revenue.
In this complete guide, you’ll see exactly how you can successfully relocate your business and keep productivity high.
What you’ll learn:
- Corporate Downtime: What it is & Why it costs
- The Corporate Relocation Timeline
- Staying Operational During a Move
- Best Practices for Technology Transfers
Corporate Downtime: What It Is & Why It Costs
You may have heard it costs businesses about $1 million per year to deal with IT downtime.
This includes technology transfer, server issues, internet outages and data loss.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. When you start to consider lost productivity, missed deadlines, unhappy customers and disrupted workflow…
Downtime during a business move can be enormously expensive.
Most businesses don’t understand the full extent of downtime:
- Lost sales
- Employee productivity takes a nose dive
- Customers can’t get service
- Vendor relationships sour due to delayed response times
Downtime isn’t just an IT problem. It’s everything in your business grinding to a halt.
The good news is…
With some forward thinking and intelligent planning, downtime can be kept to an absolute minimum.
In some cases, you can limit downtime to a few hours instead of days or weeks…
The Corporate Relocation Timeline
Planning a corporate relocation? Start months, not weeks in advance.
Planning early is key: Most business downtime comes from underestimating how long each phase takes.
Typically, people think they can pack everything up on Friday and open up on Monday. This never works and ends up being very costly.
Professional corporate moves break the relocation timeline into several phases over months. This gives businesses time to properly test systems, train employees, and identify problems before Move Day.
Phase 1: Planning & Assessment (3-4 Months Before)
The best way to start planning is to audit your current location:
- Inventory all technology equipment and key business hardware.
- Evaluate contracts and relationships with vendors/suppliers.
- Document critical business processes and workflows.
If you are looking up “commercial movers near me”, you should consider hiring professionals for the actual move. They know how to handle business relocations and avoid expensive mistakes.
Phase 2: Infrastructure Setup (2-3 Months Before)
Here’s where a lot of businesses save massive downtime…
Get internet, phone and technology systems installed and tested at your new location before the move.
Set up servers, routers, network equipment, etc. And test all internet and phone lines.
This way, when you move, these critical infrastructure items are already in place.
Phase 3: The Soft Launch (1 Month Before Move)
One move strategy most businesses miss…
Soft launch key staff to the new office for a few days.
Get your essential employees to work out of the new location before you actually move. This allows you to identify small problems when you still have time to address them.
Phase 4: Move Day (Relocation Weekend)
Done right, move day should go smoothly.
Most business relocations actually take place over a weekend so the company can focus on the move without disrupting business.
How to Stay Operational During a Move
The biggest secret to reducing corporate downtime isn’t to avoid it completely. It’s to keep your most critical business operations running, while non-critical functions can go offline.
Identify Critical and Non-Critical Business Functions
The first step is to identify which functions are critical to operations.
These functions must stay online and running at all times:
- Customer service/support
- Sales/order processing
- Essential communications (internet/phone)
- Financial transactions
Everything else is non-critical and can go offline.
Set up Temporary Workstations
Next, set up temporary command centers that can support your critical business operations. These are ad-hoc workstations that can keep critical functions running until everything is fully operational in the new office.
A temporary workstation should include:
- Laptop + mobile hotspot (mobile phone internet)
- Backup phone and internet lines
- Cloud access to critical data and applications
Even if your main office systems are offline, you can still keep essential business functions running in this way.
Coordinate With Your Moving Company
Professional commercial moving companies can be brought in early to discuss your business operations.
By giving them details of what’s critical and what’s not, the moving company can prioritize accordingly. Non-critical items and furniture can be moved first while critical systems stay online.
Most experienced movers will work with you to ensure your business functions are as uninterrupted as possible.
Manage Customer Expectations
Don’t leave your customers in the dark. Let them know when business operations might be temporarily unavailable and offer alternate contact options.
Most customers are willing to work with you if they know the status of your operations.
Best Practices For Technology Transfers
Technology is the largest single source of downtime for businesses.
One wrong move and you can lose critical data, face extended downtime, and potentially take weeks to fully recover.
To avoid technology headaches during relocations, consider the following best practices:
Back Up, Then Backup Everything Again
Before you touch a piece of technology equipment, make at least 2 copies of all critical data.
Never assume one backup will be enough. Backups fail, external drives get lost, and technology can go down at the worst possible times.
If you don’t have at least 2 backups, you’re asking for trouble.
Hire a Professional IT Relocation Specialist
Technology transfers are not a DIY project.
Moving servers, networking equipment and other sensitive electronics takes specific skills and knowledge. That’s why you need to hire a professional IT moving company.
A specialized IT relocation company will safely disconnect and move servers, storage systems and network equipment. Trust me, you don’t want to do it yourself.
Plan For Redundancy
Smart businesses plan for redundancy:
- Temporary internet connections at both locations.
- Backup servers that can handle basic functions.
- Cloud-based options for critical apps and databases.
This way, if there are problems with your primary systems, you have backups ready to take over.
Test Everything Before You Go Live
Never assume all technology equipment will function properly right away in your new office.
Allocate time to test all network equipment, confirm internet and phone systems are working and verify all software applications are functioning.
Running end-to-end tests of critical business processes is also important. Better to find problems during this testing stage than during business hours.
Post-Move Recovery
The weeks immediately after the move are a critical time to get your business back up to full productivity.
- Monitor performance closely: Track key performance metrics. If something doesn’t measure up to normal levels, identify and fix problems as soon as possible.
- Fix problems immediately: Letting small issues go can lead to bigger problems. Implement a system to report issues, track them, and resolve as quickly as possible based on business impact.
- Optimize new setup: Use the move as an opportunity to improve processes. Optimize workflows and upgrade any problematic equipment or software. Most companies find they are more efficient after a well-planned relocation.
Summary: The Best Moves are Planned Moves
Corporate relocations do not need to be fraught with downtime and disaster.
With some forward planning, the right professional help, and a smart approach, it’s possible to minimize business downtime and keep productivity as high as possible.
The most important thing is to plan months in advance, use the right people for the job, and manage expectations of critical business operations.
Focus on these key principles:
- Plan well in advance and get professional help
- Keep critical business operations running during the move
- Test everything before you go live
- Monitor performance after the move and optimize processes
Done correctly, a corporate relocation can have your business running smoother than before, and set up for even greater growth.
Done poorly, you’ll lose thousands in productivity, damage vendor and customer relationships, and set your business back significantly.
