IT Consideration for a New Office Location

Making a decision to get a new office space or relocating your business can be both challenging and rewarding. This kind of decision is often made when you are going through wholesale transformation and it can become difficult to track and execute everyone of the necessary requirements of getting a new office location.

It is even more challenging when you have to consider IT equipments and infrastructures. In this kind of scenario, your IT department might end up taking a back seat when it comes to their immediate, pressing needs and concerns.

This is why it is important that you identify the key aspects technology requirements for you new office location up front as this is help you reduce a lot of stress in the aspect of team preparedness, communication and negotiation, to achieve a successful move.

One of the best ways to cut down on stress and save costs is by involving the IT department early in your planning process. Running things in your new office will be smoother and you will be able to avoid ending up with a finished structure but unfinished network infrastructure. The following are the IT considerations you should give your new office location

Pre-Plan

This is the most important step; ensuring you include IT considerations in your planning for a new office. You need to make sure that your IT staff and ISP providers are aware of your new office location and live date.

You can as well schedule a visit with them to the new office to review the cabling requirements. This could be at least 2 months before the move date.

Evaluate IT equipment

Moving into a new office is a good opportunity to update the equipments of an aging network infrastructure. A proper planning might also ensure that you already have your new office network up and running before the arrival of the moving day. Be sure to get the inventory of all your IT equipments, as this will help you determine if they still meet the needs of your new office.

Create a list of equipments that needs upgrading. Return any phone or leased IT equipment that is no longer useful. Dispose broken or old equipments properly and evaluate the requirements of your server room.

Evaluate communications requirements

Do you think your new office location have the necessary infrastructure or installed cabling to support your environment? Getting the answer to this question will help you discover your needs and if you need to add new things to the office.

You should consider the number of phone lines, computer network cables and types (e.g. CAT 5 or CAT 6) and the number of available power outlets for boardroom, desk and room, and internet speed required for your business among others.

Have your site visit checklist Prepared

As soon as all the above have been put into place, especially the communications requirements, it will be easier for you to know what you need to keep track of by the time you pay a visit to your site. Have a thorough site visit with your IT provider and cabling company such as Jan IT, to ensure a successful move, verify that things work and decide where or if you will still need to add some other things.

Other things to consider during your visit is reviewing the configuration plan, determining the ideal locations for network cabling points, workstations and power jacks, deciding the best location(s) for routers, printers, scanners, etc, and confirming the security, dimensions, cooling and electrical requirements for the server room.

Protect Your Data

There are times when it is positive to think negatively. This is not about being pessimistic, it is just important that you prepare for the worst-case scenario and avoid it. Something could go wrong during your move. So, you may also want to review all Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plans. Also, let every staff member in your company know the role they play in the office move.

Test your backup and create multiple copies of them, especially the organizational data. You can have them stored in different offsite or cloud locations.

Be sure that you forward the company phone numbers to new location lines and give all staff access to major contacts through mobile devices in case of emergency.

Test the Network of Your New office

On or after the day you move to your new office location, invite your IT provider to help with any network connectivity issues that any of your staff may encounter. Afterwards, verify all phones, equipments and cabling are in the right place. Check the telephone numbers and make sure they work as expected. Test every feature of your phone system. Pay attention to data migration, servers and your network, check for incoming and outgoing emails, website, extranet, intranet and have all network connections tested.

Take Away

Ok. Now that you have been able to nab the perfect location for your new office and done other necessary things required to make moving to your new office easier, you now have just one thing left to do, which is considering and organizing your IT relocation.

Do all the points highlighted above sound overwhelming to you? It doesn’t have to be. Whether you only have one person in your IT department or you depend on the help of a managed IT service provider who does most of the IT works for your new office, precisely planning the details moving to your new office location far in advance is very crucial. IT planning isn’t something to ignore until the last minute, considering the fact that most carriers need long lead times when it comes to installation.

Following the checklist above will help you see to the arrangement and supervision of your new office space more effectively and securely, without having to worry about any form of interruptions in your services. This way, you will be able to save money and time, keep your customers and staff happy. If you feel overwhelmed by all the considerations, don't worry. Let us help you by contacting us!