Moving a business from its current location to a new one can be very difficult. To ensure a smooth move, business owners and leaders need to ensure that the disruption posed to employees, customers and the business itself are minimized, with contingency plans in place to prepare for foreseeable issues. To prepare to move your business, consider and plan for these five important areas.

Plan a Reasonable Timeline

One of the most important components of any move is setting a reasonable timeline. The easiest way to build this timeline is to start by going backwards from the date the new property will be available. Your timeline of events should include client notifications, a cutover of utilities, adequate time to pack, and any process that will be impacted by the move. Only once you’ve moved back in time from the move date can you begin to plan forward, including allowing time for unpacking, setting up, reconnecting utilities and moving forward with business as usual.

Set the Move Date

This sounds obvious, but it’s trickier than it seems. To set an appropriate move date, you need to balance the date you must vacate your current office space against the date when your new site will be available. Ideally, you’ll be able to work with any involved property management firms or construction crews to ensure a smooth transition from one location to the next. However, in the case of new construction, the actual date of availability may be uncertain or within a range of time. If construction lasts longer than anticipated, plan to utilize some of the off-site storage units Indianapolis or your particular locale has to offer.

Client Servicing

Who will be responsible for servicing your customers or clients during your move? For businesses that supply important but non-critical services or products, it may be possible to be entirely out of touch for a short period of time. However, most businesses will need to ensure that client needs are met during the move. How will this be done? From a remote site? By staging the move in phases? Through a third party? Ensuring your clients’ lives are not unduly impacted by your move is key to maintaining their patronage in the future.

Redundancy, Redundancy, Redundancy

Moving technical departments to a new location can pose unique risks. Although storing in the “cloud” has become a popular solution, many companies still rely on data storage solutions hosted on-site. Before moving to a new location, backing up servers and critical storage units that house shared drives or key file systems is critical to ensuring their availability in the future, should any issues occur while in transit.

Empower Employees

Employees are impacted greatly by moves. Instead of minimizing their role to packing their own areas and showing up at the new site, empower them to be a part of planning how the move will impact their department or functions. Their input may provide insight not previously available and can ensure a smooth overall move.

By planning ahead, using a practical timeline, thinking of client and employee needs and backing up key data, your move to a new location will be painless and positive.