Moving to a new office is exciting, but it’s often fraught with issues ranging from extended downtime to workforce mobility issues. Nonetheless, office relocation remains a central component of business growth. If your business has outgrown its current workplace, you’ll need to plan for a move right away if you want to avoid missing out on new opportunities. At the same time, the decision isn’t one to take lightly, particularly when it comes to your technology.
#1. Backup & Disaster Recovery
Relocating your computers and other technology comes with many of the same risks as moving to a new house. It’s inevitable that there’ll be some scratches when moving your possessions, and the same applies to your computers. However, there’s a far worse scenario for businesses moving their IT infrastructure, and that’s the increased possibility of data and data-bearing devices getting lost or damaged during the move.
#2. Technology Upgrades & Replacements
Businesses generally relocate to new premises to drive growth and satisfy increased demands. This is also a good opportunity to upgrade and replace your aging systems. Unfortunately, a lot of in-house IT resources, such as servers and underlying infrastructure aren’t very portable, and not many hardware and software systems can scale up and down per your requirements.
#3. Cabling and Infrastructure
While moving servers and workstations and other hardware devices to a new office might not seem like a big deal, there’s a lot of other factors to consider. For example, your new premises will need to adapt to your existing systems, which means cabling, cooling and other infrastructure also need to be accounted for. The ability to set everything up again in the new location is paramount to ensuring your office relocation is a success.
#4. Workforce Productivity
Any major change to your working environment is bound to come with a few teething problems, and it’s only reasonable to prepare for a certain amount of downtime. The real problem, however, is extended downtime caused by installation problems, a lack of infrastructure and the time it takes for employees to adapt to the new environment. What’s worse is that when you are moving all your telecommunications systems to a new location, you won’t be able to serve your customers adequately until everything is back up and running again.
#5. Internet & Bandwidth
Virtually every modern business relies heavily on the internet, so it’s imperative that the new office location provides the bandwidth you need to run your systems and applications. For example, if you’re used to ultra-fast fiber-optic broadband internet for accessing cloud-hosted resources, you’ll undoubtedly run into problems if you’re moving to a location where there’s no connection.
How the Cloud Can Help
Cloud computing helps eliminate your dependence on in-house hardware resources. In fact, with a fully cloud-enabled computing infrastructure, you can effectively create a virtual office environment that travels with you and your employees wherever you go.
The only major consideration, with regards to your office premises, is that you’ll need to have access to an adequately fast and reliable internet connection. Another major advantage of the cloud is that it allows your staff to work from home by giving them access to the resources they need to complete their daily routines. This way, staff will be able to keep working from home throughout the relocation process.
SpectrumWise can help you transform your business into a location-independent operation that scales back and forth with demand and has minimal dependence on your in-house infrastructure. If you’re ready to eliminate technology disruptions for good, speak to one of our experts today.
