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Office move top tips and considerations

At some point every business considers an office move. This can be driven by any number of reasons including factors such as business growth, a move out from home to new premises, to improve operational performance, or to downsize and save money on expensive facilities.

Moving offices can often be an exciting time for a business but it can also be a busy, stressful and an expensive one too.

Here are some top tips and considerations to help you. We’ve also produced a handy, free, downloadable checklist to record your thoughts and help you plan.

Plan plan, plan

The first step is the planning and this can never be too detailed. Plan for every eventuality, then nothing can surprise you and you can be sure of a smooth office move. Remember, the longer the move takes, the more effort it will require, so planning really is everything. 

With this in mind perhaps the most important point to any move is to start early. Office moves often take much longer than you imagine and you can never start this process early enough. Get your people in a room several months before the move and brainstorm everything including timescales.

Also plan to move during a weekday, it will save you 20% and you can then spend 5% of the savings getting an answering service to take calls for the day.

Create a timetable

This will help monitor progress as you go along but be prepared to be flexible as dates can change closer to the time.

Internet and telecoms

Migrating telecom lines and data services usually carry standard lead in times and the new premises you are moving to might require additional network cabling. Check out the broadband service at the new office before you sign up. There are still some areas where some services aren’t available. 

At this stage it is also worth conducting a review of your current system to ascertain whether it will be able to support the move as your business grows. For example, think about the number of extensions you require for your office move and whether your existing system can support this. This might be a good time to consider switching to a hosted system.

Planning the installation well in advance and having a back-up plan will ensure your office move communication transfer goes smoothly. 

Make site visits in the months and weeks before you make the move, to ensure you and other members of staff are aware of the layout and can plan where everything should go. 

Most business owners and managers worry about keeping the business working during the period of the move and one of the most important aspects is keeping the customer communication intact. The key for any business is keeping communications going without any interruption to customer service. 

Contact iCS as soon as you are thinking about a move, so we can best advise you on connectivity in the area you are moving to, keeping communications intact and any potential changes to your system that might be beneficial or required.

Move your telephone numbers

With modern technology you can simply move your number from one location to another. This enables you to move seamlessly without having to ‘re-train’ customers in a new number and you can use call forwarding or caller redirect to minimise any dropped calls. 

This also prevents expensive divert or messaging costs that may go on for years. However if you are considering a new number please don’t underestimate the additional costs of changing it on all stationery, website and vehicles..

Considering council tax

When looking at new facilities remember to see what the rateable value is – use this Link and find out the rates cost, when we moved office last year we whittled it down to 2 buildings. One larger than the other but the larger building’s Council Tax was a whopping 40% less than the smaller 10 year newer shiny building. It made the larger building cheaper and we have room to expand, sublet or leave free. Even if you don’t move, check the rates you’re paying with your neighbours. It might be worth appealing. A friend of mine found out they were paying 30% more than a neighbour!

Shop around for utility suppliers

Utilities suppliers stay put for years, choose wisely and review each year. 20% of £400 per month is a week in Spain at Half term with the family before tax.

Get rid of things you don’t need before you move

Moving premises is a great opportunity to have a good tidy up and get rid of any old documentation and furniture which you no longer need.Go through your business piece by piece and bin stuff, scan stuff, shred stuff. Why rent space to accommodate the stuff in your new office and pay someone to move it! 

It is also an opportune time to build a disaster recovery plan for your new location.

Contact iCS

Download our handy Office Move Checklist which gives the key points to consider when planning your telecoms and internet services. Each point has a table where you can record information and add notes.

We also offer a FREE consultation to minimise the stress during the moving process. Please contact us at any time 0800 9 77 88 99 or email us.

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