Moving into a larger office space, adding a new location or renovating your current location to accommodate your business needsall indicate that your business is growing. Yet, moves and renovations are tricky propositions for businesses, especially when it comes to determining how to keep your technology up and running. The success of your business depends on making sure that all of your technology infrastructure is correctly moved and properly set up again in your new location.
Learn more about how to rise to the challenge of moving or renovating an office.
Moving into a larger office space, adding a new location or renovating your current location to accommodate your business needsall indicate that your business is growing. Yet, moves and renovations are tricky propositions for businesses, especially when it comes to determining how to keep your technology up and running. The success of your business depends on making sure that all of your technology infrastructure is correctly moved and properly set up again in your new location.
Considerations When Moving Offices
At Tolar Systems, we’re experienced at assisting our clients with office moves and renovations as well as assisting with business expansion. There are a number of issues we encourage our clients to address. Here are a few of them.
Phone Systems. Your business’ phone system is critical to allowing your business to operate, but the phone system that served your business well 5 or 10 years ago may not be the one that would serve you best going forward. An office move or renovation is an ideal time to review your business’ current phone system and make sure it is still meeting the needs of your business. Customers today have higher expectations about how a business should manage calls and messaging than they did just a decade ago. That means, there are some important questions you should be asking about your phone system, including:
- Can your current phone system forward voicemails to email? Is this something your customers expect?
- Does your current phone system offer features like video conferencing and/or call recording?
Cloud Transition. Your phone system isn’t the only technology to consider when making your move. Moving offices is an ideal time to streamline your IT infrastructure and consider moving outdated internal servers to the cloud. The more of your data that is stored in the cloud, the less there is to move and the more seamlessly you’ll be able to get back to business once you’re settled in the new location.
Layout and Design. A new office also inevitably means a new layout, and that is important when you are thinking about Wi-Fi connectivity. If you are changing the floor layout, office configurations, or wall or ceiling textures, those can all impact your Wi-Fi network.
Connectivity. Making a move is also a great time to look into how you can improve your Internet connection speed, which is critical for your employees’ efficiency and productivity. Package prices might have changed since the last time you moved offices, so your telecommunications provider can help you.
Advance Planning. Last but not least, the more items you can take care of before your move date that do not impact your ability to do business, the easier your office move will be.
Best Practices for Office Moves and Renovations
Here are some best practices for planning your next office move or renovation, from an IT perspective:
Assess requirements. Begin by taking stock of your telecommunications and connectivity requirements prior to any office move or relocation. Questions to ask include: How many people will be using the office and what are their specific connectivity needs? How many phone lines will need to be installed or provided? What sort of cabling is necessary? Is Cat5 or Cat6 cabling included in the location you’re considering, or does it need to be installed? Don’t forget your electrical requirements. In many older buildings, the electrical systems are not set up to handle the needs of a modern office and an electrical upgrade may be required.
Coordinate carefully. Allow your telecommunications provider plenty of time to set up Internet connectivity at your new office location. Providing notice at least 60 days advance of your targeted move date ensures there is time to address any issues that may come up when installing your Internet connection in the new location. This will also ensure that your move can occur on the scheduled timeline.
Lose the landline. If your business is looking for a more cost effective way to manage your telecommunications needs, a managed VOIP service such as Tolar Systems’ Complete Voice solution delivers far more capability than a traditional landline setup, at a lower cost. Benefits of managed VOIP solutions include the ability to transfer voicemail to email so you can check messages from anywhere, “softphones” that combine the benefits of a smart phone with the capabilities of a desk phone, an IVR call routing system that acts as an automated receptionist, phone conference rooms that make teleconferencing easy, along with the the ability to serve multiple locations, including home offices.
Bundle services. Many telecommunications providers offer the ability to save money by bundling services, such as bundling your landline phone system with high-speed Internet, cable and wireless. Your business can often save big by bundling some or all of these services.
Consider the cloud. A decade ago, most industry-specific software and core business applications were delivered via client-server architecture that required businesses to house their data on large in-house servers. Today, more of these solutions are available in the cloud. Transitioning your data and applications to the cloud makes your move to a new location far easier to manage. It also reduces the costs and space required to house a commercial grade server in your office.
Watch your Wi-fi. Moving your wireless internet system isn’t just a simple matter of moving your wireless modem to the new location. A new office or renovation means a change to your office configuration. If the wireless signal must travel further or through different materials, this can result in a need to upgrade your wireless equipment to maintain or improve connectivity. A specialist can review and test your new location for Wi-Fi connectivity and make sure the quality of connectivity meets your business needs.
Manage the move. It’s critical to manage the move carefully, considering all the above so that on the day of the move, all you need to worry about is setting up an IP address, migrating to the new phone system, setting up servers and networking equipment, and the physical move of computers and office furniture. At Tolar Systems, we prefer to manage the actual move over a weekend, so that when our clients start a new week, they walk into their new office and can seamlessly begin their day.
Contact Us for Help With Your Move or Renovation
Tolar Systems can help manage your technology infrastructure and telecommunications requirements, whether you are moving locations, expanding, or just renovating your current space. To learn more, contact Tolar Systems today.
