You’ve got a business to run. And now you have to run it while you’re moving it from one location to another! How do you keep your Colorado Springs business growing and the profits flowing while your furniture’s going out the door? That’s the essential question of office relocation! Answer it erroneously, and your productivity and profits will go out the door with the furniture.
At A-1 Freeman Moving Group, we’ve got a right answer for you – one that can help you steer clear of 8 gaffes that we, as
office relocation specialists, find all too typically made:
- Not Planning Ahead. As soon as you realize you’ve got to move, that’s when you should commence planning for it. Sadly, too many companies launch into their office relocation planning a little too late. Too late for what, you ask? Well, too late for moving companies and other suppliers to draft a reasonable proposal for you, let alone properly deliver the goods and services you purchase from them. It’s best to be mindful of one thing in particular: too little time often opens the door for too many mistakes. Let the size of your company and the complexity of your move – i.e., the number of tasks that must be performed before other tasks can be begun – guide you in determining how soon is soon enough.
- Not Checking Out Your Mover Properly. Office relocations are complex. You need a moving company that knows how to handle office furniture and modular systems, computer systems and networking, office equipment, machinery, and hardware, cabling, phone systems, security systems, building permits, and ... that’s just to begin with}48]! So, whatever moving companies you’re considering, make sure they’re legitimate. Check https://ai.fmcsa.dot.gove/hhg/search.asp to see, first of all, that they’re U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) licensed and insured, particularly for interstate commerce. Read the reviews at bbb.org. to find out if any grievances have been lodged against them with the Better Business Bureau. And, if you can, speak with other businesses who’ve employed them to see how well they fulfilled their contractual responsibilities. It’s also a good idea to inquire about their moving crews – whether they’re full-time employees or temps, whether they’ve been background checked and drug tested, and whether they follow standard chain-of-custody procedures.
- Not Coordinating and Communicating Sufficiently with Your Mover. Your office relocation manager must work with the project manager your moving company has allocated to see that your internal team and the moving company’s team are equally up to speed. Any amendments to the schedule need to be properly relayed to all those involved, thus helping prevent one problem from leading to others and causing all sorts of errors and cost overruns.
Not Committing Enough Internal Staff to Your Move. The scope of any office relocation pretty much mandates that you get the help of personnel from within your firm. Choose people in each department who know their department’s needs thoroughly and have access to pertinent company records. That might not automatically be the department head! To be honest, you’re often better off enlisting the help of seasoned but non-managerial staffers, as they’re more likely to submit to your relocation manager’s orders without argument.- Not Keeping to Schedule. It’s not often the case that an office relocation schedule slackens. Yes, various stages can be derailed temporarily for this or that reason. But what usually happens then is that the schedule is squeezed. And that usually happens because the planning got off to a late start. And what happens when you try to make up for lost time? More people from your end and the mover’s end are given more overtime hours. Everybody starts getting in the way of everybody else. Things get confused. Mistakes are made. And who pays for all this? Yep. Better to come up with a responsible schedule at the start and stay with it.
- Not Budgeting Adequately for Your Move. Truth to tell, it’s difficult for any company that hasn’t experienced a relocation before to know just what its move will wind up costing. To leave that cost to a roll of the dice, though, or to budget for it inadequately is a huge gaffe! At the topmost level, you must figure in recurring real-estate costs, soft-dollar expenses for, say, employee relocation and training, capital expenses such as new furniture and office equipment purchases, moving expenses, and consulting expenses for such things perhaps as interior design and engineering. The more of your requirements you give a thought to up front, the more governable the expense of your office relocation will be.
- Not Having Sufficient Coverage. If you’ve picked a professional relocation company of any recognition, the risk of property damage is small. Nevertheless, you must be prepared. Talk with your mover about the coverage options they have and pick the most useful for your business.
- Not Taking Care to Back Up Your Data. It’s not necessary for horror stories here. Suffice it to say that while your office relocation is in progress, your company’s material records should be backed up digitally, whenever doable. Those that can’t be digitized ought to be stowed safely in a warehouse. And your digital data ought to be backed up in the cloud. As a matter of historical precedence212, losing such data or suffering its destruction isn’t a regular phenomenon. But do you really want to risk it? Then, in whatever way available, back it up!
A big way to prevent these sorts of blunders – or to compensate for them effectively – is to sign on with a moving company that has a demonstrable track record of successful office relocations. May we recommend A-1 Freeman Moving Group right here in Colorado Springs? Research our credentials as we suggest above. Then look over our
office relocation services and ...
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